African American Literature Project DR Bender2

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In this course, I will be using slave narratives as a foundation for the study of African
American literature. Even though this class has been designed with a regular junior American
Literature class in mind, it can be modified to be taught in order to fit the curriculum of any junior
or high school grade levels. A course like this is needed because with the growing diversity of our
society all students have a chance to learn about other cultures. The best way to learn about
another culture is to read its literature. Today because of Henry Louis Gates, Houston A. Baker,
Nellie Y. McKay, and others, a wealth of material is available for students. In studying this
literature, high school students not only experience a richness of African American literature in
this country, but gain a valuable tool to use in future studies in the whole range of American
literature. This course will fill what now is essentially a void in the average curriculum.
I believe a unique approach is needed for teaching this course. The best way to teach many
literature courses is to teach a survey of main literature in a chronological order showing
development. But for African American literature the approach needs to be somewhat different
because of the circumstances of slavery in America. The African American was cut off from his or
her native language and culture and denied the right to acquire the language and culture of this
country. In fact, it became illegal for slave masters to allow their slaves to learn to read or write.
Therefore, the root of African American literature is oral. Henry Louis Gates, who also places a
high value on the contribution of the oral tradition in African American literature, supplies a good
definition of the “vernacular” in The Norton Anthology African American literature.
In African American literature, the vernacular refers to the church songs, blues, ballads,
sermons, stories, and, in our own era, rap songs that are part of the oral, not primarily the
literature (or written down) tradition of black expression . . . The vernacular encompasses
vigorous, dynamic processes of expression, past and present. It makes up a rich

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storehouse of materials wherein the values, styles, and character types of black American
life are reflected in language that is highly energized and often marvelously eloquent.
Ralph Ellison argued that vernacular art accounts, to a large degree, for the black
American’s legacy of self-awareness and endurance (Gates 1-2).
Gates gives the oral tradition a prominent place in African American literature. The oral
tradition is still a very important part of today’s African American literature. Toni Morrison’s Song
of Solomon supports this theory because the structure of the novel uses the oral tradition.
Someone is telling the reader the story rather than imagining that he or she is reading about it.
Morrison uses the oral tradition to uncover the mystery in the book. Milkman, the main character,
finds himself at the end of the novel when his journey allows him to figure out what the words of
the reoccurring song throughout the story means. In this course I will teach the oral as well as the
written tradition of African American literature in order to give a prominent role to the oral which
has a special influence on African American literature.
Slave Narratives play a major role in African American literature. These are the works
slaves wrote during and after slavery. In recent decades these works have been found and edited
and made accessible by scholars like Henry Louis Gates. Even in the time these works were
written, they received attention because they gave much insight to was actually going on within
the institution of slavery. These Pre-Civil war accounts were published on their own merits. Slave
narratives became part of the main stream of American literature through works such as Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Even though slave narratives are important to American
literature and are now available, most students are totally unaware of their existence. In this
course, I will lay the foundation by discussing with my students how slave narratives and the oral
tradition influenced African American literature in history. This course will end with the Harlem
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Renaissance and the work of Zora Neale Hurston. This curriculum can be followed by a second
course in modern and contemporary literature again stressing influence of the oral tradition. What
will follow are ten units that I have developed for this course along with a list of suggested
readings. In the appendix, I am including, by units, the supplemental materials I used when I
taught this class as a pilot version for the Elkhart Community School corporation in the Summer
of 1997. There is a vast amount of valuable materials for teachers interested in teaching this
course. I will include them in the bibliography.
Work Cited
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Nellie Y. Mckay, eds. The Norton Anthology African American
Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
Acknowledgments
I would like to give thanks to the following people: Dr. E Lyons who came up with the
idea for this curriculum; Alma Powell who hired me to teach Summer Schoo, in the Elkhart
Community School Corporation, l which gave me an opportunity to teach this course; Patricia
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Lorenc who allowed me the freedom and support to develop a curriculum for the Harlem
Renaissance period while I was doing my student teaching under her management; my students in
the Elkhart School Summer school program who made teaching this course exciting and
enjoyable; Dr. Eileen Bender who by, not lowering her standards, making it very clear to me that
she would only accept quality work, even with the pressures of time restraints, challenged me to
develop an effective curriculum for high school; Marjorie Fuch-Being, Dr. James Blodgett,
Charlotte D. Pfeifer, Rob Lockhart, Sister Ruth Foster, Raymond and Joan Johnson, Mrs. and
Mr. R. L. Melton, Pastor and Mrs. Eddy Miller, Dr. Margaret Scanlan, Mrs. Patricia Sell, Dr.
Doris Walker, and my mother Yvonne Graham and my late grandmother Lucinda Greer-Graham,
who by having faith in my abilities, gave me the strength to undertake such a project.
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5
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Wilson. PBS 213, 1989.
General Classroom Methodology
In teaching this course general classroom methodology is essential for student success.
Introduction to African American literature is a good human relations course. Since students have
different backgrounds, the teacher must be prepared for the different attitudes and baggage
students will bring in the first day of class. The goal of this class is to build mutual understanding
of this course as well as one another. Literature helps us know more about other cultures. Class
discussion will consist of things that will shape and change attitudes. In order to do this, students
most learn to work together cooperatively. Cooperative learning will also aid the teacher in
setting high expectations for students’ learning by requiring them to have a high responsibility to
be active in their own learning. Group work will help develop students’ responsibility for their
own learning as well as make them active participants. Students will have an individual and
collaborative responsibility in this class. This responsibility is challenging because learning is now
up to the students. Personal growth will stem from developing self responsibility. Working
collaboratively will also be beneficial to the bulk of material that will be covered in this course.
I will use Harry K. Wong’s theory of cooperative learning in this course. Teachers should
not assume that their students know how to work cooperatively in groups. The procedure and
importance for cooperative learning should be explained to students before breaking them up into
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small groups. Students should be made aware that in life they “will be working with many
different combinations of people on committees, in groups, and on project teams for different
lengths of time” (Wong 249). I would inform students that their individual groups would be
called “support groups” and that their partners would be considered “support persons.” I will also
make them aware that each person in the support group will be assigned a duty and that the
number of members in for each group project would be determine by the number of duties needed
to successfully complete each assignment. For instance, I would break the class into groups of
three if I needed a recorder, a reader, and a presenter. After completing the assignment each
group’s’ presenters would be asked to present their findings to the whole class. Also, “each time
the class is divided into groups, the length of the group activity will depend on the nature of the
activity . . . When the activity is finished, the group will be disbanded” (Wong 249). I would also
inform students that since they were all making the same “salary” it was important that each
member perform his or her duty well in order for the group to be successful. If an individual has a
question concerning the material or the assignment, he or she must first seek the assistance of
their support person rather than asking the teacher. If none of the members of the group is able to
answer the question than the group, as a committee, must formulate a specific question to present
to the teacher. It is important that students learn that they can only solve a problem by knowing
what the specific problem is. Cooperative learning is also a good way to cover a lot of material in
a short period. There is so much material in this course that no one could cover all of it
individually. With the mass and nature of material in this course, classroom management is also
essential.
I would use the following procedure for starting the class found in Harry K. Wong’s The
First Days of School. When the students first walked into my class, I’d informed them that they
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would find their names on their assigned seats for the semester. I would also let them know that
the seating arrangement was subject to change as I got to know them better. I would discuss a
couple of procedures they needed to follow in my class. One of the procedures I’d ask them to
observe would be a daily assignment on which I’d wanted them to get started immediately when
they first entered my room. I would point to the assignment I had already written on the board
and assure them that they would find a new assignment each day written in the same place. I
would inform them that I was doing this to instill in them the fact that I started my class and not
the bell. While the students are completing this assignment, I would be able to take attendance
and as well as perform other duties required of the teacher before class. Then I could direct my
full attention to my students. With the mass of material needing to be covered in this class, this
procedure aids in not wasting valuable class time as well as helping my students to begin focusing
on the day’s lesson. Students will also learn vocabulary in the context of the material presented. I
will assign vocabulary words at the beginning of each unit. I will explain to students that by
defining the word, they will have a better understanding of the material. I have found that when
students work together in group vocabulary workshops, they as a whole do better on individual
vocabulary tests. Students will be required to take a vocabulary test at the end of each unit.
Duties of Group Vocabulary workshops:

