Reader's Theater

We tried out a Reader's Theater approach with the journal Brokenburn. First we assigned small groups excerpts from the journal. We chose our excerpts so we would progress through the writer's life as we read while at the same time highlighting key themes such as attitudes toward slavery and the civilian experience in war. Each excerpt was paired with a primary source:

Brokenburn Excerpt	Primary Source
p. 86	excerpt from Solomon Northup
p. 145-146	Brokenburn 1860 Slave Schedule from Ancestry.com
p. 172-173	From Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs (1886) Chapter XXX: The Campaign Against Vicksburg; Employing the Freedmen [November-December 1862]
p. 190	Brokenburn 1860 Census
p. 218-219	Letter from Milliken's Bend
p. 339-340	1880 Census

The instructions were simple--read through the excerpt, analyze the primary source, and come up with a very short reading that synthesizes the documents.  We had some insightful results!

The Expansion of Slavery

Understanding why the expansion of the United States is key to understanding causes of the Civil War can be difficult for students. This political map and the chart below can help.

Reynolds’s Political Map of the United States (1856)

Spiraling Questions

Descriptive Questions:

When was this map published?

What do the different colors mean?

Interpretive Questions:

What is the Missouri Compromise Line and why is it highlighted?

What could happen if the Missouri Compromise was repealed?

Analytical Questions:

Why do you think this map was published?

Expanding the Federation Chart

Spiraling Questions

Descriptive Questions:

Using the Reynold’s Map and the chart, trace with your finger the admissions of each State beginning with Kentucky in 1790. What direction does your finger travel?

What do the numbers in each box mean?

Interpretive Questions:

Why were the states admitted as sets?

Look at the newspaper notice below the chart. What does it mean to have a “free soil” platform?

Analytical Questions:

Who had more power by the 1850s? North or South?

Why would the creation of the Republican party threaten the South?

You be the historian: Evaluating Causes of the Civil War

Evaluating the Evidence is an interactive exercise that guides students through the process of evaluating primary sources in order to develop a thesis.

In this case, the primary source materials provide evidence for the relative importance of four different hypotheses about the causes of the Civil War:

Conflicting Economic Interests
Preservation of the Union
Slavery
State's Rights

Students evaluate the evidence and see if the primary sources provide enough support for their argument.

The Escape of Oney Judge

The Escape of Oney Judge (pronounced "Ona") provides students with an exciting story about one of Martha Washington's slaves who escapes to Portsmouth, NH. It is an excellent accompaniment to the Washington Slave List or an alternative picture book to Chains.

The picture book opens up all sorts of discussion topics and questions for students.

• Why wouldn't Martha Washington free her slaves?
• How could a Founding Father have slaves?
• What were the fugitive slave laws during the time?
• How did the North respond to fugitive slaves at the time?

Oney's story is well-told on Wikipedia!

And here is a primary source to connect with the book:

George Washington's Slaves

George Washington had slaves? This astounds students. This list of slaves, drawn up by George Washington sometime in 1799, provides a view into plantation life and offers many topics about colonial life for students to pursue in their own inquiry.

The slave list, available in a typescript as well as original format, includes George Washington's slaves on the left (who were to be freed upon the death of Martha Washington) and Mount Vernon's "Dower" slaves on the right (who were to go to Martha's Custis heirs upon her death).

By closely analyzing the document, students can build a list of questions for future research around topics such as slave family life, work on a plantation, and slave children's lives. There is a teacher's guide to this document available from Mt. Vernon.

Where to go for research?

• Colonial Williamsburg has a student interactive that looks at clothing for colonial people of different social status.
• Williamsburg's 3-d Role Playing game also looks at Colonial life and includes an enslaved house servant and a young planter gentleman.
• Slideshows take a look at the types of trades found in a colonial community or on a plantation such as Mt. Vernon's.
• And, of course, there is much to learn online at Mt. Vernon.