Young Adult Literature and the History of Slavery
By Rick Vanderwall and Amy Lockhart

Unit Overview

This unit will teach the history of slavery through a collaborative learning partnership between eighth/ninth grade students and third, fourth, or fifth grade students. The older students will learn the chronology of slavery and the details of the lives of slaves through traditional readings and online resources. They will then develop lessons from the content they have learned and teach the younger students using age-appropriate books and student-designed materials and activities. The unit will culminate in a public performance of a reader’s theatre created by both groups their readings. Older students also will write a reflective paper at the end of the unit.

Curriculum Standards

For a list of standards that this unit addresses, click here.

Unit Menu

1. Building Background Activities: Before We Start



1. Eighth/Ninth Graders:
   • The Chronology of Slavery: Students explore the timeline of slavery online to prepare themselves for creating lessons for younger students.
   
   
   
   • Interpreting the Language of Slaves: This lesson will give students tools to learn how to decipher the dialectical language of the enslaved.
   
   
   
   • In Their Own Words: Students get an introduction to the Library of Congress collection, "Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives."
   
   
2. Third, Fourth, or Fifth Graders:

   • What was Slavery in America?: This lesson gives the younger students the basic background information they need to study American Slavery.
   
   
   
   • Words I Need to Know: This vocabulary lesson enhances student learning about Slavery in America and prepares them for the mentoring lesson taking place later.


2. Reading/Lesson Creation Activities



1. Eighth/Ninth Graders:
   • Small Group Readings: To Be A Slave by Julius Lester and Letters From a Slave Girl: The Story of Harriet Jacobs. Students focus on these texts as source material for the lessons about the history of slavery they will teach to younger students.
   
   
   
   • Creating Lessons For Younger Learners: Students will create lessons and activities teaching the history of slavery for the younger students.
   
   
   
   • Teaching the lessons: Collaborative activity (Both groups).


3. Post-reading Activities
   
   
   1. Third, Fourth, or Fifth Graders/Eighth and Ninth Graders (both groups):
      
      
      • Creating Readers Theatre from the Reading: Based on what they learned, students create a reader’s theatre production.
      
      
   2. Eighth/Ninth Graders:
      
      
      • Reflective Paper--What I Have learned; What I Have Taught: The older students are asked to reflect on what they have learned about the history of slavery and teaching the subject in an essay format.

Amy Lockhart and Rick Vanderwall are instructors at Price Laboratory School at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa.