Week: 1 Main goal for this week: Introduce Unit Topic & Critical Thinking Surrounding Texts
Monday Tuesday
Description We will begin the unit by
of activities providing a multimodal
presentation on the topic--
providing background
information through
Youtube clips, news
articles, photographs, etc.
The class will then focus on
a writing prompt in a
journal that will be used
throughout the course of the
unit, the first entry using
the “Whatcha Gonna Do?”
method. The goal of this is
not to “imagine” what it
would be like to be a slave,
but rather to encourage
students to stretch their
thinking & to place
themselves in a somewhat
similar situation (but
obviously not the same--we
do not want students to
imagine what it would be
like to be a slave when 21st
century high schoolers
could not possibly imagine
what it would be like) in
which they must make
decisions & choices in
which their life is
constantly at risk.
Hopefully students will
begin to think about the
ramifications and terrors
involved in slavery. Due to
the sensitive nature of this
subject, we will also have a
follow up discussion to
Wednesday
Today will be focused on a
guest speaker who is an
expert on Black History &
slavery. Khalid El-Hakim
from Black History 101
Mobile Museum will
present to the class using
interactive tasks, primary
sources, and critical
thinking to engage students
on the topics of Black
History and slavery.
At the end of class, students
will be encouraged to
analyze Khalid’s
presentation and make a
second journal entry.
Journal Prompt: Pick one
claim Khalid made and
once piece of evidence he
used in his presentation to
support the claim and
analyze how effective or
ineffective his methods
were.
Thursday
Today will be the first day
students begin to engage
with texts written in the 19th
century about slavery. Today
we’ll focus on Uncle Tom’s
Cabin by Harriet Beecher
Stowe. We’ll give
background on the text and
the author (as well as the
interesting historical
ramifications of the book.
I.e. how it fueled the
abolitionist movement at the
time, but potential problems
today?). We will read
through chapter 7 using DR-
TA as a class. We will
highlight the topics of
sympathy/sentimentality and
Stowe’s style as well as
beginning to delve into
potential problems we see
with the text. We will also
have a brief discussion that
leads into a journal writing
activity.
Friday
Students will focus on
reading another account of
slavery, but this time a
nonfiction version, the
slave narrative written by
Harriet Jacobs. We will
give a brief overview of
Harriet Jacobs’ life as well
as the plot summary of the
narrative as a whole. We
will again use DR-TA in
class to read Chapter 10 of
her narrative, Incidents in
the Life of a Slave Girl. We
will discuss
similarities/differences
between Stowe’s work and
Jacobs’. We will also have
them once again write in
their journals using a
prompt.
Today we will focus on
comparing &
contrasting Uncle
Tom’s Cabin and
Incidents in the Life of
a Slave Girl. We will
do a brief recap of both
texts and what we
previously discussed.
We will focus on
debating these two texts
in which we will break
the class up into two
groups, one that is
presenting on Uncle
Tom’s Cabin and one
that is presenting on
Incidents in the Life of
a Slave Girl. Each
group will present the
pros/cons of each text
and how it hurts/helps
the stereotypes
surrounding the South
and slavery. The
students will write a
brief journal prompt at
the end of class as well.
 work through some of the
emotionally charged
material. We want to make
sure we are conveying
sensitivity to students’
different backgrounds and
experiences. We will
attempt to explain that this
activity is not meant to ask
students to imagine what it
would be like to be a slave,
as there is no way we could
ever understand something
that horrific. However, it is
meant to encourage
students to begin thinking
critically about the
ramifications of an
institution like slavery.

At the very end of class, we

will introduce the group
research project that will be
due at the end of the unit, as
well as pairing up students
in groups (4-5 students per
group) Research Project
Topic: Speaking truth about
slavery through digital
storytelling.