1.) One member of the group will be responsible for finding the vocabulary words in the
story.
2.) One member of the group will be responsible for looking up the definition in the
dictionary that comes closest to how the words are used in the story.
3.) One member of the group will be responsible for finding words in the thesaurus with
the same meaning as the vocabulary words.
4.) One member of the group will be responsible for writing out, with help from the others in
the group, sentences using the new words. Each new word must be used in a separate
sentence.
5.) Each group will turn in one copy of the sentences using the new words.
Note: Each member of the group must have his or her name on the copy in order to get credit
for the group assignment. The group has the right to remove from the sheet being turned
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in the name of any member who has not shared equally in participation.
6.) Each group member must have a copy of the vocabulary definitions, because he or she will
be required to turn them in the day of the vocabulary test.
An example: “With a supreme effort; Jamel’s father reached out and held him tight.”
Dictionary definition of the word supreme: ultimate (the~sacrifice)
New words found in the thesaurus: highest/utmost
The example of sentence using the new word: With the utmost effort, Lynn made sure she got to
school on time.
Unit One: The Oral Tradition
Questions: 1.) What part did slave narratives play in American history?
2.) Why did the authors write? (What were their motivations/purposes?)
3.) What is the message of the Negro Spirituals?
4.) Who are the characters and what part (role) do they play in the song?
Background Information on Slave Narratives
When I first started working on the curriculum for African American literature, I wasn’t
very familiar with slave narratives. I knew a lot about the Harlem Renaissance period because I
had taught it before. While looking for criticism on Gloria Naylor’s Linden Hills, I came across a
book entitled African American Writers by Valerie Smith, which had a very informative chapter on
slave narratives. The African American Writers gave me the background knowledge I needed to
develop a concrete understanding of slave narratives. In order to lay the foundation for my
students to gain a better concept of African American literature. It soon became apparent to me
that I could not effectively understand (not alone teach) African American Literature unless I had
a strong concept of the oral as well as the written tradition of slave narratives. Valerie Smith’s
chapter entitled “The Slave Narrative in American Literature,” Identifies are some major recurring
elements in slave narratives. I must caution that it would be ludicrous to assume that these
elements would be found in all slave narratives. The collection of works is too complex for such
simplicity. However, Smith’s formula provides a useful introductory approach and aided in giving
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me a more concrete understanding of slave narratives.
First, there is the narrator. The narrator is the story teller who is reflecting back on his or
her cruel experience as a slave as well as the events that led up to actually reaching the land of
freedom. There are some exceptions such as Phillis Wheatley who was encouraged by her master
to write poetry while she was still a slave. Second, the narrator attributes his or her successful
journey to divine intervention which usually includes people who symbolize angels aiding in the
escape. There is allusion to the Bible, especially to the story of Moses and the Israelites, because
of the similarities to the black slave experience. Also, as Smith points out, “It is well-known that
many slave narratives originated in an oral tradition that depended on formulaic patterns to
facilitate the speaker’s memory” (Smith 410). Slave narratives were usually told orally and
written down later because it was illegal to teach slaves how to read or write.
Slaves wrote their stories for two main reasons. First, according to Smith, by sharing their
experiences, they were trying to appeal to the sympathetic nature of whites, especially white
women, who were in a position to help them (slaves) out of their cruel circumstances. Slave
narrators used certain themes, in their writings, as a vehicle to gain sympathetic support from
white Females. Blacks wanted to dispel the “prominently accepted false impression of the ‘happy
slaves’” (Smith 403). “The happy-go-lucky, shallow-paced, subservient creature who spoke in a
thick dialect was no longer an acceptable representation of the black man” (Stern 9). According to
Gayle Dantzler, “America has promoted the myths . . . America has not taught its children that
slavery is our national shame, bestowed by our Founding Fathers, paid for with blood for more
than 200 years” (Dantzler). A slave like Olaudah Equiano felt “very self-conscious about thrusting
his life story before a predominantly white readership,” but he knew that their support was
essential for social change (Smith 397). Stern states in her introduction to The Annotated Uncle
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Tom’s Cabin, “although fiction is not called upon to right the wrongs of the world, once in a great
while a novel does bring to public attention something which badly needs correction . . . The
novel of social protest has done much to improve the condition of mankind” (Stern 11).
Others like Henry Louis Gates Jr. believe that slaves wrote for reasons other than to
change the status quo. According to Gates, they were trying to prove to the world, through their
narratives, that blacks were just as intellectual as whites.”Godwyn’s account of the claims that
Africans were not human beings and his use of the possession of reason and its manifestations
through ‘Reading and Writing’ to refute these claims were widely debated during the
Enlightenment, generally at the African’s expense” (Gates xxix). As Gates suggests, “African
American slaves, remarkably, sought to write themselves out of slavery by mastering the Anglo-
American belletristic tradition” (Gates xviii). The third edition of The American heritage
Dictionary defines the word “belletristic” as “literature regarded for its artistic value rather than
for content.” Gates believes that African American slaves were able to master literature for art’s
sake. If one found value that could aid in bringing forth social change than that was fine but the
author’s work was intended for artistic purposes only. It is amazing how people who were denied
literacy were able to master the art of literature through the oral tradition. Some perfected that art
so well orally that they were able to maintain the work of art until they became literate so that
they could write their stories down.
I also discovered that many proslavery activists supported slavery because they believed
that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites and that their only valuable contribution to
society was in the status of a servant. On the other hand, antislavery activists also augured the
opposite. “For example, reviewers of Wheatley’s book argued that the publication of her poems
meant that the African was indeed a human being and should not be enslaved” (Gates xxxii). Even
16
though slave narrators’ stories helped to change social consciousness, Gates did not believe that
this was their intended purpose.
Slave narrators used certain themes in their writings as a vehicle to gain sympathetic
support from white females. Many white women could sympathize with the theme of an immoral
breakup of the family and sexual abuse toward a female slave. Literature like Uncle Tom’s Cabin
“was especially effective with women readers, because the book showed how helpless females
slaves were in that essential part of their lives which had to do with sex, marriage, childbearing”
(Stern 8). “Domesticity and family relations were often exploited as a rhetorical strategy by which
predominantly female, white audiences would be able to identify with the wrenching horror of
family disruption among the black slaves”( Smith 402). Even though Harriet Beecher Stowe was
raised in an abolitionist family who ingrained in her strong anti-slavery views, it wasn’t until after
the death of her own son that she could identify her own grief with that of a slave mother whose
child was forcibly taken away from her. She is quoted as saying, “‘it was at his dying bed and at
his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn away from her’”
(Ammons viii).
The work of Harriet Jacobs was very descriptive in painting a vivid picture of the turmoil
slave mothers went through on auction day held on the first of January. Harriet Jacobs recounts
her experience of “the hideous scenes of the slave auctions, where families are divided by the
auctioneer’s hammer” (Smith 408). Many slave narrators also described their internal sense of
helplessness concerning their masters’ sexual misconduct toward them. In Incidents in the Life of
a Slave Girl, Jacobs writes of her feelings of helplessness, at the age of fifteen, when she was
sexually pursued by her fifty-five-year-old master. The jealous nature of the master’s wife made it
impossible for young Harriet Jacobs to find refuge in her. Even male slave narrators focused on
17
the cruel mistreatment of female slaves to gain sympathetic support from white female readers.
“An important theme in Douglass’ accounts of the brutal whipping of his aunt are that of sexual
abuse of female slaves” (Smith 407). This seems to be a good strategy since the majority of these
who read books were American white women. These issues are important in introducing this first
unit.
Goals: Introducing slave narratives and other oral literature to my students by bridging their
current knowledge with the new information.
Notes: Negro spirituals, like other great works, have a surface (external) meaning which is
obvious to the listener and a deeper (complex) meaning which isn’t so apparent.
The double meaning of the songs was a safe vehicle for slaves to use in order to
communicate with one another. It was illegal for slaves to congregate without a
white person being present. Since most slaves were illiterate, they couldn’t write
notes to each other. Besides the threat of a note being discovered would have been
very dangerous. Not only was it safer for slaves to communicate orally but it was a
more naturel form of communication because the African language was of the oral
tradition. Each song had a different meaning. The slave on one plantation could
hear other slaves from another plantation sending them a message through song.
The master and the overseers just assume that the slaves were just singing a
spiritual hymn while they labored in the field.
Themes & Ideas: Overcoming overwhelming obstacles

A.) illiteracy
B.) The status quo
Slave narratives written or told by slaves who have already escaped (by divine
intervention) and are reflecting back on their experiences.
Vocabulary: Abolitionist
allusion
belletristic
dialectical
eloquent
exploited
hideous
narrative
narrator
rhetorical
sympathetic
18
vernacular
Activities & Assignments:
A lot of my students don’t have any idea what slave narratives are. Students will confirm my
suspicion by not being able to answer questions one and two above. Afterwards, I will inform my
students that I wasn’t surprised since I knew very little about slave narratives when I was a junior
in high school. I will also assure them that they would be able to successfully complete the
assignment before the end of class today. Giving my students a good understanding of slave
narratives will be essential in their foundation for understanding African American literature. I will
tell my students that slave narratives were written by slaves. I will also inform my students that
slave narratives began in the oral tradition because most slaves couldn’t read or write. I will write
on the board elements to look for, compiled by Smith, in order to recognize a slave narrative. I
will also have students stand up and talk to their neighbor to confirm their understanding of what
elements to look for in a slave narrative. I will also have one of the students look up the definition
of the word “allusion.”
Smith’s Elements of Slave Narratives:
a.) a story teller speaking in the first person

b.) Reflecting back on their experiences after reaching the promised land
c.) written to appeal to the conscience of white women
1 immoral breakup if the black family (January first audience day)
2 misconduct of the master and sexual abuse (focusing on the slave woman)
3. severe punishment and treatment of slaves
d.) the escape of the slave
e.) divine intervention of God or higher power
f.) crossing the Ohio River (Jordan River)
g.) Freedom.
Allusion: Indirect or casual references to other works

19
Moses: Narrative
Pharaoh: Slave Master
Egyptians: Whites who are involved in maintaining slavery
Israelite: Slaves
Angels: Abolitionist movement (Anti-Slavery movements, underground railroad) The
Quakers
Daniel: Slaves who made it to the promise land
Every man: Slaves who are in bondage
We: Slaves.
Oral Tradition Quotation from Gates

