Picture Writing

Background/Texts

The primary text for this unit is the young-adult historical-fiction novel Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson. Published in 2010, Forge was the second in a planned trilogy following the 2008 Chains, a National Book Award Finalist. The books are listed as appropriate for grades 5-8; Forge has a lexile (reading complexity) score of 820, which is not difficult for most upper-middle-school students. Forge is designed to stand alone, and it is told in first-person from the point of view of a single character, in this case a teenaged African American boy named Curzon, who by 1777 has escaped from enslavement and is now on the run in New York State and Pennsylvania. We are given glimpses of what happened to him in the previous book, which included prison (he fought for the American side, was captured as a prisoner-of-war and escaped) and his dealings with a "vexatious" escaped slave girl named Isabel, but these flashback moments are not distracting, and more information is not necessary to the present story.

By page 35 (of 280) Curzon has had several serious adventures involving the description of the death of a "redcoat" soldier and the making of a friend, a talkative white boy named Eben (Ebenezer). It is revealed that Curzon fought in the American army because his "owner," Master Bellingham, promised him his freedom after the war. However, Curzon is still in danger since bounty hunters could recapture him as he has no proof of his promised freedom. Curzon finds himself re-enlisting in the American army in time for the end of the battle of Saratoga (New York), in October 1777, known as one of the turning points of the war. The bulk of the rest of the book takes place after his regiment marches into Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, as unprepared as the rest of the army to feed and shelter its members for a long, snowy winter. Anderson presents us with specifics of the hardships, humor, and deaths there.

Around half way through, the book turns, as Curzon reencounters his old master, now an officer desperate to appear of a higher class. He has guards capture Curzon, going back on his promise to free him, forcing him to serve, in fancy dress, his old master and other gentlemen in the encampment, while regular soldiers starve. Curzon's character is not developed much further during this section, and the students might find it less compelling than the earlier ones, although the girls could be fascinated when Isabel reappears. In my opinion, using outside visuals with or without nonfiction texts would be helpful to motivate reading at this point.

Near the end, Curzon and Isabel eventually escape with the help of Curzon's white fellow soldiers, and we are left on the cusp of their new adventure in the forthcoming Book Three as the Army marches out of Valley Forge in May 1778, having survived and somehow become a fighting force that will eventually win the long war. The nature of the story as a trilogy affects Forge in that it may feel incomplete at the end, leading to difficulties with traditional analysis of plot and resolution. A Booklist review calls this book "well-researched," adding, "Curzon isn't as fully realized here as Isabel," the narrator of the first book of the trilogy, "was in Chains, resulting in a less-cohesive and less-compelling whole." The review continues, "Once again, though, Anderson's detailed story creates a cinematic sense of history while raising crucial questions about racism, the ethics of war, and the hypocrisies that underlie our country's founding definitions of freedom." ³ I feel that the book has potential, especially in the beginning, to grab the attention of the students. Images and primary-source analysis tied to the novel will help maintain close reading practices through to the end.

In addition to Forge, students will be provided several nonfiction texts related to the period of the Revolutionary War and other topics mentioned in Forge, such as biographies on the historical figures mentioned in the text or informational pieces on life in an 18 ^th century military regiment. ⁴ In addition, visual texts illustrating or contrasting with these texts will be presented for "reading." These readings will generally be short, have a higher lexile score of text complexity, and will provide opportunities to practice close reading of challenging text.

The Revolutionary War Era

As a teacher, I find it important to know some, or a lot, of the wider historical context of a historical novel, even if I do not teach it explicitly, at least at first. Many important pieces of background information are contained in a special section in the back of Forge. However, I do not think it is advisable to ask students to read all this, at least right away. Students and teachers can start with quotes that begin each of Forge's 62 short chapters, for example:

    We marchd before Day from these woods & traveled all Day In the Storme
    & the worst traveling I Ever saw – the Rhodes was mostly Clay which was
    Like morter – we traveld to a Small town.
    —1777 Diary of Sergeant John Smith
  

I think a teacher could better guide "close reading" of these often-difficult snippets of text already having researched the background information. The sources of each of these primary source quotes are available on Forge's website. ⁵ This site, along with the material at the back of the novel, might be almost enough research – for teachers – to allow students at least to begin reading the book.

