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| A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON SLAVERY: Writing the History of African American Slave Women |
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Student Exercise One
1. Direct the class to the Hannah Valentine and
Lethe Jackson letters on this website:
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/collections/
african-american-women.html
2. Analysis of the documents:
- Have the class read the letters. Then, as a class,
begin a discussion about a strategy for identifying
information in the documents. The strategy should
focus on the formulation of questions the students
might ask in order to identify relevant information.
Questions regarding the author's birth date, birth
place, family, work, and religion will help the students
begin to understand some of the experiences that these
women had in common, as well as the circumstances
that accounted for differences in their lives.
- Critiquing the documents will help to identify bias.
Questions about the author's purpose, status, and
regional location will help to clarify the contextual
conditions that influence perceptions.
3. Have the students write a model for analysis that will help them read
the documents with a critical eye. Students should understand
that they will be using their research to write a history
of African American slave women.
Student Exercise Two
1. Divide the class into small groups. Assign each
group a document or a portion of one of the longer documents
listed below:
2. Ask the students to use their model to read the document and evaluate
information found. Each group should compile the information
gleaned from the assigned document.
3. Using the "jigsaw" approach to group
work, shift the members of the groups so that each new
group has a representative from each of the original groups.
The task for these groups is to share information from
the documents.
4. As a class, consider all the information that
has been discussed in the individual groups. Identify
the elements of experience that define the lives of slave
women.
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