Underground Railroad Quilts: An Introduction
QUESTIONS
Essential Question: How do oppressed people empower themselves to achieve freedom?
Guiding Question: What resources are available to people to initiate change?
STANDARDS
NCSS strand: Power, Authority, and Governance
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of how people create, interact with, and change structures of power, authority, and governance.
MMSD standard: Political Science and Citizenship
Performance Standard 1: Describe the struggle in our society for equal rights for all people.
MATERIALS
Underground Railroad Map
Explain that many enslaved people escaped to the free North by traveling along the Underground Railroad, a secret system of people, hiding places, food, and transportation.
Explain that people who are enslaved do not have ownership of their lives nor possession of materials. Yet, Clara was able to transform her life by looking at the resources in her community in a new way, one that would support her mission to achieve freedom.
As a whole class, discuss the following questions and record student answers in chart form on a large poster board or overhead projector. Subject headings for the chart are printed in bold and suggested answers are provided.
Conclude the lesson by showing students a slideshow of Underground Railroad quilts.
Observe students' ability to take the perspective of an enslaved person to reflect on the skills and resources needed to sustain and participate in the Underground Railroad. In the post-read aloud discussion, listen to how students integrate information from the story to support their answers. Some responses may be paraphrases of the text (Clara used fabric from the Big House to make quilts) while others may be inferences (Clara's will and courage were personal resources). In invite deeper discussion, encourage students to imagine themselves as someone like Clara: What skills and resources could you use to initiate change in this situation?
RESOURCES
Hopinkson, D. (1993). Sweet Clara and the freedom quilt. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
National Parks Service. (n.d.) Aboard the underground railroad: A national register travel itinerary. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/
Tobin, J, & Dobard, R. G. (1999). Hidden in plain view: The secret story of quilts and the Underground Railroad. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Essential Question: How do oppressed people empower themselves to achieve freedom?
Guiding Question: What resources are available to people to initiate change?
STANDARDS
NCSS strand: Power, Authority, and Governance
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of how people create, interact with, and change structures of power, authority, and governance.
MMSD standard: Political Science and Citizenship
Performance Standard 1: Describe the struggle in our society for equal rights for all people.
MATERIALS
- Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
- National Park Service Underground Railroad map (see image at bottom of page)
- Underground Railroad quilt images (see gallery at bottom of page)
- poster board
- marker
Underground Railroad Map
Explain that many enslaved people escaped to the free North by traveling along the Underground Railroad, a secret system of people, hiding places, food, and transportation.
- Display the National Park Service Underground Railroad map
- Follow different arrows and ask students to identify the places on the map, noting changes in geography, divisions between free and slave states
- Students may recognize that a map would be essential to follow in order to reach free regions of the country safely.
- Summary: Clara is a young slave who assembles a quilt whose patterns serve as a map she uses to guide her toward freedom in Canada.
- Explain that this book tells the story of a young girl who traveled the Underground Railroad
- As they are listening, ask students to consider: What resources are available to people to initiate change?
Explain that people who are enslaved do not have ownership of their lives nor possession of materials. Yet, Clara was able to transform her life by looking at the resources in her community in a new way, one that would support her mission to achieve freedom.
As a whole class, discuss the following questions and record student answers in chart form on a large poster board or overhead projector. Subject headings for the chart are printed in bold and suggested answers are provided.
- What resources were available to Clara to help her assemble the freedom quilt?
- Materials: fabric, needles, thread, scraps from seamstress projects
- Listening: hearing and decoding clues from others, memory
- Environment: interpreting night sky, identifying landmarks
- Creativity: experimentation, symbols, patterns, colors, imagination
- Strength: courage, support from Aunt Rachel and Jack, physical stamina
- Materials: fabric, needles, thread, scraps from seamstress projects
- Why do you think Clara chose to represent the Underground Railroad map as a quilt?
- Clara was a seamstress and had access to materials and skills to assemble a quilt
- A quilt may be kept and interpreted by others on the plantation who wish to escape to Canada through the Underground Railroad.
- A quilt would not be noticeable to the plantation owner and other people who supported slavery
- A quilt may keep secrets and quilt patterns may serve as symbols that represent landmarks on the Railroad route
- Clara was a seamstress and had access to materials and skills to assemble a quilt
Conclude the lesson by showing students a slideshow of Underground Railroad quilts.
- Explain that many of these quilts communicate secret messages about the Underground Railroad through patterns, stitching, color, and layout.
- Explain that in the next lesson we learn more about how quilt patterns communicated important information about the Railroad passage.
Observe students' ability to take the perspective of an enslaved person to reflect on the skills and resources needed to sustain and participate in the Underground Railroad. In the post-read aloud discussion, listen to how students integrate information from the story to support their answers. Some responses may be paraphrases of the text (Clara used fabric from the Big House to make quilts) while others may be inferences (Clara's will and courage were personal resources). In invite deeper discussion, encourage students to imagine themselves as someone like Clara: What skills and resources could you use to initiate change in this situation?
RESOURCES
Hopinkson, D. (1993). Sweet Clara and the freedom quilt. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
National Parks Service. (n.d.) Aboard the underground railroad: A national register travel itinerary. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/
Tobin, J, & Dobard, R. G. (1999). Hidden in plain view: The secret story of quilts and the Underground Railroad. New York, NY: Doubleday.