Additional background information that I feel would be useful for teachers in preparing for Forge is readily available on many teacher-oriented Revolutionary War websites, including the Valley Forge National Historical Park site. ⁶ Some real people from the pages of American history books appear at least briefly in Forge: Benedict Arnold, the Marquis de Lafayette, George and Martha Washington, Charles Willson Peale, and Baron von Steuben. Portraits of many of these people are readily available, including, from the Yale University Art Gallery website, some paintings or etchings that could be matched to printed text. Other real people show up in Forge who are perhaps less known: Agrippa Hull – a free African American from Massachusetts; Oneida warriors; Baumfree and Bett, parents of Sojourner Truth and slaves of a Colonel Johannes Hardenburgh; and many more, all listed in the appendix of the novel. These people may offer an opportunity for students to draw as a visualization strategy, from descriptions in the book or quotations brought from elsewhere. Or they could provide research opportunities later in the process. Real events are also listed in the back of the Forge, including those in military settings in Saratoga, New York, and Valley Forge. A visual map or timeline of the war would be helpful here, perhaps half way through the book, requiring rereading by the students to solidify events of the book.

One source of confusion for students who are familiar with the history of runaway slaves and the Underground Railroad is that such a thing was impossible during the Revolutionary War era. Although free blacks were many, if a runaway was discovered, there was nowhere to go to be guaranteed freedom. In the 1770s, slavery was still legal in all parts of the new America, including Canada and the Northern States; runaways could be captured and returned to slavery for reward bounty from anywhere. Curzon, the main character of Forge, and Isabel, his companion and the narrator of Chains, remain in jeopardy throughout both tales. One image illustrating this historical contradiction, which could be shared with students, shows runaway-slave reward ads posted in a newspaper owned by Benjamin Franklin, after he signed the declaration announcing all men's equality. ⁷

However, life in this early America is revealed to be somewhat less racist than in years to come; as many as an estimated 5,000 free blacks and slaves served in the American army in fully integrated regiments, the last time this would happen for nearly two hundred years. The American military would not be reintegrated until after WWII. ⁸ Several searing scenes in the book deal with difficult military subjects, including death, hanging, and dismissal into the harsh winter to a nearly certain death. Women appear on the battlefields and in the camps in many capacities, as they actually did in most pre-modern wars. Any of these subjects could be the basis of a quick image/text supplement or quick research break, as long as each is hooked back to the text. One recommendation by the Common Core Standards is to increase the amount of "close reading" of dense nonfiction texts. Other historical topics related to Forge that could be the basis of related nonfiction texts are descriptions of Valley Forge, colonial work practices such as blacksmithing, military medical practices, desertion and punishment, weaponry, colonial foods, literacy/illiteracy, and many topics on the slavery as practiced in that era.

Two other major historical subjects beg for more elaboration in Forge and can be confusing to many children as well as adults. Particularly in schools with large African American populations, these subjects may cause great consternation. Many more American Americans during the time of the Revolution – estimates range upwards from 20,000 – chose to fight for the British loyalists rather than join the 5,000 in the rebel armies. The British, including the loyalist governor of Virginia, promised freedom to any slave who fought for the British. In fact, the perception in the African American slave community seems to have been that their best chance for freedom overall was if the British won the war. The actuality is more complex than that, but the gist is true. A stirring recounting of this little-known complication of America's founding myth can be found in Simon Schama's Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution, ⁹ which became a BBC series shown on some PBS stations. The knowledge that the American Army sent Curzon, the fictional teen soldier in Forge, back into slavery when his runaway status is discovered while the British Army would have offered him freedom, gives students a broader view of the character's choices and of early America's contradictions. Many other sources explain this counterintuitive reading of America's birth, including a brief explanation at the back of Forge. In this unit, midway through Forge, students will receive some of this outside visual and reading material to supplement Forge's presentation of history. These materials ¹⁰ provide additional opportunities to practice close reading of texts and images while always being tied back to the main text. Were the British the real "good guys" of the American Revolution? Many opportunities exist to relate this supplemental visual and nonfiction material to the central novel; some are detailed in the Strategies and Activities sections of this unit.