For slaves the concept of the sacred signified a strong will incorporate ‘within
this world all the elements of the divine.’ The songs were sung not just in ritual
worship but throughout the day meant that they served as powerful shields against
the values of the slave holders and their killing definitions of black humanity. For
one thing, along with a sense of the slaves’ personal self-worth as children of a
mighty God, the spirituals offered them much-needed psychic escape from the
workaday world of slavery’s restrictions and cruelties. Certainly, ‘this world is
not my home’ was a steady theme in the spirituals, one that offered its
singer/hearers visions of a peaceful, loving realm beyond the one in which they
labored. Some of the songs bespoke the dream of flying away, leaving the world
of care behind” (Gates 5).
CD: By playing songs from the CD on the oral tradition, included with The Norton Anthology
African American Literature, students will receive the background knowledge needed to
connect their prior knowledge with the new information. With the aid of the CD booklet, I
was able to give an introduction to each song before I played them.
Quotes From The Norton Anthology African American Literature CDBooklet
Go Down, Moses
“In this freedom song of African American slaves, identification with the Old Testament Jews,
with Moses, and with a wrathful, protective God is direct and powerful. The intensity of his
delivery of these powerful lyrics (LET MY PEOPLE GO!) makes it clear why slave holders
threatened to punish any slave heard singing this song” (Norton CD Booklet).
Been in the Storm So Long
“This Negro spiritual offers religious testimony along with lightly veiled notes of protest. It sees
life as a long storm through which one’s travels yearning for a little time to oneself (always in
short supply to the slaves)-time for peace and prayer and reflection upon deliverance into a just
and quiescent, comforting the realm of God. Such ‘escapist’ songs offered slaves the consoling
20
promise of a better world from which escape was a powerful motive” (Norton CD Booklet).
Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?
“This song of slavery and freedom again appropriates an Old Testament seer and strong man of
God, Daniel, as a heroic exemplar. Like Jonah and the ‘Hebrew Children’-also often the hero of
the spirituals-Daniel was protected by ‘my Lord’ and delivered from confinement and danger:
‘Why not every man?’” (Norton).
Steal Away to Jesus
“Like ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,’ this song is often singled out by historians of slavery as a
signal song for slaves planning to attempt escape: ‘I ain’t got long to stay here.’ If so, its tune
must have been signal enough, for it is hard to imagine slaves singing out loud about stealing
anything-least of all their freedom. The lyrics here are magnificent in their compressed eloquence:
‘My Lord, He calls me, / He calls me by thunder, / The trumpet sounds within-a my soul, / I ain’t
got long to stay here.’ Even for those not specifically planning to run away, ‘Steal Away’ testified
to the desire for private time with Jesus and to the assurance that the Day of Judgment would
bring retribution to sinners ‘a-trembling’ and, for the righteous, a sanctuary of peace and rest at
‘home’ in Heaven” (Norton CD Booklet).
Take My Hand, Precious Lord
“‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ was written out of the anguish of the family tragedy. Her skillful
embellishment . . . and the overall intensity of her performance makes her a storyteller of a very
soulful order. Like the song of slavery, the story told here is of a ‘weak,’ ‘worn’ stormy life and
nighttime cries for God to ‘take my hand,’ to ‘lead me home,’ This tremendously moving funeral
song- and standard church song for all occasions-mixed a tragic sense of life with the triumphal
assurance of spiritual comfort and release” (Norton CD Booklet).
.
Activities & Assignments:
Students will break up into small groups in order to answer questions three
and four for each song they hear on the Norton CD. Then each group will present their
findings to the class. After each presentation, I had each individual complete the original
assignment on the board (answering questions one and two) in order to check their
understanding of slave narratives.
Unit Two: The Slave Narrator

2.) Why did the authors write? (What was their motivation/purpose?)
21
3.) To whom were the authors writing and why?

4.) Why is it important for someone to want to tell their own personal story
even when they don’t really know who would want to listen to it?
Possible answers: To come to terms with who he or she is. To get a sense of oneself.
The art of telling is the act of self creation.
To be remembered.
In order for the world to know what is actually going on
Some people write for a sense of injustice. Maybe if someone could read
their story maybe change could come.
Questions: What driving force caused thousands of slaves, most of who had to either learn
to read or write or rely on someone else to write down their story for them, to
want to tell their story?
Answers: To write themselves into being to justify themselves to themselves in order to

find self-identityy.
Gates suggests, “African American slaves, remarkably, sought to write

themselves out of slavery by mastering the Anglo-American belletristic tradition”
(Gates xviii).
Smith writes that slave narrators’ writings were intended for social change.
Slave Narrative Quote from Smith

The slave narrative also shares the ‘before’ and ‘after’ structure of the spiritual
autobiography. Each account is focused on experience of a protagonist who
speaks in the first person, and the protagonist’s point of view is that of a freed
person looking back on the experience of chattel slavery. This movement from
slavery to freedom in the contact afforded by hindsight gives each narrative a
curiously ironic tone: the writer searches into the harsh reality of his or her
personal past in order to establish the condition of slavery from which the later
portions of the narrative will illustrate a blessed deliverance (Smith 396).
Background information on the Narrative of Olaudah, Alex Haley’s Roots
I discovered Olaudah Equiana and Harriet Jacobs in the chapter on slave narratives in
African American Writers. This chapter also gave me a better understanding of Frederick
Douglass’ “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself” in
The Norton Anthology African American Literature. There is also a good introduction to these
three writers in the anthology. As I stated earlier, I was now getting a better general understanding
22
of the purpose behind the writings of the slave narratives as well as common reoccurring themes
suggested by Smith. Slave narrators were writing to share their experience for support of whites
for social change. Olaudah Equiana’s narrative is a perfect example of someone, who had been a
black slave, writing in order to prove to white audiences that blacks were intellectually equal to
white writers by being capable of writing just as well as they do. This supports Gates’ theory that
black slaves had the ability of “mastering the Anglo-American belletristic tradition” (Gates xviii).
Also, the two central themes, the splitting up the black family and cruel physical sexual abuse of
slave women are found in the work of Equiana and Jacobs.
Equiana’s “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa,
the African, Written by Himself” deals with the biculture identification of slaves. Olaudah Equiano
or Gustavus Vassa’s two names are a perfect “example of what W. E. B. Du Bois would call
‘double-consciousness’- the African American’s fateful sense of ‘twoness’ born of a bicultural
identification with both an African heritage and a European education” (Gates 139). At first
Equiano was beaten for not answering to the new name his white master had given him. I believe
that this was Equiana’s way of hanging onto his own identity which was his rich family heritage.
This is similar to blacks today who hang onto their black dialect because they view standard
English as a threat to their identity. Not only did Equiana’s superiors take his freedom from him
but they also wanted to strip Equiana of his identity. Equiana discovered by mastering the
European literary method he was able to thrust “his white reader into the mind and heart of a
black youth innocent of the monstrous injustice that was about to befall him” (Gates 141). Many
black writers have been taken more seriously when they tell their story in the standard form. The
two names of Equiana are a good indication that Equiana was able to tell his story by mastering
the standard form while maintaining his own identity. This is similar to blacks today who are
23
bidialectical. I will be able to convey to my class the importance of assimilating into one’s society
while being able to maintain one’s culture at the same time. It is very important that students
understand that Equiana’s need to tell his story was so great that he was willing to master the
education of another culture in order to do so. I would ask my students whether Smith’s or Gates’
theory best describes Equiana’s motivation.
Alex Haley’s Roots has some similarities to the work of Equiana. It also became apparent
to me that both authors felt the importance of sharing African mannerisms, customs, and family
structure by writing in detail about these things. Both authors were trying to convey to the reader
the black identity and family structure that whites have stolen from the slaves as well as their
freedom. The theme of splitting up the family is a central theme in both books. Both authors also
give a vivid account of the fear of Africans, who had never seen a white man when they first came
in contact with whites. Both authors were trying to convey to the reader that Africans found
whites and European culture just as strange as whites viewed blacks and African culture. This
supports the theory that literature helps us know more about other cultures. Being able to connect
to the slaves’ experiences helps us to understand the humanity of someone else. The writings were
so descriptive students are able to share in the narrator’s first encounter with white people. Both
authors also gave a very descriptive detail of the horrible boat trip coming from Africa, so terrible
that many captives would have committed suicide if they hadn’t been prevented by the white crew
members. Equiano writes that one African man who had tried to comment suicide was stopped by
the ship’s crew, and they “afterwards flogged him unmercifully for attempting to prefer death to
slavery” (Gates 159). Equiano felt that his meanest African masters treated him far better than the
nicest white master. This was immediately apparent to Equiano when he first arrived in Virginia
County at the age of twelve, and encountered a woman chained to the stove with an iron machine
24
on her head (Iron Muzzle) which prevented her from eating or speaking. Such experience that
slaves wrote about were more powerful than any historian could produce. They were able to give
a first-hand account of what it was like to be black in America. This group of people, who had
their humanity as well as their freedom taken away from them, wrote eloquently to define
themselves against blind stereo types.
Goals: I want students to be able to answer the four questions at the head of the unit in order to
demonstrate their understanding of why slave narrators wrote. Students will be able to
connect the article, entitled “Anonymous” with slave narratives. It is important the
students understand that the success of slave narrators was due to how elegantly these
exslaves were able to give personal testimony to the white world about how it was to be a
black slave in America.
Themes & Ideas: The experiences of ancestors being passed down from generation to
generation preserved in the oral tradition until those narratives could be
written down. Alex Haley’s Roots is a prefect example of this. These
narrators shared what it was like to be black in America victimized by the
status quo of the time.
Vocabulary: bicultural
captives
heritage
illustrate
protagonist
status quo
Activities & Assignment:
Students will be assigned to read an article on their desk entitled “Anonymous,” and to
write a reading response. This article is about an old man who sees a young man who is walking
at dawn along the sea shore, picking up starfishes which have washed up on the shore, and
throwing them back into the sea. When the old man asks the youth why he was doing this, the
young man explains that his is saving their lives before they die. The old man explains to the youth
that there are millions of starfishes washed up on the shore and that he small deeds couldn’t make
25
much of a difference. The young man looks at the starfish in his hand, then flings it into the sea
and answers “‘it makes a difference to this one’” (Anonymous). In short, this article is about every
individual’s contribution can make a difference to someone no matter how small it may seem
differ from the status quo. I would then ask my students to write a response about how this
article ties in with narrators and abolitionists who were outnumbered in their efforts to bring
social change by rebelling against the status quo. Students will use what they have learned about
slave narratives to complete the assignment. Afterwards I would give an introduction on Olaudah
Equiano or Gustavus Vassa and Alex Haley. Assign the class an oral reading of the following
works in their textbook.
Readings: Equiano, Olaudah. “From Africa to America” Literature and Language ML HM

