Lesson # 1
Title:
Regional Geography of Africa
Duration:
Two fifty minute classes
Objectives
- Students will be able to:
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- Define the term regions and provide examples
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- Recognize the subjective nature of determining regional borders
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- Describe the characteristics of the regions of Africa
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- Identify and locate the countries within the assigned regions of Africa
Materials:
An outline map for each student, colored pencils, reference atlases and maps of Africa.
Opening:
Teacher will ask class what “New England”, “the Hill” - or any well known local neighborhood - and “the South Pacific” have in common. The answer is that they are all regions. (Any well known local or global regions can be used as examples)
Activity:
To combat the idea that Africa is a singular, uniform place, the class will spend a period breaking down the continent of Africa. The first step will be to identify the regions of Africa.
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- After class opens, students will record the definition of the concept of region from the board. They will then be asked to identify some regions in their school, then in their town. Teacher will guide the discussion, prompting students to analyze what defines these regions. Is it the people who live there? The land usage? Economics? Does the class agree on where these boundaries begin and end?
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- Class will then add to the definition on the board with their own list of what can define a region - various physical features, ethnicity or culture, economics, local issues - providing examples of each. Teacher should point out that regions can be any size, any student who shares a bedroom with a sibling can relate to that!
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- Once students exhibit full comprehension of the concept “region,” class will then break into small groups of four or five.
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- Each group will receive a large size outline map of Africa, reference sources, and a set of colored pencils
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- Each group member will receive an outline map of the African continent and will be assigned a certain geographic characteristic - cultural, ethnic, and physical, etc.
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- Students will then work together to identify those particular regions of Africa, carefully drawing regional boundaries in their maps. Each region will be colored, and a legend will be created to identify the regions. Facts and details about the regions will be explained on the back of the map. These maps will eventually be collected for an individual grade.
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- When students return the following day, they will share their individual maps with the groups, and the group will come to a consensus. Then the each group will create a large, professional or creative, regional map of Africa. The map and information will be presented to the class. This presentation will count as a collective grade for the group.
Closure:
Class will discuss interesting facts that they discovered while researching their region and listening to others. Teacher will ask class what characteristics are most used to define a region - the answer is physical and cultural.
Assignment:
Students will complete map skills worksheet that reinforces lesson on region and introduces the basic physical feature of Africa.
Lesson #2
Title:
Human Geography of Africa
Duration:
Two fifty minute classes
Objectives
- Students will be able to:
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- Identify and describe the physical regions of Africa
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- Explain the structure of African society
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- Summarize the causes and effects of migration
Materials:
A Grain of Wheat, God’s Bits of Wood
Opening: Teacher will begin by reading a collection of facts
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that illustrate the physical and human vastness of the continent of Africa. Students will also record key terms - from textbook - into their notebooks from the board.
Activity:
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- Students will read any two different selections that illustrate the essence of African life before contact with Europeans. Half the class will read one, half the other. In their journals, they will complete a recognizing fact and detail assignment. They will record three main ideas from the passage. Then, they will record three details provided to support these main ideas. Students will offer their answers to the class.
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- Later, or when they return they following day, each student will pair up with a partner. They will teach each other about the early African society they read about the previous night. Each student will have a set of notes for both societies. Together, they will complete a venn diagram comparing/contrasting the two societies.
Closure:
Students who did not contribute at the closure of the prior day’s class will offer examples of similarities/differences between early African society and their own.
Assignment:
Students will locate and label these societies and others on their maps of Africa from the previous class period.
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Lesson #3
Title:
Early African Society Through Film
Duration:
Fifty minutes
Objectives
- Students will be able to:
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- Appreciate pre-slavery society in Africa
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- Analyze film as a historical resource
Materials:
Yeelen, Sia
, text books, maps of Africa
Opening:
Teacher will check for understanding of terms and map skills through a brief guided discussion about daily life in this geography.
Activity:
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- Teacher will then introduce the film, Yeelen about life in “Eden” Africa, the Africa before European contact. For each scene, the students will take notes on the role of geography in the film. What was the geography like? What impact would this geography play in everyday life? Did we see this in the film? How does this geography compare to the other films? To our own?
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- The films will also be used to examine African society as well as geography. The class will use what it sees in the films as examples of early African society, and, with a partner, compare/contrast it to their modern American lives. They will record these similarities and differences in their journals.
Closure:
Students will be encouraged to share some of their entries.
Assignment: In the form of a short letter (100 word min), student will write from early Africa to someone in modern America. They will provide a detailed description of the ancient African world they have been transported to, and a prediction of what will become of them. Description and prediction will need to be geographically and historically accurate.
