Geering Up for Black History Month

Next week we will jump into one of my favorite units. As a class we will study excerpts from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Douglass and Carver: A Live in Poems by Marilyn Nelson, and we will watch the brilliant HBO documentary Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives.

I love these works of literature. Period. I would teach them at any time, during any month. However, it just makes sense to plan the unit for February, which is Black History Month. Each year I tweak it a little, but the overall themes have remained the same. This unit allows students to contend with the complexities of slavery and its aftereffects. Up until this point, their main exposure has been “slavery=bad and emancipation=good.” Of course, I agree with the generalization, but it often undermines the struggles of the African American people after slavery because we don’t talk about the “what happened next.”

These works also provide a wonderful jumping off point to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different formats of communication. The look on students’ faces when they uncover the cleverness of Douglass’s rhetoric is priceless. So are the tears some have shed when reading the beautiful poem “Friends in the Klan,” or the anger expressed during the documentary.

This year, a new component of the unit has been added. AND. I. AM. SO. EXCITED. The students are going to read excerpts from W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington that highlight their fundamental disagreement about how to go about educating the first generation of free African Americans. The following day a professor, and expert in 19^th Century American history, culture, and literature, will lead a symposium with the students about these two viewpoints. The students will also get to choose a side (Team Du Bois! Team BTW!), and debate the merits of their historical figure’s beliefs. History smackdown! Bam!

For me, teaching English will always come back to one core goal for my students: when you are ready to change the world, I want you to have the communication and research skills to do it. This unit, therefore, must circle back to this belief. As a key component of the unit, students write their own memoirs or autobiographical collections of poetry. This allows them to search their own histories for lessons about life. Also, I created a Google Map that students can explore, and use to learn more about contemporary slavery. The students then write letters to their congressman discussing their thoughts about how the United States can best help to end slavery in the modern world.

I have found that at this stage in their lives, students still feel a deep, strong sense of what is just.  And, unlike adults, they have little concern for limitations, policies, or challenges. Instead, the students simply believe the right thing should be done. If we, as teachers, could truly harness that energy, and just plain decency, I wonder what the world would begin to look like.

*If you would like any of the documents associated with this unit, just email me. I will be happy to send them!*