What Students will be
students will encouraged to pay attention
be doing to the multimodal
presentation & ask
questions/discuss what they
see.
Students will be actively
participating in the writing
prompt “Whatcha Gonna
Do” during class.
Students will be actively
engaged and participating
throughout Khalid’s
presentation as well as
writing a journal prompt in
class at the end of the
period.
Students will be actively
reading in class with the
teacher using DR-TA as well
as engaging in class
discussions and a journal
prompt.
Students will be actively Students will be
reading in class with the actively participating in
teacher using DR-TA as brief research/recap on
well as engaging in class the texts and a debate
discussions and a journal between the two texts.
prompt.
What/how The usage of the
you’ll teach multimodal presentation &
the writing prompt will be
the main tools used to
introduce the topic of
slavery and the all too often
portrait of an institution that
is romanticized throughout
the South and the United
States as whole. Topics
being taught: basic history
regarding U.S. slavery, the
Civil War, and
Emancipation,
misconceptions
surrounding plantation life,
slavery as a whole, the
American South, & a
writing prompt that
encourages students to
begin to use critical
thinking skills.
What will The goals of today’s lesson
be learned will be to provide
(and how background knowledge on
will you American slavery as well as
know?) some of the misconceptions
& fictions of the issue. We
want to present viewpoints
(such as the
misconceptions) that may
not have been previously
touched on in a school
setting. Ideally, students
will begin to understand the
severe ramifications of
slavery/escaping slavery
The teaching will mostly be
taken over Khalid today as
we feel it is important to
have a person of color teach
and present on this topic as
well. We will be facilitating
the journal prompt as well
as being available for
questions and guidance.
The goal of today’s lesson
will be for students to
interact with a mobile
museum facilitated by an
expert on Black History and
slavery. Students will be
assessed through their
journal prompt in which
they analyze claims and
evidence presented through
the mobile museum.
We will teach students about
a brief history of Stowe, the
abolitionist movement, and
the popularity of
sentimentality/sympathy in
19th century novels using a
multimodal presentation. We
will highlight the
descriptions of slavery in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin as well
as discussing any problems
we see with this. The goal
will be to introduce a
potentially problematic text
that highlights the
sympathetic aspect of
slavery, especially one
written by an author who
had no real business writing
about slavery. We will
facilitate reading the text
using DR-TA as well as
facilitating the journal
writing prompt, modeling
how to think critically in our
predictions about the text.
Ideally, students will begin
to restructure their thinking
about problematic narratives
of slavery (especially about
a book like Uncle Tom’s
Cabin that was widely
considered the kick-start for
much of the abolitionist
movement of the mid 19th
century). We will discuss
these problems as well as
providing a journal writing
prompt for students to
complete at the end of
reading.
We will give a brief history
of Jacobs’ life and a plot
overview of her narrative as
a whole using a multimodal
presentation. We will also
teach Chapter 10 of her
narrative using DR-TA,
modeling the reading
strategy and how to think
critically throughout our
predictions. We will also
allow time for a discussion
in which we critically
analyze what we just read
and give them time to write
in their journals.
Ideally, students will begin
to see differences in
Stowe’s fictionalized
account and a real slave
narrative from Jacobs. We
will discuss
differences/similarities in
the two works and begin to
debunk the fictions of
slavery in comparison to
someone who actually lived
it. We will assess the
students through their
journal prompt.
We will facilitate the
informal debate
between the two groups
of students and provide
guidance and recap on
the two texts. We will
model how to use
evidence to support a
claim by using an
example about a pro or
con of one of the texts
and explaining how
textual evidence
supports the claim. We
will also facilitate the
journal prompt writing.
Students will ideally be
able to identify key
differences between
Stowe and Jacobs’
works and be able to
present this information
through the informal
debate. They will also
be assessed through
their journal writing.
Journal prompt:
Identify one use of
evidence either groups
presented on
(regardless on if you
through the writing prompt
“Whatcha Gonna Do?” Due
to the sensitive nature of
this topic, the follow up
discussion will be used to
evaluate students’ ability to
think critically about a
situation they may have
never imagined before.
Journal Prompt: Think about
what we discussed about
sentimentality in the 19th
century novel. Write one or
two reasons why sympathy
or sentimentality in Uncle
Tom’s Cabin could be
problematic in describing
slavery? How does this help
or hurt the public’s view of
slavery?
Journal prompt: Highlight agree with their stance
one important difference in or not) and explain how
the style of writing in Uncle it was used effectively.
Tom’s Cabin and Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Is sympathy effective? How
are these two texts
different?