Final Reflections on the Lesson Plans and Course

I feel that the lesson plans I used were successful for two main reasons. First, they allowed me to review some of the major Antebellum reform movements, which was useful since at my school students take early American history as freshmen and modern American history (what I teach) as juniors. Secondly, they exposed students to some of the major historical frameworks early in the course. We were able to examine primary documents, evaluate sources, think critically, and discuss historiography. Overall, I'm pleased with what we achieved during this review unit.

I want to end by saying I learned a lot during the TAH course. Even though my interest in the Antebellum period was relatively low going in, I am much more interested in this time period now. Thanks to all the organizers and participants!

Annotated Bibliography

Joel Hebert

TAH Making Freedom

Annotated Bibliography

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave. Buffalo: Auburn, Derby and Miller, 1854.

This slave narrative is a primary source of how precarious freedom was for free blacks in the 19^th century. Students relate to it because Northup was a free man kidnapped into slavery: several students connected this to the film Taken where a white American girl is abducted and sold into sex slavery in Europe.

Primary Source, Inc. Lift Ever’y Voice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004.

This book provided me with several primary documents I ended up using in lesson plans. It also had great ideas for lesson plans detailing how to use these documents. This is where I got the inspiration to use parts of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Twelve Years as a Slave.

Roots. Directed by Marvin Chomsky. Starring Olivia Cole and Levar Burton. Produced by David Wolper. 1977.

This mini-series, based on Alex Haley’s bestselling novel, features many poignant scenes. With the help of youtube, I played the famous scene where Kunta Kinte is whipped until he accepts the new slave name Toby. This has strong parallels with Solomon Northup’s slave narrative.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Boston: John Jewett and Co., 1852.

This bestseller is such an important work of American literature I feel compelled to review it with my students (most of whom never read any of it). The two excerpts we examined both deal with the separation of slaves from family members during slave auctions. It creates a sense of empathy in the reader now, just as it did 150+ years ago when it helped the abolitionist cause and led the country closer to war.

http://voicethread.com/?#u1021955.b1268781.i6875487 and http://voicethread.com/?#u1021955.b1281342.i6875450. Accessed on September 16, 2010.

The images on these Voicethreads came from the New York Library of Congress. My Voicethreads were comprised of over a dozen primary sources, including drawings, painting, and photographs dealing with slavery and the abolition movement. These primary sources provided a review of major aspects of slavery and the abolitionist movie. Newspaper accounts of slave auctions, manumission documents, and artist renderings of slave life are just some of the documents in the Voicethreads I made.

Comments on Day Three

Here is my lesson plan for the third and final day of the unit:

Objectives: -Analyze primary and secondary sources.

-Utilize technology in your study of history.

Materials: Students- Pen/pencil

Teachers- Quizzes; computer lab/laptop cart

Activities: Do Now: Students take quiz to demonstrate knowledge from last night's reading of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

-Log in to laptop computers. Direct students to voicethread.com

-Instruct students to view a voice thread I designed featuring documents from slavery era.

-Have students leave written comments on primary documents.

-Assign students a voice thread to leave comments on for homework.

Homework: Leave comments on three of the documents on a voice thread.

Assessment: I will grade students on completion of comments and depth of commentary.

HOW IT WENT:

Overall, this lesson was a success. None of my students had used voicethread before, so it took a while to register everyone. As always, the laptops were slow and unpredictable. As a result, we did not get to spend as much time examining the primary documents about slavery as much as I would have liked. Everyone did have the opportunity to practice leaving comments while they were in class.

On my school webpage (http://sites.google.com/a/bedford.k12.ma.us/hebert/home) I listed the link for the voicethread students needed to leave comments on. The voicethread can be viewed at http://voicethread.com/?#u1021955.b1281342

Most students took the assignment seriously and wrote salient comments. Some were insightful, while most were rather simplistic in my opinion. One student unfortunately left totally inappropriate comments that were inappropriate given the sensitive subject matter. Fortunately, I had set the voicethread up so I had to approve any comments before they were made public. I kept these offensive comments hidden and spoke to the student the next day, informing him he earned a zero for the assignment and that what he did was unacceptable. He apologized. This episode made me appreciate the filter voicethread gives us as teachers.

I would like to use voicethread again in the future: unfortunately, my free subscription of 3 voicethreads is used up, and I don't wish to pony up the exhorbitant fee to buy it for a year. Maybe one day my school will subscribe to it.

Comments on Day Two

Here was the lesson plan for day two, a continued review of Antebellum reform movements.

Day Two

Objectives:

Formulate questions through inquiry and determine importance of historical events.

Analyze primary and secondary sources.

Materials:

Students- Pen/pencil; binders with paper

Teachers-Northrup excerpt handouts; Uncle Tom’s Cabin handout

Activities:

Do Now: What is the difference between a primary source and a secondary source? List three examples of each that would relate to Antebellum reform and/or slavery. Which do historians generally deem more reliable and why?

-Discuss homework assignment from last night: how did you decide who was worthy of making history and who wasn’t.

-Adapted Lesson Plan 1 from Eve’ry Voice

-View frontispiece from Twelve Years as a Slave by Solomon Northup, 1853

-Read excerpt from Northup’s book. Is this a primary or secondary source on slavery? What makes it so?

-Divide students into small groups. Have them answer the following questions:

Why did Northrup react the way he did?

