The story of African American history is more than slavery, emancipation, and the civil rights movement. I thought it would be interesting to research the significant contributions that Africans have made in shaping American society as told from their viewpoint.
This idea for this unit came from heterogeneously grouped students in my seventh grade English class while we were studying the African Diaspora. In the class, there were a few students who were either born in Africa or had parents who had come from Africa and the Caribbean. Their oral traditions sparked interest in information that was not formally recorded yet expressed important ideas. While we engaged in discussions, many students were interested in knowing how people lived in Africa and how immigrant Africans assimilated in the North American culture upon their arrival in the United States. The culminating activity for this lesson was to write an evaluation of the project. I asked the students to indicate ways in which I could improve on this lesson should I use it in another class. Many suggested that we examine the life of Africans before they left their ancestral homeland as well as find out how they adapted to life in the New World. Others indicated that we "let the Africans speak for themselves" and tell their own story of what life was like during that era. The students thought that since we are always talking about viewpoint, this would be a great way to get the other side of the story of slavery. I immediately agreed with the students that this would be an excellent topic for further research. Our English Language Arts classes are always having lively discussions on celebrating our differences and similarities and this is just another opportunity to continue that pattern.
For implementing this unit, various formats will be used to accommodate different learning styles. All other teachers who work with these students will be included within my overall lesson plans. Some may be involved for just one lesson, while others will incorporate a few lessons related to examining the extent of African influence in the creative and performing arts. The teachers of African and Hip-Hop dance will discuss the history of rhythm and dance of the Caribbean and Africa and their influence in today's pop culture in the United States. The Music teacher will explain the purposes and meanings of Negro Spirituals; they were used as a means of communication and expressing comfort and hope of a better life in the future. The Band teacher will incorporate the African influence in music in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Haiti and other Caribbean Islands. Language Arts and Social Studies will explore the topics from a more historical viewpoint. The Social Studies teacher will review the traditional recordings of slavery on accounts of the Middle Passage and life on a typical slave plantation in the United States. Language Arts will focus on researching slave narratives and obtaining information from slaves. One portion of the unit will describe the experiences of African Americans living in the New England states. We will pay close attention to the story of slavery as told from the perspective of the African American. We are already familiar with what was done to these people; therefore, we will focus on obtaining information on what people of African descent did for themselves inspite of the hardships that they endured.
The lessons in this unit will allow the students to express themselves in various forms. As a class, we will again visit the story of the African Diaspora, which celebrates the preservation of African culture in the New World. The lessons are geared for four seventh or eighth grade classes with an average of twenty-four students in each class. Modifications to the lesson plans will be made as necessary based on the needs of the students. Lessons will run for duration of three weeks, four periods per week. Each class period lasts for approximately forty minutes.