About this book
Grade Level Equivalent: 7.1
Lexile Measure: 860L
Guided Reading Level: Y
Age: Age 11, Age 12, Age 13
Genre: Biography and Autobiography
Subject: Citizenship, Human Rights, Slavery
After Reading
Choose from the following activities:
- Create a pre-Civil War map, identifying which states were slaveholding states and which were free. Make the map large enough to be posted and studied from a distance. Use colors to code free states and slaveholding states, and be sure to include a key.
- Write a poem from Anthony's point of view, reflecting the joys of being a freedman compared with the sorrows of bondage. Your poem can be in any style. If you have trouble getting started, use a word like slavery or Anthony vertically, and starting with the first letter, write about the themes of bondage and freedom.
- Prepare a report about the origins of slavery in the United States and in Europe. Make sure the report includes an introduction, at least three main points, and a summary. Your librarian can help you get started. Try to include some quotes from actual first-person accounts and a map of the routes used by early slave traders.
- As the African-American slaves were kept ignorant and childlike by their owners, and therefore dependent and controllable, they expressed themselves simply in music and art. For this activity, research how some of the first slaves combined their richly colored African primitive art with geometric patterns. Try to recreate such a scene using a geometric pattern.
- Subjects:Content Area Reading, Reading Comprehension, Research Skills, Nonfiction Writing, Poetry Writing, Slavery, African American, Maps and Globes, Historic Figures, Social Studies Through Literature, Individuals, Groups, and Institutions, Arts and Creativity, Black History Month
- Skills:Reading Comprehension, Social Studies, Research Skills, Poetry Writing
