• develop a slavery timeline
• identify key leaders in the anti-slavery movement

Chalkboard

Index cards featuring dates and events for slavery timeline and key leaders

Internet and/or library access

*White board, interactive white board, or overhead projector (Optional)

• Auditory learners: incorporates recordings of negro spirituals and slave accounts to introduce concept of slavery
• Kinesthetic learners: engages students in physically arranging a chronology of events along the slavery timeline

• Ask students to explain what they know about slavery. Write their responses on the white board.
• Review the vocabulary words slavery, spirituals, abolitionists, and revolt with students. Explain to students that many people wanted to end slavery, and they were called abolitionists. Explain that it took many years for slavery to be outlawed in the United States.

• Pass out index cards to each student.
• Provide students with one class period in the school library to research the event/person listed on their index card.
  
  Note: the timeline features 25 events, so you may need to “fill in” the missing dates if you have less students. If your class roster is bigger than 25 students, feel free to add key leaders to index cards for the remaining students. Key leaders include: Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Dred Scott, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, and Angelina and Sarah Grimké.
  
  
• Explain to students that they should take notes, which they will use to write a short explanation of their findings. 

• Instruct students to read aloud the date listed on their index card.
• Provide the class with 5 to 10 minutes to organize the “timeline.” Students should line up chronologically across the front of the classroom.
• Once students have correctly positioned themselves on the timeline, ask them to read their cards to the class. Next, the student reading the card should read his or her report to the class, further explaining the event or person.

• Ask the students to write a journal entry, expressing their thoughts on slavery.

• Ask students which event they think was the most important in the antislavery movement? Why?
• Discuss: How did slavery divide the country?
• Sources: Timeline from www.historychannel.com
• Sources for Negro Spirituals and Slave Accounts:
  

  Voices from the Days of Slavery http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/vfssp.html

  Rare Recordings and Video
  http://negroartist.com/rare%20recordings%20and%20video.htm