Introduction
I consider it a daunting task to teach the existence of human bondage (slavery) in the United States to eighth-grade junior high school students. While I believe it is critical to examine slavery in the United States from multiple cultural and historical perspectives, my students do not. For the most part, my students go straight to the point that slavery was, and is, socially and morally abhorrent, and that is that. While I agree with their opinion, I need them to argue and validate their claims in a more substantial way. I need them to prove the facts regarding the complex nature of the issue. For them to grasp the division within the United States, more is required, much more than from a textbook alone. My students need to grasp how the divergent beliefs that slavery was either just or unjust depended mostly upon points of view or points on a map. An expanded methodology is necessary due to the complexity of the slavery issue. Selections from two premiere abolition narratives, the highly successful Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself in 1845 and the blockbuster Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1853 form the basis for this curriculum unit. They offer a foundation for my students’understanding of the issue of slavery in America.
Comments: