All My Trials, Lord
Grade Level: Grades
3-4
Subjects: Social
Studies, Computer Literacy
Learner Outcomes:
Students will:
1.
Brainstorm the ideas they already have about slavery in the American
colonies.
2. Make up some questions they want answered about slavery.
3. Research and answer a list of questions given them by the teacher.
4. Identify some terms that relate to slavery and that time in history.
5. Visit assigned web sites that depict the lives of slaves in the
American
colonies, their families, their masters, living arrangements, punishments,
chores, clothing allowances, etc.
6. Examine some slave narratives and diaries to get a first-hand
account of
slave life.
7. Keep a journal of their own personal lives for one week.
(They will think about their own lives in today's society
-- the material
things they enjoy, the houses where they live, the freedom to play,
vacation, visit friends and relatives, all with the absence of fear.)
8. Keep another journal for a week imagining that they are a slave.
(They will review what they have discovered about the life of
a slave and write what they might be doing for a week during that
time period and in that situation.)
9. Identify some prominent slaves and their contributions to the
freedom they
eventually gained.
Time Frame: four 45-minute class periods, plus time for daily entries into their journals for two weeks and scheduled times to visit a school library.
Materials: Writing
materials for journals, reference books, library books, AmericanHistory
CD-ROM, and Sky Trip America CD-ROM.
Technology Tools/Courseware:
2000 World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia, or World
Book Online if a subscription is available, Internet access, and a
library with online public access catalogs
Teacher Notes:
This unit will require some basic skill in typing. It will also involve
much reading and writing. Since students have varying reading levels,
it would be a good idea to group students in groups of two. Keeping
a journal is another activity that will require individual attention.
Provide help and time for students with limited writing skills.
Another note: This subject can be a very sensitive one. An
initial discussion to set the tone of the unit would be wise.
Procedures:
1. Ask students to write
down at least five statements that they know about slavery in this
period of American history. At the bottom of the same paper, ask
them to list two or three things they have always wondered about when they
think of slaves.
2. Since this unit
revolves around understanding life in Colonial Virginia, it is important
to examine the backbone of their economy. The idea of "economy" is
a difficult one to convey on an elementary level. Explain that a
society has to make a living by producing something to sell and buy. We
live in a time when everything is purchased with currency at stores where
previously manufactured or grown items are readily available. We
also know that we go to work (or our parents do) to earn money so we can
go to these stores. We do not grow crops to sell. We do not
depend on the land directly for most of our livelihoods. People during
this time did not go to stores to buy all of their needs. If a store had
what they needed, they might not be able to afford to buy it. They
also might have to make the needed item themselves. Most of the colonists
had left luxury to challenge a new world and their own ingenuity.
Some had come to America to pay a debt or to escape from one. Some came
as indentured servants. Others were kidnapped from their homes, treated
like property, and forced to become a part of a cheap labor force.
While many colonists earned a living by selling their talents and goods
as craftsmen, many more owned property and depended on crops and large
numbers of workers to plant, cultivate, and harvest their crops.
The colony of Virginia was largely an agricultural one. This demanded
a large work force. The
Underground Railroad is a good springboard to introduce students to
the economy of Colonial Virginia. Using a digital projection device,
visit the web site and discuss the need for slaves in the colonies.
3. Distribute a
list of questions and terms and
allow time to go back to this
web site and
to other sources, such as the library's online public access catalog to
find books and the 2000 World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia or Encarta
to answer them. If you have Internet access and want to show how
to use "Ask Jeeves for Kids" you can
go there and type in the question, "What was it like to be a slave in colonial
Virginia?" You
will be given a list of questions with the word "Ask" at the end that is
linked to another web site. One of the questions is "Where can I
find a concise encyclopedia article on slavery?" If you click "Ask"
you will go to Encyclopedia.com. Another
good source of information is Introduction
to Colonial African-American Life.
4. To get a first-hand
idea of what it was like to be taken from your homeland and forced to work
and live with and for strangers, give students one or two of the following
web addresses and have them work in pairs, taking notes on some of the
insights they get.
