Field Trips

I Think I Know About Slavery... Pre-Visit Activity

Grade Level:
Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade
Subject:
Social Studies
Common Core Standards:
6.SL.1, 6.SL.1.a, 6.SL.1.b, 6.SL.1.c, 6.SL.1.d, 6.SL.2, 6.SL.3, 7.SL.1, 7.SL.1.a, 7.SL.1.b, 7.SL.1.c, 7.SL.1.d, 7.SL.2, 7.SL.3, 8.SL.1, 8.SL.1.a, 8.SL.1.b, 8.SL.1.c, 8.SL.1.d, 8.SL.2, 8.SL.3, 6-8.WHST.9

Title: I think I know about slavery …
 
Goal: Prepare students for their visit to the new Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. 
 
Background: During the decades preceding the Civil War, when the United States struggled to define itself, no issue more divided and plagued its people than slavery. Even among those who had doubts about its morality, slavery was debated as part of a complex set of interlocking philosophical, social, economic, and political concerns too difficult to resolve and too intertwined with the fate of the nation to consider abolishing.
 
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: D2.His.1.6-8. Analyze connections among events and developments in broader historical contexts.
 
Resources for Instruction: Copy of graphic organizer, quote, image, and a Federal Writer’s Project Maryland Slave Narrative.
 
Instructions: 
1. Distribute graphic organizer to each student and randomly distribute the Quote, Image, and Slave Narrative. 
2. Ask students to review their document and complete the graphic organizer. 
3. Distribute a KWL chart, which asks: What I Know, What I Want to Know, and What I Learned 
4. Give students some time to complete the K and W, engage students in a class discussion answering their questions and referring back to the documents. 
5. Allow students a few minutes to complete the L with sharing aloud with their classmates. 
 

Materials

Last updated: December 21, 2016