For Teachers: Activities and Lesson Plans: Language Arts 7-12:
Lesson 2: Making it Real: Telling the Story from a Fugitive Slave’s Perspective comparing and contrasting Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin with actual slave narratives

English:  Grades 9-10
Reading, Writing, and Discussion

Context and Content Knowledge

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published in serial form and, later, as a book in 1852.  It is a fictional work, but its credibility and impact were established through the author’s poignant creation of fiction from real people and actual situations.  Explore the connection to northwestern Pennsylvania!  Read his autobiography.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold 300,000 copies within one year and was translated into 19 languages.  By 1860, there were 1 million copies in the United States and 2 million copies abroad.  The profound and far-reaching message in this book continues to be relevant to contemporary society.  Though the novel largely portrays the black slaves as weak, helpless victims made to feel and act inferior in the face of their white masters, it nonetheless provides an account of the horrors and atrocities of the slave industry.  This book became a pivotal force in the fight for the abolition of slavery.  The following lesson outlines suggestions for reading, writing, and discussion activities aligned with the reading of this important work of literature.  The lesson also provides a framework for comparing and contrasting the novel with first-hand accounts of life during slavery.  This framework could span several weeks of instructional time, depending on the depth of reading and writing assignments. 

Rationale

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is an account of a slave’s experience, and it had significant bearing on the attitudes of many people regarding the institution of slavery.  While there are certainly racial stereotypes extant in the character descriptions, the book presents numerous possibilities for teaching the historical facts of slavery, abolition, and, more importantly, people’s beliefs and values regarding the human race.  Teaching this novel and incorporating discussions of real-life slave narratives will allow the students to explore the connections between past injustices and contemporary prejudices. 

Standards

Educational Goals     (what/how will students learn?)

1. Students will read the novel (or excerpts from) Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
2. Students will discuss the characterization and plot and the effect of these two literary elements on the anti-slavery message in the book.
3. Students will engage in several writing assignments to accompany the reading of the novel.
4. Students will read excerpts from slave narratives.
5. Students will compare and contrast the novel with real-life accounts, presenting an essay at the conclusion of the project.

Activities/Procedures

• Conduct in-class aloud or silent reading of selections from Uncle Tom’s Cabin
• Discuss the elements of characterization as they relate to establishing a portrayal of blacks during the 1800’s – how does this relate to many commonly-held prejudices in modern society?
• Present students with reading questions that require introspective thought and reflective response to the novel
• Design and develop writing assignments that accompany the novel (at teacher’s discretion)

Suggestions: journal entries from one of the character’s perspectives; book review written from the perspective of a slave owner in the 1800’s; newspaper article featuring “Uncle Tom” as a real person

• Allow students to choose at least one first-hand slave narrative linked to the Safe Harbor web site; write an essay comparing and contrasting a character in the novel with the life of a former slave

Suggestions:  Compare the experiences of one of the characters from Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the experiences of a real person.  How are they similar?  How are they different?  What may have prompted the former slave to write of his/her experiences?  What conclusions can you make about the institution of slavery based upon these accounts?

Materials/References Needed

Classroom set of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (or excerpts from novel)

Computers with Internet Access

Online Resources

Clarke, Lewis, and Clark, Milton.  Narratives of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier of the Revolution, During a Captivity of More than Twenty Years Among the Slaveholders of Kentucky, One of the So-Called Christian States of North America. Boston MA: Bela Marsh, 1846.

Craft, William.  Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; or, The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery. London: W. Tweedie, 1860.

Douglass, Frederick.  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself.  Anti-slavery Office of Boston, 1845.   (link to:  )

Drew, Benjamin.  A North-Side View of Slavery:  The Refugee or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada Related by Themselves. Boston:  John P. Jewett and Co., 1856.

Garlick, Charles A., Life, Including His Escape and Struggle for Liberty of Charles A. Garlick, Born a Slave in Old Virginia, Who Secured His Freedom by Running Away from His Master's Farm in 1843. Jefferson, Ohio:  J.A. Howells & Co., 1902.

            http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/collections/aaohio/langarts.html

Lesson plans developed by Emily Johnson, a 10^th grade language arts teacher in Dubois, Pennsylvania.