Why did Burch behave so brutally?

-If time allows, discuss slave narratives. Tell them many of them will read the most famous slave narrative, Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, in their English class this year.

-Review definitions of primary and secondary sources

Homework: Read excerpt from Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Assessment: Students will have a mini-quiz tomorrow on today’s lesson and the homework

HOW IT WENT:

The first time I ran this lesson, I was surprised to find that I finished the activities earlier than I thought I would. I ended up performing an improptu lecture about slavery and slave narratives. I don't think this was the best use of class time though, so I made a change for the next class that I used this lesson with.

The second time I used this lesson plan I showed the clip from Roots where Kunta Kinte is whipped for running away. This episode has close parallels with Solomon Northup's experiences in Chapter III of his narrative. Both men are whipped in a vicious manner. Both men are being asked to give up their identity: Northup is made to admit he is a slave (even though he is not) and Kinte is made to adopt the slave name Tobey. And both episodes humanize the inhumane experience of being a slave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgGLjNMEVR4&has_verified=1

Adding this video clip and comparing it to Northup's tale was incredibly useful. Visual learners were touched in a way that they weren't when we just read Northup's narrative. It set off a valuable class discussion. It also integrated technology, as I used youtube.com and the LCD projector to show it to the class. I even asked students if Roots was a primary or secondary source, and they knew the answer!

Comments on Day One

Here was today's lesson plan, the first of a 3-day review unit on Antebellum reform:

Day One

Objectives:

Formulate questions through inquiry and determine importance of historical events during Antebellum era.

Determine significance of different kinds of change during Antebellum era.

Materials:

Students- Pen/Pencil, binders with paper

Teachers- Reformers handouts; laptop carts or computer lab

Activities:

-Do Now: What ideas/names/images enter your mind when you hear the phrase “Antebellum Reform”?

-Distribute handouts featuring names of reformers from Antebellum era (some famous, other not as famous). Students will examine their textbooks (The Americans) to identify some of the reformers who appear in the textbooks.

-Students will use computers to identify those reformers not mentioned in their textbooks.

-Students will get in groups of 3-4 and discuss why some reformers are mentioned in the textbook while others are not.

-Share key points of discussion: why did some reformers make the textbook while others did not? Who made that decision? What does that tell you about the nature of history as a discipline? How would you determine the importance of historical events/figures?

-Discuss historiography, biases. Analyze the quote "Whoever controls the present controls the past."

Review: What were some of the major movements during Antebellum reform (woman’s rights, abolitionism, educational reform, etc.)?

Homework: Write a 2-3 paragraph explanation outlining how you would determine whether someone deserves to appear in a U.S. history textbook OR design a rubric measuring their worthiness.

Assessment: Informal questioning of individual students to check comprehension

HOW IT WENT:

Overall, I would rate this lesson as a success. Students had very little prior knowledge (no one could identify when the Antebellum period was!) but they were eager to learn which characters were "History book worthy" and which weren't. Many students thought Robert Smalls should be in the book. Several commented that Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, seemed to be dropped into the book with little context. It was rewarding to hear the students evaluating the historiography of this time period.

The laptops behaved pretty well: this was the first time I used the laptop cart without having a handful of students falling way behind when their computers failed to load properly.

This was a good way to expose students to Antebellum reform movements briefly but in a meaningful way. My course is Modern American History, but I made sure my students understood several Antebellum reform movements were related to 20th century movements. Women's suffrage and the civil rights movement have their antecedents in the Antebellum period, after all. Later this year I can refer back to this lesson when we get to topics such as women's rights and prohibition.

Tailoring a Lesson Plan While Integrating Technology

So yesterday was the first day of school, and I got my first glimpse at the students I'll be working with during this year. My first impression was that my classes are quite different. In one section of Modern American I have 26 students, 10 of whom I taught in English class last year. They are a boisterous bunch, and they occupy every available seat in the room. My other class has 18 students, only three of who I taught last year. They are a quieter bunch both on average and in the composite. Tailoring lesson plans to these two very different groups will likely be a challenge throughout the year.

One challenge this may pose to my lesson plans is in the availability of computers for when we use voicethread. Laptop carts have only 12 laptops in them, so even if i could procure 2 of them, my larger class would need to share them. I will need to adapt my lesson accordingly, and use this as an opportunity to partner up and share the technology. If I get two laptop carts, everyone in my smaller class can use one, but my larger class will share a laptop and discuss the primary sources they view before leaving feedback as a partnership. It will be interesting to see how this works out in practice, especially given their boisterousness. I will have to monitor them closely during this part of the lesson.

Reviewing Available Lesson Plans

I am very excited to incorporate some of the materials and lesson plan ideas from Lift Ev'ry Voice. Lesson One is particularly rich in primary and secondary sources I can use in my review unit. It has been years since I have read Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I would like to expose students to it. After all, this is an important work of literature (America's first best-seller).

In contrast to Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is a secondary account of life as a slave written by a white woman, slave narratives are a primary source. In the past, I've used Frederick Douglass in my English class. Now as a history teacher, I will incorporate the excerpt from Solomon Northrup. I will also ask students what they know about the day to day life of slaves (stressing that there was not just one typical slave existence).

I looked for voice threads I could use that featured photos/illustrations of slaves. I did not find one that knocked me off my feet, so I think i will create one. This will allow me to incorporate more primary sources into my lesson plans.