11 Yellow Level. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Haley, Alex. “From Roots” Literature and Language ML HM 11 Yellow Level
Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1994. article, entitled
“Anonymous”
I will go over the question discussed at the beginning of this unit, and I
will have the students write a reading response, on both stories, by
answering the four questions.
Example: Students’ Writing Response

What was Equiano’s purpose in writing about his experience? Explain your answer.
Student Response:
Equiano’s story was written to show the despair in the newly-captured, soon-to-be slaves on their
journey from the homeland to the hate-land. We learn of their shrieks of agony and inhumane
travel conditions as well as the derogating auction. The obviously clear expression, “no where to
run” effected the captives’ mentality and cause many to suicide while the fighting instinct in
Equiano and the others survivors caused them to continue on. This is why he wrote the story.
Equiano’s purpose in writing about his experience was to let people know how the slaves were
treated.
Equiano’s purpose in writing was to inform everyone of the horror and suffering of his journey.
He wanted to show the world how cruelly the slaves were treated.
26
Equiano’s purpose in writing was to show the horrific truth.
Equiano’s purpose in writing was to let us know how it feels to be captured and sold into slavery.
Equiano’s purpose for writing this story about his life in slavery is to let everyone know how
terrifying it was to be a slave.
Equiano’s purpose in writing was to tell of his experience coming over.
So that others would understand how terrible it was.
Equiano’s purpose for writing was to let the world know how terrible the slave situation was. He
wanted to paint a picture in peoples’ head so that they would put a stop to slavery.
So we can understand better the horror that they went through and how wrong it was.
I feel that Equiano’s purpose was to show us how it is to be on a slave ship and how it feels to be
captured at such a young age and how they were treated when they got off the ship.
Unit Three: Contribution of Women to Slave Narrative

Questions: 1.) What part did female slave narratives play in American history?
3.) To whom were the authors writing and why?
Goals: Students will be able to use the material to answer the three questions on the board. The
students should also be able to demonstrate in their writings whether they support Gates’
or Smith’s theory on why slave narrators were writing.
Themes & Ideas: The experiences of ancestors being passed down from generation to
generation preserved in the oral tradition until those narratives could be
written down. Sojourner Truth is a prefect example of this. These
narrators shared what it was like to be black in America victimized by the
status quo of the time.
Vocabulary: abomination
controversial
elegiac
enigmatic
fugitive
indisputable
Quaker
segregation
unconditional
27
Background information on the Narrative of Wheatley and Truth
Going over students’ responses to Equiano’s work would be a good review of the
previous unit and a good bridge to introduce the works of Phillis Wheatley and Sojourner Truth.
Unlike the men, these women were able to give a first hand account of what it was like to be a
black woman in America. Wheatley was actually “the first African American to publish a book and
the first to achieve an international reputation as a writer” (Gates 164). From the beginning,
Wheatley’s work has been under a lot of controversy. At first, proslavery defenders argued that
she couldn’t have written her poems by herself because blacks were incapable of such eloquent
work. They felt that blacks were inferior people who were only capable of contributing physical
labor to the good of society and definitely unable to produce quality literature. These critics
believed blacks “lacked the imagination, originality, and vision to qualify as fully human, the
equals of whites. Wheatley’s landmark volume of poetry challenged these prejudices (Gates 165).
The general public had to be convinced that Wheatley had actually written her own poems
without the aid of white influence. Wheatley has also been criticized for not using her talents to
aid abolitionists. This criticism would support Gates’ “belletristic literature” theory that slave
narrators wrote only for the sake of artistic value. Smith argues that “Wheatley does address the
issue of slavery, that her work manifests a keen awareness of her African heritage, and that, rather
than composing derivative or imitative verse, she constructs a highly original, even revolutionary
poetics that prefigures British and Continental romanticism” (Smith 473). Proof of this can be
found in Wheatley’s “On Being Brought From Africa.” In this work even though Wheatley give
28
thanks to the white Christians that converted her, but she also criticizes those Christians who
condone slavery. This was a very bold and radical statement for a woman in Wheatley’s time and
situation.
Sojourner Truth is a prefect example of a narrator whose work was preserved in the oral
tradition until it could be written down. Truth never wrote down any of her speeches because she
was illiterate. She was a product of slavery. So other people wrote down Truth’s speeches word
for word persevering her black vernacular which was her black identity. Truth once said “‘I
cannot read a book, but I can read the people’” (Gates 197). Truth was an evangelist who God
had changed her name from Isabella to Sojourner Truth so that she could travel across the country
speaking the truth of the evils of slavery. Even though she was “not an eloquent speaker, she was
dramatic and very effective” (Altman 69). She was asked to join the antislavery activists in
Massachusetts by “earning fame for her ability to deliver folksy as well as fiery speeches that
denounced slavery as a moral abomination tempting the wrath of God on America” (Gates 197).
“I have borne thirteen children and seen them almost

all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with my
mother’s grief none but Jesus heard.” -Sojourner Truth

The assignment the students would find on the board, when they first arrive, is to read the article
written by Gayle Dantzler entitled “Truth about slavery Must Come Before an Apology” and
“Tobacco’s Story in Intertwined With Slavery’s” written by Derrick Z. Jackson. Along with this
assignment, they would be assigned to write a reading response answering the above three
questions.
I would divide students into groups. The first group would read Ferris’ Walking the Road to
Freedom and write a reading response answering the three questions written on the board. Then
they would have to present their findings to the class and take turns reading aloud the book to the
class.
I would divide the six biographies, in Altman’s Extraordinary Black Americans, among the other
29
two groups. They would also read the material and write a reading response answering the three
questions. Then they would have to present their findings to the class. For the sake of time, I
would prefer that these two groups just give a summary on the material they read. They are
welcome to read excerpts in order to support their summaries.
The next three groups had to do the same exact assignment as the first group reading Hopkinson’s
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt. and the other group reading Porter’s Meet Addy and the
third group reading Porter’s Addy Saves the Day.
Before the oral reading, I would give an introduction on Wheatley and Truth with the intent of
covering the information that either of the groups didn’t mention. Afterward, I would assign
Truth, Sojourner. “Ain’t I a Woman?” Literature and Language ML HM 11 Yellow Level.
Readings:
Gayle Dantzler’s “Truth about slavery Must Come Before an Apology” and “Tobacco’s Story in
Intertwined With Slavery’s” written by Derrick Z. Jackson Hopkinson’s Sweet Clara and the
Freedom Quilt Porter’s Meet Addy and the third group reading Porter’s Addy Saves the Day.
Six biographies from in Altman’s Extraordinary Black Americans; Lucy Terry Prince, Phillis
Wheatley, Elizabeth Freeman, Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth.
Truth, Sojourner. “Ain’t I a Woman?” Literature and Language ML HM 11 Yellow Level.
Unit Four: Frederick Douglass
3.) To whom were the authors writing to and why?
Goals: Frederick Douglass shared what it was like to be black in America victimized by
the status quo of the time. Focusing on question number two will help students
determine what was the driving force behind Douglass’s work. The material
covered in this unit will help students to answer the three questions.
Themes & Ideas: Douglass felt such a need to share his story he had to teach himself to read
and write in order to do so.
Answers: To write themselves into being to justify themselves to themselves in order to

find self-identity.
Gates suggest, “African American slaves, remarkably, sought to write

themselves out of slavery by mastering the Anglo-American belletristic tradition”
(Gates xviii).
Smith writes that slave narrators writings were intended for social change.
30
Vocabulary: chastisement
conceding
constitution
enfranchisement
deprivation
disposition
fugitive
manifested
peculiar
Background information on Frederick Douglass
After escaping from slavery, Douglass was asked to speak at an anti-slavery convention.
The crowd was struck with how elegantly this exslave was able to give a personal testimony of
how it was to be a black slave in America. One listener stated,
I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, my perception of the

enormous outrage which is inflicted by it, on the godlike nature of its victims, was
rendered far more clear than ever . . . I appealed to them, whether they would ever allow
him to be carried back into slavery, -law or no law, constitution or no constitution. The
response was unanimous and in thunder-tones ”NO!” (Gates 303).
Douglass had spoken so eloquently that many had a difficult time believing that he had ever been
a slave. So Douglass was encouraged to write to validate his experiences by writing Narrative of
the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Other believed that
Douglass’ speaking talent was a good indication that he would be very effective in the abolitionist
movement. Douglass like the other narrators shared with the general white public what it was like
to be a black slave in America. Since Douglass’ father was white, he was also able to share the
double relation slave had to endure because many slaves were both “servants and children to their
master and father” (Smith 403). Even though Douglass was not a black woman, he was still able
to share a child’s point of view of seeing the abuse of a female relative.
The seven-year-old Douglass learns what it means to be a slave by witnessing the
flogging of his aunt . . . The experience of young Douglass; the scene itself and the
31
injustice perpetrated on the powerless victim of this sexual and physical abuse belongs to
the narrative’s intended purpose of revealing to a primarily white audience the evils
inflicted on black slaves by their perverted masters and overseers” (Smith 405-406).
Frederick Douglass had also “dedicated his leadership to the ideal of building a racially integrated
America in which skin color would cease to determine an individual’s social value and economic
options” (Gates 299). Douglass “had come to realize his need for an anchor in the northern black
community if he was ever to achieve a fully liberated sense of self” (Gates 301). Douglass seemed
to be motivated by both Gates’ and Smith’s theory of why slave narrators wrote. Frederick
Douglass as well as other slave narrators literary work, whether or not it was only intended for
artistic value only, help to change the consciousness of the American public which lead to
changing the status quo. Understanding this concept will help students to see that impact that
slave narratives had on American history.
Readings: Frederick. Douglass “Untie His Hands” Literature and Language ML HM 11
Yellow Level. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Altman’s Extraordinary Black Americans on Frederick Douglass. Advertisements
on slave auctions advertising adult male and female as well as children slave and
runaway slaves.
Activities & Assignment: The assignment the students would find on the board the next time they
arrive is to read the bibliographies in Altman’s Extraordinary Black Americans on Frederick
Douglass. I would also pass out advertisements on slave auctions advertising adult male and
female as well as children slaves and runaway slaves. I would have written an appropriate writing
response assignment. Then I would give an introduction to Frederick Douglass, a runaway slave,
who “took his first covertly rebellious steps by teaching himself to read and write” (Gates 300).
32
“For Douglass, the value and importance of literacy in gaining his freedom was never in question”
(Smith 400). After my introduction, I would assign the class to read orally, Frederick. Douglass’
“Untie His Hands” I would have the students focus on the three questions asked throughout our
unit on slave narratives. Either a quiz or an oral class discussion would be appropriate for this
assignment in order to determine whether or not I reached my goal.
Unit Five: Frances E. Harper’s Contribution to Slave Narrative

