Maps and Mapmaking

Lessons

Lesson 1: Situation Role Playing: Slave Narratives and Map Talk

Topic: Resolving Conflict

Objectives: The objective is to expose the students to different ways of solving a problem and to have them compare and contrast the approaches. Students will also demonstrate through creative drama the application of these problem-solving strategies. After participating in and observing others, students will evaluate how well different strategies work for different tasks.

Introduction: Discover how much students already know about problem-solving. Use an overhead projector, a smart board or the chalkboard to draw a brainstorming web with problem-solving in the center. As strands have students focus on giving ideas which have to do with language, actions, sensory recall that they associate with problem-solving. Talk about when individuals come together to solve a problem or carry out a task each person contributes his or her own special way of looking at things, experiences, and interests. Make a T-chart on the board with the two headings Positive and Negative. Next, have the students begin to categorize the ideas as positive (adding value) or negative (taking away value) and to give explanations for their choices. Let this stand until the end of the lesson then go back and rethink the categorizing.

Warm-Up: Invite all students to close their eyes and use their imagination to do the following short guided imagery. Think about your body: your height, your weight, your health. Now see yourself as an enslaved African. What changes do you see? What are you wearing? How are you feeling? You want to be free and imagine ways to escape. You can just follow the North Star. Can you see it way up there in the night sky? It seems so far away just like freedom. You begin to whisper some prayer to yourself. Softly now, so no one can hear. What do you pray? Hear your words on the slight southern Kentucky breeze. Smell the air. Identify some of the smells. Imagine now that you see the overseer coming whip in hand. Feel your heart rate quicken. What is the sound of your heart like? The overseer rushes past you. Calm down now and feel a peace cool you as you have decided to run away. See yourself running. What obstacles do you encounter? Keep running. Now put your head and arms in a position that shows you have made it to freedom. Be happy!

Debrief: Go through the guided imagery exercise and ask students what changes (from what to what) they observed when they transformed themselves into an enslaved African? What was your prayer? Why? When you saw the overseer with the whip what was the sound of your heart like? What position did you choose to show that you succeeded and are now free? I usually make a categorized chart and write the running comments of student generated information to weave with later information that creates a student driven fund of knowledge.

Lesson Directions: Divide the class into three groups of eight or adapt as needed. Each group is to not only solve the problem presented on the card but also solve the problem of the group dynamics that lead to creating the dramatization. The problem, situation and solution will be dramatized, shared and discussed. For the presentation, each group member should, with as little talking as possible, show through movement who they are. Remember, the focus in on movement. Each group should include an introduction, a dramatization of the problem or conflict, when and where the action occurs, how the problem is solved and how the situation ends. Students may be reminded that school appropriate language is to be used and no actual physical contact is to be used to show conflict. All groups need not present on the same day as more time will be needed for debriefing and discussion of content.

Situation Card 1: As a group read the first five paragraphs of "Mrs. M. S. Fayman" pp.36-38 in When I Was a Slave by Norman Yetman. For the first five paragraphs decide what the conflict is and when and where the important story events happen. Plan the dramatization of how the conflict plays out and is solved based on these five paragraphs. How does the story end? Make sure that everyone in the group has a part even if it is inanimate. Pantomime or dialogue or both may be used. As a product, make a map of place showing the Beatrice Manor Plantation as described in paragraphs 6-8. Include all the details as given to show the layout of the land. Make a legend of created symbols and abbreviations then tell what each represents. Next, be sure to use the abbreviations to label the structures, land, and other important details that your group chooses to include. (Give students preparation time that suits their capacity).

Debriefing: After the presentation is the time to ask well chosen and well ordered questions because the kinds of questions posed will influence the quality of the learning that takes place and keep the discussion positive and engaging. Such questions could be: What was it like for you to play the part of a kidnapped slave? What was it like being a child of a slave owner? What role did your body language have in communicating your ideas? What was the function of each inanimate object as an element that influenced the action?

Content Discussion Questions: What was the problem that needed solved? How was the problem solved? At what point did you feel empathy for any one of the characters? Explain. Did the environment effect your actions? If so in what way(s)? What can you say about the life of Mrs. M.S. Fayman when she was a slave? What made her a slave? What do you think drove her to go back to the plantation the first time to show her father and then several times after that? How would you describe Mrs. Fayman's character?

Map Talk: What does your map say about how the plantation was managed? How can you tell who has power and mobility? How can you tell who is disempowered and constrained? How are borders marked? Did you highlight anything on the map to show importance or make something smaller to show that it is not so important? Show and explain. Look at your map and imagine yourself a slave on this plantation. What other features does your map of Beatrice Manor Plantation show? Choose three senses and using one per sentence, write three things the map causes you to relive. For example, "I can hear the cold clatter of the bell shaking me awake at sunrise," and so on as needed.

Other Situation Cards for Slave Narratives and Map Talk can be created using the following narratives, and the teacher is free as well to develop questions similar to those used above for each part: Situation Card 2: As a group read "Death of Romulus Hall-New Name George Weems" pp.25-28 in The Underground Railroad by William Still. Situation Card 3: As a group read "Wesley Harris, Alias Robert Jackson, and the Matterson Brothers" pp.23-25 in The Underground Railroad by William Still. Situation Card 3: As a group read about Josiah Henson pp.11-15 in Bound for Canaan by Fergus M. Bordewich. Situation 4: As a group read about a nameless barber who was conducted to freedom on the Underground Railroad by George DeBaptiste pp.1-3 in Bound for Canaan by Fergus Bordewich. Situation Card 5: As a group read "Henry Brown as a Package" pp.1-4 in The Underground Railroad: Life on the Road to Freedom edited by Pat Perrin. Situation Card 6: As a group read "William and Ellen Craft as Master and Slave" pp.32-34 in The Underground Railroad: Life on the Road to Freedom.