To
Live Like a Slave
Slave
Quarter at Carter's Grove
Slaves
and Small Farmers: The Overlooked Virginians
Excerpts
from Slave Narratives
Black
Resistance Slavery in the United States
Securing
the Leg Irons (Teachers
should note that this site is somewhat "intellectual" but some students
may be able to glean some important information from it.)
5. After reading
from slave journals and studying some information about the life of different
types of slaves, review some of the new things students have learned.
Now is the time to introduce the idea of keeping a journal of the lives
of present-day students -- how they live, the freedoms they have, the consequences
of going against the rules, their education, and their families.
Ask students to begin keeping a journal of their daily lives for one week.
Include as many details as possible. They should write it as though
it would be found by someone in the future who knows very little about
how they actually live.
6. At the end of
that week's journal, talk about some of the things they wrote. Then
tell them to imagine that they are a slave. The next week will include
keeping a journal describing how their life might be if they were a slave
in colonial times. They may pick the type of slave they want to be
-- domestic, plantation field, or small farm slave. At this week's
end, read some of their entries. Contrast the two weeks.
7. A logical culmination
of this study is a look at some prominent people who opposed slavery and
some slaves who risked their lives to pursue freedom for all slaves.
A visit to a school library to search for a biography of these people would
be a logical next step. Some books they might find (or search for)
are:
Crispus Attucks: Black
Leader of Colonial Patriots by Dharathula Millender
Come All You Brave
Soldiers: Blacks in the Revolutionary War by Clinton Cox
Amos Fortune, Free
Man by Elizabeth Yates
Go Free or Die: A Story
about Harriet Tubman by Jeri Ferris
Anthony Burns: The
Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave by Virginia Hamilton
By Secret Railway
by Enid La Monte Meadowcroft
The Captive by
Joyce Hansen
Follow the Drinking
Gourd by Jeanette Winter
Frederick Douglass
Fights for Freedom by Margaret Davidson
The Man Who Bought
Himself: The Story of Peter Still by Peggy Mann
Meet Addy: An American
Girl by Connie Porter
The Story of the Underground
Railroad by Conrad Stein
Sweet Clara and the
Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson
A Williamsburg Household
by Joan Anderson
A Colonial Town: Williamsburg
by Bobbie Kalman
Many
of these titles are available at Amazon.com.
8. Some educational television
stations broadcast programs daily for viewing from the classroom.
Some of these programs can be taped to use at a later date. One such
program is The Freedom Station, a dramatization of an escape from
slavery in the 1850's. It explores the dangers faced by runaway slaves
and the people who assisted them prior to the Civil War - the concept of
the underground railroad.
9. As a last activity
or for enrichment, students might wish to contact some authors and illustrators
who study, write and illustrate books about slavery. Three people
who would be good for this are Virginia
Hamilton, Patricia McKissack, and Jerry Pinkney.
Modifications:
The teacher needs to follow
the Individual Educational Plan of students. Some modifications may
need to be made as noted in the teacher notes due to varied reading and
writing skills.
Enrichment Activities:
1. Have some students
trace their own family history using Family
Tree Maker online or the software by the same name. Beginners might
want to visit FamilyExplorer.
A subscription to GenealogyLibrary
is also a possibility. Another well-known and very comprehensive
database is FamilySearch, a
genealogical service provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints.
2. If available, invite
a guest speaker in your area to discuss genealogy. Some public libraries
provide this service.
3. Assign a list of books
for further reading on the subject of slavery.
Evaluation/Assessment:
The goal of this lesson
is to reflect a basic understanding of slavery through the worksheet and
the writing of journals. Teachers should check to see that questions
are completed with 85% accuracy. The journals need to be checked
for completion. It will be up to the individual teacher's discretion
to determine the appropriate grading method for his/her class.
IGO's and Other Standards:
Language Arts
Listening/Speaking
5.5, 5.1
Reading
Comprehension 5.16, 5.17
Writing
5.56, 5.58, 5.62
U.S. History
History
5.35, 5.36, 5.45
West Virginia Instructional and Objectives
References:
See above list of
books and web sites for student research.
Created by:
Deborah
Lamp
Deborah
Thomas
Jane
Richards
Blennerhassett Elementary
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