Reconstruction Post Civil War Period
4.) Why was narrators’ use of Biblical allusion a very power tool for their
cause?
Goals: Students will be able to understand why narrators’ use of Biblical allusion was very
power tool for their cause. Students will be developing their skills in using comparison
contrast analysis by fining similarities and difference in the works of Stowe’s and
Harper’s version of Eliza’s flight. Students will be able to answer questions one thru
three by reading Harper’s Aunt Chloe poems.
Themes & Ideas: Harper’s Aunt Chloe poems are of women who defied the status quo by
refusing to be dependent and passive creatures. Instead they became
“‘Byronic heroine [s],’ that is, women who reject ‘culture commandments
that failed to meet the needs’ of their souls” (Smith 169). Harper was the
forerunner for authors like Zora Neale Hurston who became the
forerunner for authors like Alice walker and Toni Morrison.
Vocabulary: enslavement
consequently
controversy
defiance
devastating
humanity
integration
33
seminary
sentiment
temperance
violated
I believe that it would be essential to introduce the work of Frances E. Harper as the final
slave narrative. Harper was “one of the first women to become a professional lecturer” (Smith
159). She is also a key figure in this period because her work was greatly influenced by runaway
slaves. “Frances Harper made ‘her home at the station of the Underground Rail Road, where she
frequently saw passengers and heard their melting tales of suffering and wrong, which intensely
increased her sympathy in their behalf’” (Smith 160). Harper became more passionate in her fight
for civil rights when she learned that a Maryland law was a result of a free black man being
“arrested and sold into slavery, escaped, only to be recaptured, beaten, and sent farther south.
Shortly afterward he died as a result of his beating and the harsh conditions of his beating and
harsh conditions of his enslavement. ‘Upon that grave, I pledged myself to the Anti-Slavery cause,
‘” stated Harper. In Harper’s work, she used strong allusions to the Bible. “Just as Phillis
Wheatley had done with her poem ‘David of Goliath’ nearly a hundred years earlier, Harper chose
an Old Testament subject and emphasized details that invited comparisons between biblical
situations and current conditions” (Smith 168). Biblical allusion was a powerful tool for slave
narrators because abolitionists could use the similarities in the Bible to prove that slavery was
wrong, and God would punish these who condone such an evil act. Those who supported slavery
could also use the Bible to condone slavery because great people in the Bible owned slaves too.
Biblical allusion would be a good topic for class discussion, after reading Harper’s “Moses: A
34
Story of the Nile,” I would divide students into six groups. The first three groups would be those
who would use the Bible to support the industry of slavery, and the last three groups would be
those who use the Bible to denounce its practices. Students would use The Bible for Student of
Literature and Art for a resource. Then I would have groups number one thru three compete in a
debate with the opposing groups number one thru three. After the debate I would then have
students get back into their groups and reverse sides. This would help students develop their
ability to see things from the prospective of others.
I would also have students read an excerpt, of Eliza’s flight, from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle
Tom’s Cabin. Then I would assign Harper’s “Eliza Harris” and compare the two versions. I would
point out that Stowe gives Eliza animal characteristics where as Harper gives her human
characteristic. I would also point out that Stowe gives the master animal characteristics, and
Harper also gives Eliza metaphorically animal characteristics. Both authors use figurative
language to describe Eliza’s flight. Students will be developing their skills in using comparison
contrast analysis by fining similarities and difference in the works of Stowe’s and Harper’s version
of Eliza’s flight.
“Stowe describes . . . Haley, the slave master, pursues Eliza ‘like a hound after a deer.’ Stowe’s
narrator tells the reader that Eliza leaped with ‘wild cries and desperate energy,’ that she ‘saw
nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the
bank.’ Harper, on the other hand, forcefully manipulates Stowe’s simile of the pursued and
pursuing: ‘Like a fawn from the arrow, startled and wild, / A woman swept by us, bearing a child.’
The metaphor emphasizes the swiftness and desperation of the flight, but Harper’s version makes
it clear that it is a ‘woman’ with a ‘child’ being chased. The next lines emphasize Eliza’s humanity,
35
carefully describing her physical features that convey her purposeful decision” (Smith 162).
According to Smith, Harper’s Aunt Chloe poems are one of her “most important
contribution to American letters.” The Aunt Chloe’s poems are a part a Reconstruction volume,
Sketches of Southern Life. “The heart of this volume is a series of six poems, narrated by Aunt
Chloe, that form at once the autobiography of a former slave woman and an oral history of
slavery and Reconstruction . . . with slavery a thing of the past and Reconstruction still appearing
to promise an improved future, there was more room for play, for humor, and for the exploration
of racial diversity (Smith 169-170). Aunt Chloe, like the other slave narrators, gives a first hand
account on was to be a black slave in white America. This information would be a good
introduction to the Aunt Chloe’s poems because I can point out how Harper’s work made her a
forerunner for authors like Zora Neale Hurston who became the forerunner for authors like Alice
walker and Toni Morrison who also wrote about how it feels to be black and oppressed in white
America.
Afterwards, I would either assign a five-paragraph essay on slave narratives or give a test
or a quiz in order to determine what the students have learned. The advance honors class or my
debate team might be interested in doing a Reader’s theater using Addy’s Theater Kit by Valerie
Trip. This would be a good project to connect the slave narrative with the literature of the
reconstruction to the new Negro period because the Addy’s series covers the slavery, civil war,
and reconstruction period. This play covers an important period after the civil war when many
freed slaves were seeking desperately to reunite with family members who were separated during
slavery and the war. The Addy series also validates Dantzler disclaiming the myths that “most
owners’, although misguided, were kind. Freed slaves took their former masters’ name to show
36
respect. They were like members if the family, black children playing happily with white children.
In fact, black children labored for the privilege of existence alongside adults. If their labor wasn’t
necessary, they were sold” (Dantzler). Slave children had to grow up quickly. After discovering
the secret actions of her son, Harriet Jacobs later wrote, “such prudence may seem extraordinary
in a boy of twelve years, but slaves, being surrounded by mysteries, deception, and dangers, early
learn to be suspicious and watchful, and prematurely cautious and cunning” (Gates 234). Jacobs
points out that the forced behavior of black slaves shouldn’t be judged by the moral “rules”
applied to free whites. “This is a fair specimen of how the sense is educated by slavery. When a
man has his wages stolen from him, year after year, and the laws sanction and enforce the theft,
how can he be expected to have more regard to honesty than has the man who robs him?” (Gates
239). This is very similar to what I learned about children, after reading Ted Kotlowitz’s novel
There Are No Children Here, in Chicago being rob of their childhood because they had to grow
up fast in order to survive the gangs and drug dealers. Kotlowitz argues that these children like
slaves shouldn’t be judged by the moral “rules” applied to whites who are not oppressed in
America society. This maybe another debate student groups may be interested in participating in.
Summary of Slave Narratives
According to Smith, slave narrators wrote to strike a chord in the consciousness of whites
in order compel them (whites) to want social change. The intuition of slavery was part of the
status quo of the time, and these slave narrators along with abolitionists fought to change the
conscience of the social norm. Black slaves gave the general white public a first hand account of
what it was like to be black in America. Blacks wanted to prove to whites that they (blacks), if
given the chance, were just as intellectual as whites and worthy of the same freedom of
democracy privileged to white. Slave narrators also wanted to expose cruel conditions of slavery
37
to the general public. Authors’ targeted audiences were white women because they represented
the largest percentage of the readerships. “By the 1840s, the identification of Afro-Americans and
women on the grounds of their shared feminine traits was a common theme among anti-slavery
clergymen” (Smith 402). Black writers like Sojourner Truth joins “the budding feminist
movement of the 1859s” in order to form alliance with white women for equal rights for blacks as
well as for women (Gates 197). In addition, it was easier to get the sensitivity of white women
because they were able to sympathize with slave mothers having their children torn from their
breast. This is a universal theme because even mothers today can relate to the fear of losing their
children. White female audiences were also sympathetic to sexual abuse against women. The laws
of the day, which catered to white males, made it possible for white women to also fall victim to
spousal sexual abuse. Slave narrators were also targeting other black through the idea of self-
creation through autobiography even though most blacks could not read or write.
Slave Narrative Quiz

I asked them to tell me what they knew about slave narratives by having them list a few universal
themes they assumed we would find in the individual works.
Unit Six: The Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance Period: 1865-1919
W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Dunbar
Questions: 1.) How have slave narratives influenced their work?