Another source of consternation for students as they read Forge's representation of history is the depiction of George Washington as indifferent, at best, to the fate of slaves. Our founding father, portrayed so nobly in John Trumbull's iconic Revolutionary War era paintings, owned hundreds of slaves over his lifetime. He finally freed some in his will after his and Martha's death, although he could not free the slaves Martha had directly inherited. Was he hero or hypocrite? A brief discussion of this topic is included in the back pages of Forge. In addition, the author of Forge, Laurie Halse Anderson, on July 4 ^th of this year posted a moving, sometimes amusing, rumination titled "My Conflicted Relationship with George Washington" on her blog.

I hate the fact that Washington was a slave owner. I hate that he and most of the other Founding Fathers participated in slavery. I am furious that they didn't have the balls to write a Constitution that freed all Americans, instead of just freeing the white ones.

She continues, as a "postscript":

Of our first eighteen Presidents, thirteen of them were slaveowners (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Buchanan, Johnson, and Grant). Did you know that? If not, how does that change the way you think about how you were taught history?

Reading Anderson's blog will be fun for teachers and might be stimulating to middle-school students who show an interest in the subject. Interestingly, she engages in some alternate Picture/Writing of her own, pairing iconic images of Washington with various slogans, including "Did Great Things for America. Could Have Done More." ¹¹ Images like these, or pairings of images contrasting slave life with the grandeur of the upper classes, ¹² could do more than help students "picture" the setting; they can help to highlight the ironies that I believe Laurie Anderson wishes to illuminate in her books Chains and Forge. The trick is to write questions for class discussion or writings that tie these images and ironies back to the primary text, Forge.

As Stephen Ambrose says in a recent article on our "Flawed Fathers," "Of all the contradictions in America's history, none surpasses its toleration first of slavery and then of segregation." Spurring great public comment, articles like these complicate the venerated images of our founders. As Ambrose also notes, "Of all the contradictions in Jefferson's contradictory life, none is greater.... His writing showed that he had a great mind and a limited character." ¹³ This could be said of many our founding fathers, including ones who appear in Forge. Excerpts from articles like these can supplement Forge, especially in the context of related writing assignments linked to the novel. As students come to grip with the flawed real men portrayed in Forge and the supplemental nonfiction readings they can be asked to write or discuss the contrast between the new images they are forming and the beatified icons of usual American history. John Trumbull's iconic paintings of Revolutionary War heroes, his contemporaries, have over the past 250 years helped create and maintain America's founding visual myths. Many of these paintings are available on the Yale Art Gallery website, including images of actual gentlemen portrayed in Forge, such as Washington, Lafayette, and Von Steuben. These images, or other portraits from the era, can be paired with articles about contradictions between the real men and their words. For example, this quote by Benjamin Rush, a prominent abolitionist and signer of the Declaration of Independence, appears in Forge.

It would be useless for us to denounce the servitude to which the Parliament of Great Britain wishes to reduce us, while we continue to keep our fellow creatures in slavery just because their color is different from ours.

When paired with a venerable portrait of Rush by Charles Willson Peale, Rush seems a saintly man. However, add in a short biography of Rush, and then ask students to explain why the slave-owning man in the portrait didn't free his last slave until nearly twenty years after he made the above statement. ¹⁴ This challenges both the students' historical empathy and their sense of social justice. Close readings of the contrasting images, quotes, or short history pieces make good daily writing exercises related to Forge.

So all this historical information is fascinating, potentially enriching to the students' experience of this historical fiction novel, and rich with interpretive possibilities. But when should it be presented, how, and does it distract from the reading of the main text itself? How much should be presented before the novel? Would that be frontloading, and what is that really? The preparation of this unit has been shaped by these questions.