Slavery: Real People and Their Stories of Enslavement

Grant, R. G.. Slavery: real people and their 

stories of enslavement. New York: DK Pub., 2009.

By Reg Grant

Copyright:  2009

Publisher:  DK Publishing

Reading Level:

• Grade level:  6

Genre:  Historical nonfiction

Description:  Slavery, Struggles, Mistreatment, Cruelty, The Underground Railroad, Abolition

Suggested Delivery:  Read-aloud to whole class

Summary:  This book describes slavery in great detail from the beginning of this act, to the abolition of slavery, and then its aftermath.  While the books main focus is African American enslavement, it also describes slavery in its earlier existence in the Middle East, East Asia, and America.  While the topic of slavery is distressing, there are many accounts of heroes that helped to abolish acts of slavery and bring hope to a better future for these people.

Electronic Resources:

• Slavery and the Making of America:  this website is a K-12 Learning site that is organized by the different themes of slavery, such as living conditions, legal rights, religion, family, etc.  It also provides lists of books on slavery for students to explore.  There is also a section titled Slave Memories where students can click on a slave's picture and hear their story and first-hand accounts about slavery.

Key Vocabulary: deprived, fraught, reimpose, refugees, lucrative, insurrection, deprecate, indignities, concede, indentured, alienate, injustice, propaganda, Klu Klux Klan, Atlantic Slave Trade, Middle Passage, Emancipation

Teaching suggestions:

• Use this book during a Social Studies unit on slavery.
• Use to depict the treatment of slaves all over the world.
• Use to explain the aftermath of slavery, when America began Reconstruction.
• Introduce the 13th, 14th, & 15th amendment of the Constitution.

Comprehension Strategies:

• Before Reading:  
• Provide students with a list of complex terms from the book and their definitions.  Students must have an understanding of the important vocabulary in order to make sense of this time period.
• Have students create a KWL chart, filling out what they already know about slavery and what they are hoping to learn more about.

• During Reading:
• The information in this book can be overwhelming and difficult to comprehend being that it is such a complicated topic.  Have the students fill out a timeline worksheet that will help them better organize this information, listing the important events in history in sequential order as they listen to each chapter being read.

• After Reading:  
• Students will pick a concept or event from the book that they would like to research further; for example, The Atlantic Slave Trade.  They will use additional resources to find out more information and will make a bulleted list of these important details on their topic.

Writing Activity:

Frederick Douglass

Students will choose any significant individual from the book that was involved in slavery and research about this person's life (ex. Henry "Box" Brown, John Wilkes Booth, Frederick Douglass, etc.).  They will then write detailed biographies depicting this famous person's life that played an important role in ending slavery.  Information will include personality traits, family life, struggles and cruelty they faced, measures they took to stop this mistreatment of African Americans, and their accomplishments through it all.  Students will present their famous individuals to the rest of the class for everyone to learn about.