4.) What part did their writings play in American history?
Goals: My goal is to help students to see why Du Bois and Dunbar wrote and what tools they
were willing to use in order to he heard. I need to make a connection of the work of these
authors to the works of slave narrators.
Themes & Ideas: Du Bois and Dunbar, like past slave narrators, wrote in the style that
would get white readerships to listen to them.
Vocabulary: arraignment
catastrophe
citizenship
38
colonialism
commentary
Communist
conservative
constitutional
economic
guile
indictment
intellectuals
myriad subtleties
regimes
sociology
suppression
suspicious
turbulent
vile
Background information on W. E. B. Du Bois
Even though slavery was a thing of the past, blacks were still living in a society that oppressed
them in different ways. Instead of writing about the oppression of slavery, blacks were now
writing about what is was like to be an African American living in an oppressed society. Blacks
were not dehumanized as property any more but they were still treated as an inferior species who
was not equal to whites. Writers like W. E. B. Du Bois were now writing for equal rights of
blacks. During the Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance: 1865-1919, W. E. B. Du Bois
wrote for not only for civil rights limited to America but for universal civil right targeting the
black as well as the white intellectual. He had limited his hope for the race to the talented ten who
were the black elite who would raise to leadership over the common blacks. Du Bois wanted
intellectual blacks to form alliance with intellectual whites to accomplish this goal.
“Du Bois seems to belong to a tradition of the cultured man that was perhaps best
characterized by Matthew Arnold. Both Arnold and Du Bois, along with men like Walter
Pater and Oscar Wilde, seem to express a similar point of view when they speak of culture
39
and the cultural man. For Du Bois and Arnold, culture consisted of the study of harmonious
perfection and the acquisition and diffusion of ‘the best that has been thought and known in
the world . . . [in order] to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light [Matthew
Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, ed. J. Dover Wilson (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 48, 70]’”
(Baker 96-97).
W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Dunbar are part of the period called Literature in The
Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance: 1865-1919. Du Bois was one of the founders of
the NAACP. He was the first black to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He was also the
first black publisher of a popular magazine called the Crisis, “the official magazine to the NAACP,
and ran it for twenty-four years” (Altman 124). I had a difficult time trying to read and
comprehend Du Bois’ The Soul of Black Folks until I saw the video entitled W. E. B. Du Bois - A
Biography in Four Voices directed by Louis Massiah. While teaching Du Bois was touched to
discovered the cries of people, who were not too far removed by slavery. This had been foreign to
Du Bois because his breeding had aided him in avoiding the complex that comes with a
suppressed system. Du Bois found himself in a country still twisted by the legacy of slavery. The
violence against blacks was rapid in the 1980s. With the race problems of race relationships in the
south and the growth of industry in the north, society was asking the question of what to do with
black labors. Du Bois believed that white would find another way to exploit black unless there
was a rapid change in society. While at the University of Pennsylvania, Du Bois did a two year
extensive study on the sociology on blacks. He went into the black neighborhoods knocking on
door interviewing individual black families. He felt that before any seriously sociological among
whites could be accomplished, researchers had to first uncover the truth about the black condition
which is the tool to combating racism. Du Bois believed that the race should not go forward
40
without a road map. After the first world war, the boundaries had changed. The war was a war of
world democracy. After seeing the treatment of blacks after the war, Du Bois regretted his
support in encouraging blacks to enlist in the battle.
Also the chapter entitled “VI The Black Man of Culture W. E. B. Du Bois and The Soul of
Black Folk” in Houston A. Baker, Jr.’s Long Black Song: Essays in Black American Literature
and Culture also gave me the insight needed to understand Du Bois’ The Soul of Black Folks. I
then understood that the “Talented Tenth” Du Bois was addressing evolved from what he calls
“Black Men of Culture.” These black men of culture are socially-educated-groomed black men.
They represent the cream of the crop in the black race. Du Bois believed Du Bois’ belief finally
clashed with Booker T. Washington’s “Tuskegee machine” (Tuskegee education plans) which was
the Tuskegee institution for training blacks for white businesses. Du Bois believed that
“Washington emerges as a man who has sold out the rights of his people, who has
forfeited the black man’s demands for political power, civil rights, and higher education.
Moreover, he is presented as a leader whose career was paralleled by a retrogression of
his followers and whose leadership was ‘imposed’ from the outside on an unwilling
people. Finally, Washington’s entire career comes to be viewed as a paradox, and the
man himself as a submissive compromiser, a somewhat naive, proletarian Uncle Tom”
(Baker 103).
Booker T. Washington master of arts required to win the support of the head whites industry
owner focus on black labor with whites on top and blacks below. Du Bois felt that Booker T.
Washington’s plan was stopping black progress in education. Manual training verse liberal art is
still an issue today. Du Bois stated that blacks needed to be active in government as well as
manual labor. Booker T. Washington tried to punish anyone who publicly rebelled against his plan.
41
After hearing this, Du Bois dedicated a chapter in his book The Soul of Black Folk to this issue.
While in Atlanta, Du Bois came face to face with violence against blacks because of deep
seeded racism. On his way to the new paper company to make a complaint, he discovered the
ankles of a black man, who he had heard about being lynch by a mob of whites, in a butcher shop
next to the pig meat. Du Bois went home and cried. When Du Bois’ son became sick, neither the
white doctor nor the black doctor would come to check on him. The white doctor wouldn’t come
because the boy was black, and the black doctor would not come because the boy had blue eyes.
This doctor feared reproach. Needless to say, the child died because of the lack of medical
attention. This really crushed Du Bois. In the video, Du Bois’ granddaughter states that her
grandfather poured his emotions into the chapter entitled “Of the Passing of the First Born” in the
Souls of Black Folk. She also stated that one could get a real sense of what her grandfather felt by
reading this chapter. I was very moved by this part of the film and was encouraged to read this
chapter. The works of Du Bois were the turning point in black literature. In the slave narratives,
blacks were writing to white for social change. Du Bois believed that blacks could solve their own
problems by electing the talented tenth to represent and govern the common black labors. Even
though I respect the work of Du Bois, I am outraged when I think about the role of the talented
ten. It seems like the elite blacks were discriminating against common ordinary black. Throughout
The Souls of Black Folks, one finds invidious distinctions between the man of culture and all
black people who inhabit the realms ‘beneath’ him. One finds the author speaking of the “‘black
lowly,’ ‘Sambo,’ the ‘black peasantry,’ and the ‘black crowd gaudy and dirty’” (Baker 102). I see
this philosophy as dividing the race instead of uniting it. The Bible says that a house divided
against its self will not stand.

42
In class I would pass out Susan Altman’s biography of Du Bois. I would have the students
read it individually before breaking them up in groups. In their groups they would have to discuss
what they got out of the information. Then they would have to write out a summary of the group
discussion to hand in and orally present to the class. Afterward, I generate class discussion by
sharing with my students what I have learned Du Bois and his “Talented Tenth.” I am sure my
students would be outraged by Du Bois earlier philosophy of the “Talented Tenth.” It would also
be important for me to make a connection from slave narratives to the work of Du Bois. I would
remind students that Du Bois like slave narrators were writing about what it was like to be black
in America. I would tie this in with the introduction to the video on Du Bois. Since the video is so
long, I would only play the video through to where Du Bois’ granddaughter introduces her
grandfather’s chapter entitled “Of the Passing of the First Born” in the Souls of Black Folk. I like
her introduction to this chapter, and I could not do justice to it. Then the class and I would take
turns reading this chapter aloud. Afterward I would lead the class discussion by pointing out the
similarities to how slave mothers and Du Bois felt because of the lost of a child due to the social
system. The students would have a better understand of the work of Du Bois and make
connections to slave narratives by answering the three leading questions.
I would also ask how Du Bois’ work differs from earlier works covered in class. Then I
played began the video on Du Bois again. This time I would let the video play through to the
dispute of manual training verses liberal art. The video does a good job in covering the conflict
between Du Bois and Booker T. Washington’s ideas. Then the class I would read orally the
chapter entitled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” in the Souls of Black Folk. Then I
would lead class discussion on manual training versus liberal arts. I am sure the class and I would
43
have an interesting discussion on how the works of Du Bois differ from the earlier works covered
in class because Du Bois wrote about more current issues in which they would be able to relate
and identify with.
Background information on Paul Laurence Dunbar
Paul Dunbar like Du Bois wrote about what it was like to be a black man in America in the late
1800's and the early 1900's. Dunbar received the title of “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race” from
Booker T. Washington because his readerships consist of both white and black readers. Black
intellectuals like Dunbar had to struggle to obtain notoriety that came easier to white intellectuals.
Even though he was elected class president of a predominantly white high school and was asked
to deliver a poem for his class graduation commencement, he was “refused subsequent
employment in Dayton newspaper and legal offices because of his color” (Gates 885). So he had
to take a job as an elevator operator and wrote between calls. He finally had to take “out a loan to
subsidize the printing of his first book, Oak and Ivy” (Gates 885). This collection of poems gave
Dunbar his first break because many were impressed with his sophisticated style. Even though
Dunbar was able to demonstrate his ability to master the more formal lyric poems, his white
readership seemed too only be interested in his black dialect poetry. Dunbar once “told a friend,
‘I’ve got to write dialect poetry; it’s the only way I can get them [white people] to listen to me”
(McDougal 965). He was criticized for this approach because some of his critics believed that he
was falling right into the hands of the stereotypes exploited by white writers used to make fun of
blacks. Many of Dunbar’s supporters believed that he, like past slave narrators, wrote in the style
that would get white readerships to listen to him. Dunbar’s ‘“We Wear the Mask,’ suggests that
he may well have been aware of the liability of allowing his own poetry to evoke an image of
black folk that played on thoughtless prejudices and degrading stereotypes” (Gates 885). This
44
poem didn’t receive national notoriety until after his death at the age of thirty-three in 1906. Up
until his death, Dunbar didn’t believe his work was a complete success. In James Weldon
Johnson’s autobiography Along This Way, he quotes the last words he had heard Dunbar speaks.
“‘I have never gotten to the things I really wanted to do’” (Gates 885-886).
I will give my class an introduction on Dunbar focusing on how his uses of black dialect earn him
public notoriety. I will also stress that Du Bois and Dunbar, like past slave narrators, wrote in the
style that would get white readerships to listen to them. I will explain that Dunbar was not a “sell
out” but had to work in the social conditions of his time. I will talk about how white writers,
unlike Dunbar, were exploiting black dialect. I would ask the class if they knew what minstrel
shows were. I will inform the students that one reason these authors were writing, like past black
authors, was to defy the stereotypes whites had about blacks. Then I would steer the conversation
toward black dialect and how the country, both blacks and whites, reacted the Oakland school
board decision on Ebonics. Then I would have students read my article “Understanding Ebonics:
A Teacher’s Viewpoint.” We then would talk about how essential dialect is to works such as slave
narratives, Harper The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Faulkner, Maya Angelou and Nathan
McCall’s Makes Me Wanna Holler. I would also introduce Geneva Smitherman’s Black Talk.
Activities & Assignment: Afterwards, I can have students answer the three questions suggested
before reading Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”. I also want to keep the focus on the on going
three questions.
I generally hide my feelings when

