Year 9 Homework: Black Peoples of the Americas (Autumn term 2011)
Choose 2 homework activities for the remainder of the term from the grid
below. You may choose from anywhere on the grid. Discuss your choices at
home and at school before deciding. Highlight your choices and show your
teacher which ones you are planning to do.
Name:
History teacher:
1. Now! That’s What I Call AfricanAmerican Music
Choose 5 songs from different
African-American musical styles
throughout history. Create a play-list
or design a CD sleeve/album cover
listing the songs and explaining how
the music has changed over time (a
sentence on each track?). You might
include: slave spirituals, field hollers,
blues, R ‘n’ B, soul, jazz, funk, hiphop. For some background info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfricanAmerican_music
2. The fight for independence
Research the story of a former British
colony in the West Indies and its struggle
for independence. Create a storyboard for
a film that tells the story of this struggle.
Your research will help you decide
whether you want to focus on an
individual or group, (national leaders or
ordinary people?), and the events to
include. You will need to make your film
plot historically realistic. You can draw the
storyboard or use ICT, but include both
pictures and text.
3. Resistance heroes
Research the story of a person who
fought against slavery in the Americas.
(E.g. Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman,
Toussaint L’Ouverture, the Jamaican
Maroons). Design a statue that shows
people what they did, what they
achieved and why we should look up
to them. (You need to consider what
they are wearing/ holding/ doing/ and
other features such as inscriptions in
designing the ‘memorial’). You can
draw a picture, use ICT, make a model.
4. Slave stories
Read a fiction book or short story
that deals with slavery. (See your
teacher for an idea about what to
read, or ask in the library/in a
bookshop.) Either write a book
review, explaining what it does and
doesn’t tell you about slave life, OR
write another chapter for the
book/story picking up where it left
off.
5. Harlem Renaissance
Create a short documentary about the
Harlem Renaissance. In your research you
might find out about Langston Hughes,
Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, WEB Du
Bois, amongst others. Include images,
titles, voiceover and soundtrack in your
short film. Ideally you need to use a
program like MovieMaker or iMovie but
you could do it using PowerPoint.
6. Past still present?
Research the tourist industry of a
country in the Americas that is
connected to the history of slavery.
Find out what tourists could do or see
that tells them about the impact and
experiences of slavery in that country.
Produce a tourist guide brochure
giving details of possible visits in the
chosen country.
Homework is not always the most appealing aspect of school life. However, it is helpful to your progress and has to be
done.
The idea behind this project is to make your homework a more creative and enjoyable experience. It should also allow
to practise and improve your research skills at the same time.
You get to decide which tasks you do, meaning you can choose activities that best suit the way you like to work or that
match the things that you are interested in.
You can organise your homework in a way that suits you, so that you can do it when you want to do it. So long as you
finish all the tasks before the deadlines, it doesn’t really matter when you do the activities. You can do it in tenminute bursts or in two-hour sessions. (Although, a good guide would be about an hour a week.) Each project should
take about 4 hours to complete.
Before you finish your projects you will have a ‘seminar’ lesson. During this lesson, you will show your teacher and
your classmates what you have done so far. This will be a chance to share ideas, tips on research and to ask questions
about what you are doing or what you should do next.
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO BRING TO THE ‘SEMINAR’ LESSON.
You must complete 1 task – it doesn’t matter which one, but try to think about which one you will enjoy doing the
most, what you are good at and what resources you have access to. You may need to use the internet for some of the
activities. If you don’t have the internet at home then you can always use the computers in the Learning Resources
Centre (LRC) during lunchtime.
Please ask your teacher for guidance if you get stuck in a rut. You can also work with your friends (that’s work with not
copy from) if it helps.
Good luck, I hope you enjoy it!
Seminar Lesson (Bring in your research notes, first drafts, problems that you have, ideas for others etc.):
Deadline (Bring in your completed projects):