Lesson by Jason Butler
Essay by Graham Hodges, Colgate University
Grade Level: 7–12
Number of Class Periods: 5–6
Primary Era: The Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877
About This Lesson Plan Unit
The four lessons in this unit explore the avenues by which emancipation was enacted, providing a context for the federal holiday of Juneteenth. Students will read documents written by military and political leaders as well as a newspaper report and the recollections of eyewitnesses. They will also look at illustrations. You will assess students’ understanding through an essay in which they make the case for a particular date as the best commemoration of the end of slavery.
Lesson Plan Author: Jason Butler
Historical Background Essay by: Graham Hodges, Colgate University
Additional Information About This Unit
Common Core State Standards
Common Core State Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.6: Identify aspects of a text that reveal an author’s point of view or purpose (e.g., loaded language, inclusion or avoidance of particular facts).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9: Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2.B: Develop the topic thoroughly by selecting the most significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples appropriate to the audience’s knowledge of the topic.
Essential Questions
Essential Questions
How did enslaved people free themselves?
How was emancipation enacted and protected by government authorities?
What legal and military actions formalized emancipation?
What obstacles prevented the immediate enactment of emancipation?
Documents
Documents
“The Steamer ‘Planter’ and Her Captor” Harper’s Weekly, June 14, 1862
Abraham Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
Joint Resolution Proposing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, February 1, 1865
Frederick Dielman, “Celebration of the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia by the Colored People, in Washington,” Harper’s Weekly, May 12, 1866
Adalbert John Volck, “Writing the Emancipation Proclamation,” Confederate War Etchings, Baltimore, ca. 1880–1890 (orig. 1863)
J. L. Magee, “Emancipation,” Philadelphia, 1865
General Order No. 3, Headquarters, District of Texas, Galveston, TX, June 19, 1865
An interview with Ella Washington from Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, vol. 16: Texas, Part 4 (Washington DC: 1941)