Reason:
I might decide to hide my feelings if
45
Reason:
I can remember hiding my feelings when
Reason:
Readings:Dunbar, Paul Laurence. “We Wear the Mask” Literature and Language ML HM 11
Yellow Level. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Susan Altman’s
biography of Du Bois. chapter entitled “Of the Passing of the First Born” in the Souls of Black
Folk. chapter entitled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” in the Souls of Black Folk.
Unit Seven: The Harlem Renaissance Period: 1919-1940
Questions: 1.) What part did their writings play in American history?
4.) What part did his writings play in American history?
Goals: I need to make a connection of the work of these authors to the works of slave
narrators.
Themes & Ideas: Harlem Renaissance writers also used their art to show the world what it
was like living the life of an African American in a society that oppressed
them in different ways. These writers had a twofold mission.
1.) seeing the truth of who I am from an individual point of

view
2.) assimilating into the presentation of the entire group (This
is who were are as a whole.)
Vocabulary: abrupt
aggressive
assimilate
atmosphere
consciousness
contrive
defy
depression
deterioration
disheartened
diverse
diversity
emancipation Proclamation
exploitation
exploitation
ferment
46
generative
grudging
heritage
inaccurate
indulgence
irrevocable
optimistic
phenomenon
political
prohibition
pronouncement
reconstruction
rejuvenation
retaliate
self-assertive
Background information on the Harlem Renaissance Period
The Harlem Renaissance was the biggest push for African American literature into the
main stream of the American society. Unlike other writings, the Harlem Renaissance writers were
exhibiting to the world, “look who we are and look what kind of art we can produce”. They were
showing the world that not only selected intellectuals like Frederick Douuglass and W. E. B. Du
Bois were capable of “mastering the Anglo-American belletristic tradition” (Gates xviii). But they
these writers were displaying to the world that the wealth of the entire culture that had been
unknown to the American public and the world. The other part of America was now getting a
sense of a culture they had seen in art, theater, poetry, and music. These artists were drawing on
African American experiences. The Harlem Renaissance was a turning point in black literature,
and its effects have helped to shape African American literature today. That open the way to the
20th century artist, like Ralph Ellison, who could write about how is to be black in America. The
writers shared a common conscientiousness (goal) as well as a common theme of anger and rage
which motivated them. This was a time of celebration of black expression. Like earlier writers,
47
these authors were writing to make whites aware of black situations (problems blacks faced)
while at the same time they were trying to make blacks aware and proud of their heritage.
Langston Hughes stated, “‘It is the duty of younger Negro Artist . . . to change through the force
of his art that old whispering ‘I want to be white; hidden in the aspirations of his people, to ‘Why
should I want to be white? I am a Negro-and beautiful!’” (The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond).
Now blacks were not writing exclusively to white audiences or black intellectuals, but to the
common black. Authors like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston was glorifying the
common black. “In creating Simple, Hughes was discarding the stereotypes of the past which
glorified the so-called ‘talented tenth’ and pitied the uneducated Negro” (The Harlem Renaissance
and Beyond). In the video “Zora is My Name,” Zora Neale Hurston, who collected black
folklore, was quoted as saying, “I collected stories and songs to help make a culture of society on
the map”. Her masterpiece (work) in those blacks who lived in the rural areas of the south were
worthy of a salute to the common people who were owed respect.
After an introduction of the Harlem Renaissance, I will show the class the video “The
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond”. I also will play songs from the Harlem Renaissance period
from The Norton Anthology African American Literature CD. Students were instructed to take
notes on the video in order to help with their group research project. In a pervious class, students
would have been divided in small research groups. Students would also be taken to the school
library for a seminar, given by the school librarian, on how to do research in the school library.
The first group would have to find information of events leading up to the Harlem Renaissance
period and how these events changed the consciousness of the American black. The second group
had to find out why Harlem was the best place for this national phenomenon, and this group was
48
also responsible for finding out what was the success of the Harlem Renaissance. The third group
was responsible for finding out why Harlem was not an isolated event, what were the common
themes, and why was the Harlem Renaissance an important movement. The last group was
responsible for finding out what caused the deterioration of the Harlem Renaissance. Afterwards,
the students were required to turn in a single written assignment on their findings as well as to
give an oral report to the class.
Unit Eight: Langston Hughes
Questions: 1.) How have slave narratives influence this work?

2.) Why was Hughes writing? (What was his motivation/purpose?)
3.) To whom was he writing to and why?
4.) What part did his writings play in American history?
Goals: I need to make a connection of the work of Hughes to the works of slave
narrators.

view
Vocabulary: autobiography
biographies
chauvinistic conditioning
correspondent
critics
determination
flourishing
frequent
observations
portray
shrewd
slanders
49
valise
I would have students do a Reader’s Theater on my two favorite poems from “The
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond” video were Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” and “I, Too”
and a poem by Countee Cullen of which I could not find the title.
She went to buy a brand new hat

And she was ugly, black and fat
‘This red becomes you well,’ they said
And perched it high upon her head
And then they laughed behind her back
To see it glow against the black
She paid for it with real mien
And walked out proud as any Queen.
The students and I will have a contest to see who could do the best job reading either of the two
poems. The winners will be determined by the loud applause. I would tell my students about a
student named Jason from a previous class who won reading “Mother to Son”. He used another
student as a prop (standing in as the mother’s son). Afterwards, the students wrote a reading
response to both poems. The class would also read orally one of Hughes’ later works entitled
“Thank You M’am” Before reading the story I would lead the class into a discussion on the work
of Langston Hughes whose grandmother Mary Langston would tell him “stories about the lives of
Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and other freedom fighters (Altman 141). “In all of his
writing, Langston Hughes celebrated ordinary black working people. He liked them, felt at ease
with them, and respected them (Altman 143). I passed out the copies of Altman’s biography on
Langston Hughes, and I divided the class into small groups so that they could read, discuss, and
give a presentation on their findings. Afterwards I played an audio tape of a reading on Hughes’
50
“Let America Be America Again”. Then we divided the different voices up into parts and read it
aloud like a play. After class discussion, I gave the students a quiz using the three leading
questions since the beginning of class.
Readings:
“I, Too” Literature and Language ML HM 11 Yellow Level. Evanston, Illinois:
McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1994 audio tape of a reading on Hughes’ “Let America
Be America Again” and copies of “Let America Be America Again” Hughes’ “Thank You M’am”
Then I assigned the class to read Langston Hughes. “I, Too” Literature and Language ML HM 11
Yellow Level. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1994. I would remind
students that the poem was in the video and part of the contest. I also wanted the class to read
Hughes’ “Thank You M’am” because I think my students can identify with the young boy as well
as appreciate the talent of the author. Besides, this is one of my favorite short stories.
Unit Nine: Claude Mckay and Countee Cullen

Questions: 1.) How have slave narratives influenced this work?
2.) Why was McKay and Claude McKay writing? (What was their
motivation/purpose?)
3.) To whom were they writing to and why?
Goals: I need to make a connection of the work of these authors to the works of slave
narrators.

view
Vocabulary: accursed
belligerent
constrained
dignity
inglorious
sarcastic
51
The next class, I assigned the class an oral reading of Claude McKay’s “If We Must Die”
Readings:
“If We Must Die” Literature and Language ML HM 11 Yellow
Level. Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1994. I gave an introduction on
Claude McKay before I aloud one student to read the peon. Afterwards, I use the three questions
to generate class discussion.
I believed that the students will have a better understanding of the work if they realize what were
the common themes that the artist shared with many other writers of the Harlem Renaissance
period. The students will have a better comprehension of the artist’s work. “Most of the art work
of the Harlem Renaissance” was expression “of experienced anger and rage. Channeling of energy
from political and social criticism into poetry; fiction . . . safer ground than politics in an
atmosphere of political repression art provided the shock of recognition” (The Harlem Renaissance
and Beyond).
Activities & Assignment: After an oral introduction of Countee Cullen and a review of Claude
McKay, I broke students into groups of three. Each group was given a handout of selected poems
written by McKay and Cullen. They also received specific questions, on index cards, for each
particular peon on their group handout. I would model the procedure I wanted the students to
follow in order to complete the assignment. One member in the group had to read the question
while another member had to read the poem. The third member of the group had to write down
their findings. Afterwards, each group had to orally present their finding to the rest of the class
since each group had different poems and questions. The students demonstrated to me their ability
to use the common themes of expressed anger and rage and the specific questions for their
particular poems in order to interpret them. I also had the students follow along as they listen to an
52
audio cassette of Countee Cullen’s “For a Lady I Know”.
Unit Ten: Zora Neale Hurston
Questions: 1.) How have slave narratives influenced the works of the Harlem
Renaissance writers?
2.) Why were they writing? (What was his motivation/purpose?)
3.) To whom were they writing to and why?
Goals:
I need to make a connection of the work of Hurston to the works of slave
narrators.

