People of the Underground Railroad
QUESTIONS
Essential Question: How do oppressed people empower themselves to achieve freedom?
Guiding Question: How do people work together to generate change?
STANDARDS
NCSS strand: Individuals, Groups and Institutions
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of interactions among individuals, groups, and institutions
MMSD standard: History
Performance Standard 2: Use reference and information research skills to gatehr and organize information
MATERIALS
Read Aloud - Under the Quilt of the Night
Creating a Picture Web
ASSESSMENT
Observe students' ability to draw a web picture that references and integrates information from the story Under the Quilt of the Night
Observe students' ability to write clearly constructed paragraphs that paraphrase information about their conductor obtained through research to answer the questions
RESOURCES
Hopkinson, D. (2001). Under the quilt of the night. New York: Atheneum.
Maryland Public Television. (2002). Pathways to freedom: Maryland and the Underground Railroad. Retrieved from http://pathways.thinkport.org/flash_home.cfm
Essential Question: How do oppressed people empower themselves to achieve freedom?
Guiding Question: How do people work together to generate change?
STANDARDS
NCSS strand: Individuals, Groups and Institutions
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of interactions among individuals, groups, and institutions
MMSD standard: History
Performance Standard 2: Use reference and information research skills to gatehr and organize information
MATERIALS
- Under the Quilt of the Night
- access to research resources: internet, encyclopedia, books
- long piece of string, one per small group
Read Aloud - Under the Quilt of the Night
- Summary: A young girl flees from the farm where she has been working as a slave and uses the Underground Railroad to escape to freedom in the north
- Explain that this book tells the story of a young girl who traveled the Underground Railroad
- As they are listening, ask students to consider: How do people work together to generate change?
Creating a Picture Web
- In small groups, ask students to discuss how people worked together to create, support, and sustain the Underground Railroad.
- To capture their discussion, explain that students will draw a web that illustrates the types of people involved in the Underground Railroad and what roles they played in supporting the Railroad
- Students may observe that
- Slaves help each other by communicating information
- White people use quilts to signal that their house is a safe shelter in which escaped slaves may sleep and eat
- White people hide escaped slaves in wagons that travel north
- Freed slaves assisted escaped slaves who reached the North
- Slaves help each other by communicating information
- Display the webs on a classroom wall for students to present and admire each others work
- Students may observe that
- Explain that main of the people the students identified in the story are conductors of the Underground Railroad – free blacks, whites, and slaves who helped escaped slaves
- Explain that each small group will be assigned a conductor of the Underground Railroad
- Harriet Tubman
- slave who escaped to freedom
- guide to many slaves, not one of whom died or was caught in the journey
- slave who escaped to freedom
- Frederick Douglass
- slave who escaped to freedom
- writer and speaker in favor of abolition
- slave who escaped to freedom
- William Still
- free black who helped escaped slaves toward Canada and/or establish life in Philadelphia
- recorded his work in the album The Underground Rail Road
- free black who helped escaped slaves toward Canada and/or establish life in Philadelphia
- Samuel Burris
- free black conductor in Maryland, caught for smuggling slaves
- purchased at auction by an abolitionist who set him free again
- free black conductor in Maryland, caught for smuggling slaves
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
- free black, writer and speaker in favor of abolition
- donated money to help William Still
- free black, writer and speaker in favor of abolition
- Thomas Garret
- Quaker who hid many families
- member of the Abolition Society
- Quaker who hid many families
- Dr. Bartholomew Fussell
- Quaker whose home provided shelter for about 2000 slaves
- founded to a Sunday school educate free blacks
- Quaker whose home provided shelter for about 2000 slaves
- Harriet Tubman
- Students will spend time researching the conductor and write a three paragraph report on the conductor, addressing the following questions:
- What is this person's history?
- What role did she or he serve in the Underground Railroad?
- Why do we remember her or him?
- What is this person's history?
- Invite each group to share their report with the class
- As the students listen to the reports, as them to consider how their conductor might have worked with the conductor of the report
- As the students listen to the reports, as them to consider how their conductor might have worked with the conductor of the report
- Give each group a long piece of string and explain that we will create a classroom web that shows how the conductors of the Railroad are connected to each other
- Explain that when students have discovered a connection to a conductor, they will hold the ends of each others string
- Allow students to figure out how to negotiate the connections on their own
- In the end, the classroom web should simulate the illustrations the students created after the read aloud
- Explain that when students have discovered a connection to a conductor, they will hold the ends of each others string
- Invite students to reflect on how this web reflects the way in which people of the Underground Railroad worked together
ASSESSMENT
Observe students' ability to draw a web picture that references and integrates information from the story Under the Quilt of the Night
Observe students' ability to write clearly constructed paragraphs that paraphrase information about their conductor obtained through research to answer the questions
- What is this person's history?
- What role did she or he serve in the Underground Railroad?
- Why do we remember her or him?
RESOURCES
Hopkinson, D. (2001). Under the quilt of the night. New York: Atheneum.
Maryland Public Television. (2002). Pathways to freedom: Maryland and the Underground Railroad. Retrieved from http://pathways.thinkport.org/flash_home.cfm