Lesson #4 - Block
Title:
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Duration:
Ninety minutes (or slightly more)
Objectives
- Students will be able to:
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- summarize the evolution of the slave trade in Africa and the New World
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- describe the triangular trade and the middle passage
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- describe the life of slaves in the Americas
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- identify consequences of the Atlantic slave trade, for the both the politically and socially and culturally
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- compare the treatment of the Atlantic slave trade in African films versus films from Hollywood
Materials:
The Patriot, Amistad, Sankofa
, “The Second Coming” by Yeats, text
Opening:
Class will begin with notes on the board - a summary of the text used - that explains the origins of the Atlantic slave trade.
Activity:
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- Students will then read two selected quotes (see above); one from a British observer on a slave ship and the other from a former African king now slave. Each gives a different description of the middle passage. The former describes a scene that is not all that bad; the latter includes those horrific details that are the Middle Passage. A representative from each group will describe the Middle Passage based on what they have read. The class will be asked: how do these descriptions differ? This activity will illustrate how one’s point of view can influence how history is recorded.
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- The class will then watch the clip from the film Amistad that captures the brutality of the Middle Passage. Which written description does this film clip most resemble? I will apply the idea of “point of view” to film. The class will then examine the depiction of slavery through the use of film. After watching the tragic scene in Amistad, we will view a scene from The Patriot. In this scene, the hero of the movie Benjamin Martin (played by Mel Gibson) is seen having a warm and caring relationship with his “employees”9. In reality, these employees were slaves and their relationship was not as familial. The students would be asked: why would the director distort the facts this way? What purpose does it serve? Is the director obligated to be historically accurate, why/why not?
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- The class will conclude with the viewing of the film Sankofa. This is an African film about the slave experience from the point of view of a self-absorbed twentieth-century African model. In it, she is transported back to the days of slavery where she has become a house slave on a Louisiana plantation. As a slave, she slowly realizes the importance of resistance to slavery. She eventually returns to Africa more interested in her African heritage than the photo shoot she was whisked away from. The viewing of this film will be concluded during the following class period.
Closure:
After the film, I will review all of what we just took in - the facts, the words, the points of view, the images, the emotions. Class will conclude with the reading of a poem by Yeats called “The Second Coming”.
Assignment:
Students will be given a copy to reread at home, and they will connect the poem to the experience of slavery.
Lesson #5
Title:
Effects of Slave Trade - Guided Discussion
Duration:
Fifty minutes
Objectives
- Students will be able to:
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- Define the geographic term movement and provide examples
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- Interpret and analyze poetry as a historical resource
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- Demonstrate critical thinking and map skills
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- Explain the short term and long term impact the Atlantic slave trade had on Africa and the African peoples
Materials:
Yeats poem, a map of the Atlantic Slave Trade (that includes routes destinations and the details of the triangle trade), text,
Sankofa, The Patriot
Opening:
Class will open with the reading of Yeats’ “The Second Coming.”
Activity:
Class will break down the poem, phrase by phrase.
Closure:
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- The class will end by carrying over the racist notions of the slaver to the idea of Imperialism. After a very brief overview of the pan-African experiences during the Age of Imperialism, the Inquiry Assignment (see assessment) will be explained to the class. Requirements and cooperative learning groups will be established by the end of the period.
Lesson #6 - Block
Title:
African Cinema
Duration:
Ninety minutes
Objectives
- Students will be able to:
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- Interpret and analyze film as a historical resource
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- Compare and contrast Hollywood’s Africa and the Africa presented in African film
Materials:
Films -
Tears of the Sun, Blackhawk Down, Sia
Opening:
Class will begin with a clip from a Hollywood film that depicts Africa in a typically Hollywood way - see annotated film list for descriptions of the above films, teacher can choose any selection for this activity. The options are plenty; any age/class appropriate film can be used. Class will be asked: If you knew nothing, and based your opinions solely on this film, how would you describe the African people. Then follow the clip with another that reinforces that image, but promotes a slightly different but equally degrading point of view.
Activity:
After class establishes treatment of Africa in Hollywood’s films, they can use the remainder of the block watching the film
Sia
.
Sia
is portrays the politics of a mythical pre-slavery African kingdom. It is an excellent film to show students the color and splendor of the African landscape and also the workings of an ancient African society.
Closure:
Students should respond to three (3) questions for homework after viewing the film
Sia
: (1) in what region was the film made, and what geographic features did student see in film, (2) what role did geography play in the film, and (3) what did they learn from this film about Africa that they would never have learned from the other Hollywood examples. They should write their answer in the form of a film review, in the end recommending or not recommending this movie to other history students.
