LESSON 3

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce students to information regarding the treatment of slaves in the ante-bellum United States South. Students will read an original slave narrative taken from the oral history project of the New Deal’s Work Projects Administration. In this particular case the reading was obtained from the work of Bruce Fort of the University of Virginia. The teacher could use judgment and shorten the reading if desired. The questions in the reading are knowledge level, though the instructor could easily deepen the lesson in ways suggested later in this document. If the teacher considers some questions too difficult, those answers could be given ahead of time as a way of demonstrating the highlighting technique to students. Question 17 might be one such question.

Below are a number of sites from which additional slave narratives can be obtained:

American Studies at the University of Virginia

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html

Library of Congress:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snvoices00.html

University of North Carolina: Documenting the American South.

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/

STEP 1: Students read the selection below and answer the questions through highlighted justification.

Depending upon the academic level of the students, they could read the selection individually, in groups, or as a class. For one technique, check the lesson entitled ______ on this site.

Students should first be spoken to regarding the use of the word “nigger”. It should be pointed out to them that while that word is unacceptable in common conversation, in order to have a true understanding of the realities of history it is sometimes necessary to look at disturbing and distasteful situations. History is the study of what has happened to make us what we are, not the study of what we wish had happened to make us what we want to pretend we are.

 

STEP 2: Students will hear several selections from the two CD set Songs of the Lower Mississippi Delta.

The teacher will play selection #2 from disc #2 Run, May, Run.

Lyrics are found at the end of this page and on separate page LYRICS.

After Hearing the selection students should be given or shown a copy of the lyrics.

The following could be done through whole class discussion, in groups, or individually.

 

Take the students through the conversation that is laid out after the lyrics of Run, Mary, Run., or have them respond to one of more of the questions in written form