In most of these narratives some mention of direction is give by way of names of cities and landmarks. Provide maps which can be found at www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/detailedroutes.htm or any other source(s) preferred.

Lesson 2: Movement and Pantomime: Singing or Reciting the Way

Topic: Using the Senses in Spirituals, Movement and Pantomime

Objectives: Students will use their senses to create poetry/song and add movements to enhance the message of the poem/song. The students will perform the poem/song in a choral reading.

Warm-Up: Students will listen to several Negro spirituals which can be found at www.negrospirituals.com/ and share any connections they have with the songs. Give each student a copy of each song. Each student is to choose a Negro spiritual and translate the words into movement. Next, have students practice the mirror exercise. In pairs, have the students take turns mirroring the song movements of their partner. No talking is necessary, just movement.

Debriefing: Did you find it easy or hard to show through body movement what you had on your mind? Discuss. Was it easy or hard to recall the images and show them on your face? Which body movements were easiest and in what way(s)?

Choral Reading: Divide the students into groups as suitable. Each group is to select a song to be vocalized. The main part of the song and the chorus should be divided in such a way that every student in the group has a vocal part. A student may speak singlely or join with another or others within the group. Each part can be any length from a word, to a phrase, to a sentence, to a verse. Also, each part can be vocalized in a speaking voice with hard and soft accenting. Or, parts may be sung. Then again, some students may want to translate their part into a foreign language or disguise the voice all together.

Pantomime: Next have the same groups use the same song they selected for the choral reading and add movements that they believe correspond to the images created by the words. The students will have to carry the song in their heads as they perform the corresponding movements. They are creating a vicarious psychic geography of the meaning and feeling of how freedom was conceptualized in the mind of the enslaved African.

Discuss: How did the words that pointed the way in song get transformed into a living map alive with motion? Why were particular movements chosen over others?

Lesson 3: Characterization Writing Assignment

Topic: Characterization

Objectives: The student will have to look closely at historical figures on the Underground Railroad and learn who these people were or what he or she stood for based on thoughts, words and actions carried out by the person. The students have the opportunity to decide what genre of writing to they want to use. They can choose from narrative, memoir, song, poem, dramatization, pantomime, essay, newspaper article or advertisement. Here, the students are free to develop their own topic and/or writing genre as long as it is approved for appropriateness and depth of challenge.

Introduction: For this writing assignment, the student has the opportunity to select three topics from a list of five that have to do with characterization. Each topic must be written in a different genre. The topics follow:

1. You meet (Josiah Henson for example), for the first time at the mall. Where is it that he would likely be hanging out? Why there? Make a map of your favorite mall. Discuss each stop you would make in the mall with Josiah, and explain what it is about Josiah's character that helps explain why you stop there and what you do there.
2. Imagine the sound of one of the runaway slave's voice. What does the voice show about that person? What image(s) does the voice make you see?
3. Of all the narratives you have read, what person do you sympathize with? Explain why by using examples from the narrative, from your own experience and from other texts you have read or observed
4. Were the runaway slaves courageous or crazy? Discuss and explain why you believe they were courageous or crazy. Use particular instances from the narratives to show what you mean. Are you like any of the runaway slaves in any way? Who? Explain the similarities and differences.
5. Discuss why you think Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass is a dynamic person of character. Include instances from the stories you have read or heard about her/him that show what you mean. Where in the history of her/his life can the story end and she/he would still be a complete round and dynamic character?

After choosing three of the five topics, students are to follow the writing process given below. Next, the students should develop a time frame for completion of the three writing pieces. This should be discussed and approved by the teacher. The students should then be instructed to use primary and secondary sources to broaden the information base of the topics selected.

1. The student discusses the topic with a self-selected partner or small group in order to talk about ideas for approach and content.
2. The student completes a brainstorming activity: mind map, list, groupings, drawing or just jotting down ideas extemporaneously.
3. The student selects a genre and begins a rough draft that includes a beginning, middle and an end.
4. The student works in a peer conference to discuss what the writer has done well; to question what is going on in the paper or to clarify what is not clearly stated; and to suggest some possible ways to improve the paper.
5. At this stage the writer revises the paper based on peer observation and suggestion.
6. After completing a second draft, the writer meets with the teacher for a conference. For this conference the student must prepare three questions she has about her own paper. The student has to do a close reading of her own paper and the three questions can only have to do with content, style and structure.
7. After the teacher conference, the student writes a third or final draft depending on her own decision to do so or not.
8. The next step is proofreading and editing by self and peer.
9. The student will self evaluate her writing piece based on a rubric provided by the school district.

The creative dramatics lessons and the writing assignments presented here can, with very little modification, be used for all grade levels. The curriculum unit is meant to be taught over a two to three week intensive. It can function to introduce or enrich students' understandings of slave narratives and Negro spirituals which show clearly the life of the enslaved African in America. It also tells the truth about the institution of slavery as a systematic effort to dehumanize a whole race and generations of people of over time. It was written into the laws of the land and the primers of education.