Student Reading List
Sojourner Truth. “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, The Language of Literature, McDougal Littel, pages 595-596.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. New York: First Signet Classic Printing 1845, this edition 1997.
Friedheim, William, with the American Social History Project. Freedom’s Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into the Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: The New Press, 1996.
An alternative text and set of primary sources and images teaching about the Civil War and Reconstruction. Appropriate for students and/or for teachers’ background knowledge.
From Revolution to Reconstruction: a Hypertext on American History, http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/ (6 July 99)
Encyclopedic resource on American history for use by students or teacher for further research into background of novel.
Haley, Alex. Roots. New York: Dell Books, 1980.
Another sweeping study of African-American history from a personal perspective. The author’s research into his family history motivates the saga.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Myers, Walter Dean. Glory Field. New York: Scholastic, 1994.
A young adult historical novel which takes a fictional African-American family tree and tells the stories of individuals in the family from the Middle Passage to Northern migration, and Harlem in the 1990s. Didactic, but really ties historical periods together and brings them to life.
Materials for Classroom Use
Africans in America, PBS mini-series, 1998.
Good social history of slavery, from its development in the North America to the Civil War. Very extensive; best to show in clips with discussion.
Teacher Reading List
Meltzer, Milton, ed. The Black Americans: A History in Their Own Words, 1619-1983. First HarperTrophy edition. New York: HarperTrophy Publishers, 1987.
Good resource for primary sources in African-American history. Also strong on themes and issues in African-American history.
Teachers’ Curriculum Institute. History Alive!: Engaging All Learners in the Diverse Classroom. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994.
Excellent handbook for teaching history in heterogeneous classes with hands-on approach -- writing-intensive activities. Interesting theory and practical applications.
Lakhia, Ali, and Katie Gillette, Scott Lloyd, Glenn Schuetz. The Web Page of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The University of Texas at Austin, http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~nmaynard/Morrison/home. (6 July, 1999).
Comprehensive site of basic biographical information about Morrison, summary of Beloved, and critical excerpts.
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present. Revised and updated. New York: HarperTrophy, 1995.
Very useful background information on United States history, focusing on “recovering” histories of marginalized groups, such as African-Americans.
