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History at key stage 3 (Year 9)
Unit 15: Black peoples of America from slavery to equality?
Section 5: Freedom: how was it achieved?
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Objectives |
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- about the different ways in which slaves could, before 1865, obtain their freedom
- that individuals played a key role in the ending of slavery
- to select and use relevant information to support an argument
- about the steps by which the USA became divided into a slave-owning south and a slave-free north
- to examine and explain the causes of the American Civil War and that different people fought for different reasons
- to use evidence to reach conclusions, and appreciate their tentative nature
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Activities |
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Outcomes |
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Children: |
- Explore, through mini-case studies, the ways in which slaves, by their own efforts, achieved freedom. These could include:
- Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railway
- Toussaint L'Ouverture and Haiti
- Cinque and the Amistad
- Olaudah Equiano
- Henry Brown and his box
- Using a variety of source material focusing on moral, practical and economic issues, ask pupils to construct arguments that could have been used at the time in support of, or against, emancipation. The presentation of these arguments can take the form of a debate set in 1830s America.
- Tell the story of the Dred Scott case and use this as a starting point to explain the ways in which the USA became divided into a slave-owning south and a 'free' north.
- Ask pupils, in groups, to consider the question
Was the Civil War fought to free the slaves? In order to do this they should investigate the causes of the American Civil War and identify how many are relevant to the question before coming to a judgement. The whole class could discuss the question
Was the Civil War fought to free the slaves?
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- produce a case study on another way slaves achieved freedom
- identify, record and relate information relevant to creating an argument for or against emancipation
- describe and begin to explain why people held such different views about emancipation of slaves in the USA
- prioritise reasons for the American Civil War
- listen and respond to different points of view
- reach and support conclusions
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Points to note |
- Source material may include negro spirituals and novels such as
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852), although care should be taken with the interpretation of these sources.
- Language for learning: by summarising and prioritising the reasons for the American Civil War, pupils will be writing a coherent text for the purpose of presenting an argument. This can be developed into a piece of formal, extended writing to suggest objectivity and partiality. Pupils should understand the effect of different aspects of formality (passive verbs, third person, abstract nouns) and organise content into complete text with the relationship between paragraphs clearly signalled. Some pupils may need a writing frame and vocabulary/connective word bank for this piece of writing.
- Key skills: these activities provide opportunities for pupils to demonstrate evidence of IT skills,
eg copy and paste resources and information from a website, use a word processor to complete the last activity.
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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
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