Understanding History and Society through Images, 1776-1914

Lesson Plans

VUS.2,3

On the day one of this unit, students will examine the origins of slavery in the United States. This lesson will take one day of 90 minute classes on a black schedule. In cooperative groups, students will generate ten facts about the origins of slavery from their background and experiences with studying the subject. Each group will post their list in the front of the class. Students will take Cornell notes on the origins of slavery in the United States and answer the essential questions from the Virginia Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework:

1. Why did Europeans settle in the English colonies?
2. How did their motivations influence their settlement patterns and colony structures?
3. In what ways did the cultures of Europe, Africa, and the Americas interact?
4. What were the consequences of the interactions of European, African, and American cultures?
5. How did the economic activity and political institutions of the three colonial regions reflect the resources and/or the European origins of their settlers?
6. Why was slavery introduced into the colonies?
7. How did the institution of slavery influence European and African life in the colonies?

After the Cornell notes, I will lead the class in a discussion of image analysis and how images can tell the stories of history. I will then lead them through an analysis of JMW Turner's The Slave Ship (1840, Boston Museum of Fine Arts) answering 75% of the questions. As a class, students will fill out an individual graphic organizer as they answer the questions along with me. I will lead a review of the graphic organizer with the students to ensure they are grasping the concepts of the graphic organizer.

I will then lead another analysis of the image, Description of a Slave Ship, (1789, woodcut, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem MA) answering only 25-50% of the questions on the graphic organizer. The purpose of answering fewer questions is to promote student independence and ownership of their learning. It also allows me to identify students who are having trouble grasping the concepts. Next, I will allow the students to do their own analysis of James Gillray's Barbarities in the West Indias, 1791(etching with hand-coloring, Yale University Library) I will walk around the class to assist students who are having difficulty with the concepts of the graphic organizer.

The summary of the lesson will have the students grab their list of 10 facts about slavery from the front of the class. They will compare their list with the information learned in class today.

VUS.6,7

The second and third day of the unit will occur consecutively 1 month later in two 90 minute class periods. Students will take Cornell notes on the life of slaves and the abolitionist movement in the Antebellum United States and how those issues led to the Civil War. The students will answer the following questions from the Virginia Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework:

1. What factors influenced American westward movement?
2. What issues divided America in the first half of the nineteenth century?
3. What were the causes of the Civil War?

After the notes, each student will be assigned one of the following images to analyze on the graphic organizer. The images will be:

1. Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, Samuel Jennings
2. Negro Life in the South, Eastman Johnson
3. Confidence and Admiration, Eastman Johnson
4. Odd Fellows Hall, Samuel Smith Kilburn
5. Am I Not a Man?, Josiah Wedgwood & William Hackwood
6. The Driver's Whip The Third Report of the Female Society for Birmingham, Westbromich, Wednesbury Walsall, and their Respective Neighbourhoods, for the Relief of British Negro Slaves, Established April 8, 1825
7. The Negro Mother's Appeal,
8. Auction at Richmond, George Bourne
9. Jail in Washington, American Anti-slavery Society
10. Selling a Mother from Her Child, American Anti-slavery Society
11. Illustration from Henry Bibb, Narrative of the Life Adventures of Henry Bibb
12. Negro Life in the Slave States of America, Casey's Great Appeal
13. The Hunted Slaves, Richard Ansdell
14. The Price of Blood, Thomas Satterwhite Noble
15. Lumpkin's Jail, Charles Henry Corey
16. Franklin and Armfield's Slave Market, American Anti-slavery Society
17. Slave Pen, Alexander, VA, Library of Congress
18. The Power of Music, William Sydney Mount
19. The Modern Madea – The story of Margaret Garner, Anonymous
20. Farmer's Nooning, William Sydney Mount
21. Eliza Tells Tom He is Sold, Hammatt Billings
22. Emancipation Relief for the Gutenberg Monument, David d'Angers
23. John Brown led to Execution, Thomas Satterfield White
24. John Brown on his way to Execution, Louis Ransome
25. Last Moments of John Brown, Thomas Hovenden
26. Emancipation Group, George Bissell

Each student will present their image to the classroom with a thorough explanation of the picture by placing it in its proper historical context. Each student in the class will receive extra credit points if they comment on the images of the other students and discover something not explained by the student.

On the third day of the lesson, the students will take a field trip to Lumpkin's Slave Jail. The students will be given a teacher led tour of the Lumpkin's Jail Site. The students will read aloud various excerpts from the slave narratives describing life at Lumpkin's Jail site. The students will be provided a sketch pad to create a visual image of the slave jail based on the descriptions read aloud. The students will also be divided into cooperative groups to recreate the famous painting, Slaves Waiting for Sale, by Eyre Crowe. I will take a digital picture of each group that will be included in their individual journals.

VUS.8

The fourth and fifth days of the lesson will occur two weeks later. Students will analyze black life in Richmond after Emancipation. The students will take Cornell Notes on the Reconstruction and the struggle for full emancipation by blacks in Richmond. The students will answer the following essential questions from the Virginia Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework:

1. What were the consequences of the war and Reconstruction?
2. How did the Civil War affect African Americans and the common soldier?
3. How did race relations in the South change after Reconstruction, and what was the African American response?

The students will be put in cooperative learning groups and given images to analyze (hopefully by this point, the students do not need to use the graphic organizers). They will be given the following images:

1. Darkies Day at the Fair, Frederick Opper
2. Slavery is Dead, Thomas Nast
3. The Accused, Joseph Decker
4. Dandy Jim from Caroline, Anonymous
5. Sunday Morning in Virginia, Winslow Homer

Each group will present their image to the classroom explaining in detail the meaning and placing the image in the proper historical context.

After the presentations, the students will spend the rest of day four and all of day five in the Media Center researching images for their pictorial journey. The journal must include ten pictures and a one page explanation of the image. The journal must contain five new images not discussed in class. The journal can be created using Microsoft Word or Power point.

The sixth day of the lesson will involve the students taking an hour long bus/walking tour through the Jackson Ward neighborhood. The tour will be led by myself and will travel through 2 ^nd, 3 ^rd, and 4 ^th streets, as well as Main, Marshall, Leigh, and Broad streets that make up the Jackson Ward neighborhood. Along the tour, I will acknowledge the architectural structures and buildings in the neighborhood built by black architects. The main buildings of focus will be the Maggie Walker House, 1 ^st and Marshall (former home to St. Luke Penny Bank), the First Battalion Virginia Volunteers Armory at 122 West Leigh Street and the Hippodrome Theater. The students will take digital pictures of the buildings that are still standing.

The seventh (last) day will involve a researched based field trip to the State Library of Virginia. Students will research pictures of Jackson Ward during the 19 ^th and early 20 ^th century at the State Library of Virginia. Students will choose one picture from their research and they will compare and contrast it with a current picture of the same area taken during the tour. They will use the same analytical tools from the graphic organizer. Students will write a one page summary of the pictures. The summary will include a description of each picture and will answer the following questions: How are these pictures representative of the time period it was taken? What major changes (landscape, neighborhood) took place in between the time of the pictures? What are the architectural patterns displayed in the picture and how do they represent the values or beliefs of the time period? What do the pictures say about the power of blacks in the city of Richmond? This information will be displayed as a part of their photo journal. The journal can be created using Microsoft Word or Power point. The students will print them out and create a binded book using a binding machine. It will be due two weeks after the State Library Field Trip.