view
Readings:
Video “Zora is My Name” I would also play The Norton Anthology African American Literature
CD of Zora singing “You May Go But This Will Bring You Back”. Excerpts from Zora’s Their
Eyes Were Watching God and a similar excerpt from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple Audio
cassette on Zora’s “Sweat” Copies of “Sweat” Zora’s “Color Struck”.
Vocabulary: ambivalence
anecdote
community
Controversial
critique
depiction
distinctive
folklore
excoriated
interior
minstrel shows
pathetic
privileged
portrayal
protagonist
radical
relevance
53
rural south
self-discovery
self-identity
self-realization
self-reliant
subordinate
Stellar tradition
undercuts
Background information on Zora Neale Hurston
Last but not least, I will introduce Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston like the other black writers
was able to share her experiences of what it was like to be black in oppressed America. She was
able to tell it from a woman’s point of view. She also wrote to defy the general public’s stereotypes
of blacks. Hurston was not fully appreciated in her own time because she was writing ahead of her
own time. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God has been adopted by our English department.
“Alain Locke, dean of black scholars and critics during the Harlem Renaissance, wrote . . . that
Hurston’s Their Eyes was simply out of step with more serious trends of the times”. Arthur
Richard Wright “excoriated Their Eyes as a novel that did for literature what the minstrel shows
did for the theater, that is, make white folks laugh. By the end of the forties, a decade dominated
by Wright and by the stormy fiction of social realism, the quieter voice of a woman searching for
self-realization could not, or would not, be heard” (Hurston viii). Many black professionals today
have disagreed with Locke and Wright. Mary Helen Washington stated that “most black women
readers discovering their Eyes for the first time, what was most compelling was the figure of Janie
Crawford-powerful, articulate, self-reliant, and radically different from any woman character they
had ever before encountered in literature”. Andrea Rushing, instructor in the Afro-American
Studies Department at Harvard said, “I love it because it was about a woman who wasn’t pathetic,
wasn’t a tragic mulatto, who defied everything that was expected of her, who went off with a man
without bothering to divorce the one she left and wasn’t broken, crushed, and run down”.
54
“Rushing’s comment on the female as hero”. Sherley Anne Williams says, “‘they saw themselves in
these characters and they saw their lives portrayed with joy’”. Alice Walker believed that Hurston
work showed “that women did not have to speak when men thought they should, that they would
choose when and where they wish to speak because while many women had found their own
voices, they also knew when it was better not to use it. When Janie says at the end of her story that
‘talkin’ don’t amount to much’ if it’s divorced from experience, she is testifying to the limitations of
voice and critiquing the culture that celebrates orality to exclusion of inner growth. Her final
speech to Pheoby at the end of Their Eyes actually casts doubt on the relevance of oral speech and
supports Alice Walker’s claim that women’s silence can be intentional and useful” Washington
writes, Janie telling her story to a listening woman friend, Pheoby, suggest to me all those women
readers who discovered their own tale in Janie’s story and passed it on from one to another; and
certainly, as the novel represents a woman redefining and revising a male-dominated canon, these
readers have, like Janie, made their voices heard in the world of letters, revising the canon while
asserting their proper place in it” (Hurston ix, x, xi, xii, xiii, xiv). Zora’s work is an excellent
demonstration of the art of mastering the oral tradition.
I would start this class by giving an oral introduction of Zora Neale Hurston. I learned a lot
about Zora from watching the video “Zora is My Name”. Informing my students that Zora’s
mother married John Hurston, a Baptist preacher, who was from the wrong of the creek (the other
side of the tracks). Zora’s grandmother believed that her daughter had married beneath herself and
never forgave Zora’s mother for this. John Hurston became the mayor their town and made laws
that are still enforced today. Zora grew up listening to adults exchange black folklore on their front
porch. Zora wrote these stories down so that the translation transferred orally would not be
forgotten. This information is valuable to students because it would help them to understand why
55
Zora was so sensitive toward the artistic contribution of rural common black people. She
understood that just like intellectuals, like Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois, these people
also needed to tell their stories of how it was like to be an African American in oppressed America.
Her work also defied the stereotype of America. Zora’s work is an excellent demonstration of the
art of “signifyin”. Signifyin is “the verbal art of a ritualized insult, in which the speaker puts down,
needles, talks about (signifies on) someone, to make a point or something just for fun. It exploits
the unexpected, using quick verbal surprises and humor, and it is generally characterized by
nonmalicious and principled criticism” (Smiterman 206). Doing the dozens (talking about one
another’s mother) is only a part of signifyin.
Activities & Assignment: My introduction would lead right into the video “Zora is My Name”. I
would tell my students about a former student, who was so much more advanced than any of the
other students in my class, enjoyed the video so much, she asked to borrow my copy of Their Eyes
Were Watching God and read it in one night. She also gave her Harlem Renaissance oral
presentation on this book. After the video we would have class discussion focusing on the leading
three questions throughout the course to talk about Zora’s work. Then I would have students read
along as they listen to an audio cassette on Zora’s “Sweat”. Afterward, I would give the students a
quiz over the reading. I would also let the students see a video of my former students doing a
Reader’s Theater on Zora’s “Color Struck”. Then I would assign parts and my students also did a
Reader’s Theater on “Color Struck” I am sure that both works will cause an in-depth class
discussion because the students, especially my female students, would be able to identify with the
characters. I would ask for current day examples.
I would also play The Norton Anthology African American Literature CD of Zora singing “You
56
May Go But This Will Bring You Back”. Then I would have students read an excerpt from Zora’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God and a similar excerpt from Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to see
whether or not students could see how Hurston influence Walker’s work. The students will have to
be able to point out similarities in both works. Afterwards I would give the students a quiz on the
Harlem Renaissance period.

Then students will start preparing for the oral presentations on the Harlem Renaissance period.
Students will need to make a connection of the works of Harlem Renaissance writers with the
works of slave narrators. I would remind students of the main themes and ideas of this unit.

view
57
Appendix
58
TABLE OF CONTENT
Course Syllabus
1.
Introduction
1.
Acknowledgments
4.
Bibliography
5.
General Classroom Methodology
16.
Unit One: The Oral Tradition

59
19.
Unit Two: The Slave Narrator
27.
Unit Three: Contribution of Women to Slave Narrative
33.
Unit Four: Frederick Douglass
36.
Unit Five: Frances E. Harper’s Contribution to Slave Narrative

39.
Reconstruction Post Civil War Period
Unit Six: The Reconstruction to the New Negro Renaissance Period: 1865-1919
W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Dunbar
45.
Unit Seven: The Harlem Renaissance Period: 1919-1940

53.
Unit Eight: Langston Hughes
56.
Unit Nine: Claude Mckay and Countee Cullen
58.
Unit Ten: Zora Neale Hurston

60
60.
Appendix
66.
Curriculum: Introduction to African American Literature

61

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1

literature courses is to teach a survey of main literature in a chronological order showing

definition of the “vernacular” in The Norton Anthology African American literature.

vigorous, dynamic processes of expression, past and present. It makes up a rich

American’s legacy of self-awareness and endurance (Gates 1-2).

has a special influence on African American literature.

course. I will include them in the bibliography.

Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

Baker, Robert J. (JRB@FSCVAX.WVNET.EDU) “Douglass” E-mail to Graylen Todd Graham

Campus Pick. W. E. B. Du Bois - A biography in Four Voices Directed by Louis Massiah.”

Dexter, Pete. Paris Trout. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.

Fact Sheet. “Zora Is My Name.” (1997) E! Online. Online Available:

Graham, Graylen Todd. “Understanding Ebonics: A Teacher’s Viewpoint.” American Language

Leeming, David. James Baldwin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

Naylor, Gloria. Linden Hills. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.

Sandiford, K. A. “Gothic and Intersexual Constructions in Linden Hills.” Arizona Quarterly.

Truth, Sojourner. “Ain’t I a Woman” Literature and Language ML HM 11 Yellow Level.

Wright, Richard. Black Boy. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.

Wright, Richard. Native Son. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.

General Classroom Methodology

Duties of Group Vocabulary workshops:

Unit One: The Oral Tradition

Background Information on Slave Narratives

me a more concrete understanding of slave narratives.

they could write their stories down.

this was their intended purpose.

Themes & Ideas: Overcoming overwhelming obstacles

Activities & Assignments:

of the word “allusion.”

Smith’s Elements of Slave Narratives:

a.) a story teller speaking in the first person

Allusion: Indirect or casual references to other works

Oral Tradition Quotation from Gates

Quotes From The Norton Anthology African American Literature CDBooklet

Been in the Storm So Long

Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?

Steal Away to Jesus

Take My Hand, Precious Lord

Unit Two: The Slave Narrator

3.) To whom were the authors writing and why?

Answers: To write themselves into being to justify themselves to themselves in order to

Gates suggests, “African American slaves, remarkably, sought to write

Slave Narrative Quote from Smith

Background information on the Narrative of Olaudah, Alex Haley’s Roots

slave women are found in the work of Equiana and Jacobs.

‘double-consciousness’- the African American’s fateful sense of ‘twoness’ born of a bicultural

theory best describes Equiana’s motivation.

themselves against blind stereo types.

works in their textbook.

Readings: Equiano, Olaudah. “From Africa to America” Literature and Language ML HM

Example: Students’ Writing Response

Equiano’s purpose in writing was to show the horrific truth.

Equiano’s purpose in writing was to tell of his experience coming over.

So that others would understand how terrible it was.

Unit Three: Contribution of Women to Slave Narrative

Background information on the Narrative of Wheatley and Truth

“I have borne thirteen children and seen them almost

Activities & Assignment:

Unit Four: Frederick Douglass

Answers: To write themselves into being to justify themselves to themselves in order to

Gates suggest, “African American slaves, remarkably, sought to write

Background information on Frederick Douglass

how it was to be a black slave in America. One listener stated,