Primary Sources vs. Secondary Sources Objects Personal reflections (diaries, journals) Historical, government, and legal documents Newspaper and magazine articles Book or movie reviews Reports Dictionaries Audio and video recordings encyclopedias Speeches Runaway Slaves Today’s Task: You will closely read a runaway slave poster and answer questions about the text, supporting their answers with references to the text. Then you will write narratives from the perspectives of the owner or the slave, basing your writing on information found in the texts. Dolly Runaway Slave Poster 1. Number each line (1-11) on the poster so that you can refer back to specific text locations during the class discussion. 2. With a partner, read the poster and make notes in the margins about what you observe in the text as well as difficult vocabulary words and any other information you need to know in order to understand the text. 3. Share with your partner what you found to be unusual on the poster. 4. Reread the poster and make notes in the margins about your thoughts on the importance of the underlined text and the text in quotation marks. Text-Dependent Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Who do you think wrote this poster? Who was his or her intended audience? What do we know about Dolly and her family? What clues tell you about Dolly as a slave? What is the importance of the underlined and quoted text? What does it mean when the text says she (Dolly) is not a “very healthy person,” while the poster also says that she has a “fine set of teeth”? 6. Why is this document important to history? 7. The intended purpose of this poster is to bring this runaway slave back to her family. How do we know this? 8. Why do you think the owner would blame Dolly’s disappearance on being “enticed off?” Why wouldn’t she run away instead? Slave Ship Poster 1. With a partner, read the poster and make notes in the margins about what you observe in the text as well as difficult vocabulary words and any other information you need to know in order to understand the text. 2. Share with your partner what you found to be unusual on the poster. 3. Reread the poster and make notes in the margins about your thoughts on the importance of the underlined text and the text in quotation marks. Slave Auction Poster 1. With a partner, read the poster and make notes in the margins about what you observe in the text as well as difficult vocabulary words and any other information you need to know in order to understand the text. 2. Share with your partner what you found to be unusual on the poster. 3. Reread the poster and make notes in the margins about your thoughts on the importance of the underlined text and the text in quotation marks. Now that you have read the three primary sources, answer the following questions: 1. In what ways do these texts tell Dolly’s story? 2. How can you use the poster and related texts to support the idea that laws have to be written before people’s minds will change? 3. What leads you to believe that Dolly wanted freedom--whether she really acted on it or not? Cite text evidence from these primary sources to support your thinking. Writing for Understanding Select a perspective from which to write, either the slave owner Louis Manigualt or the slave Dolly. Your narrative should be an explanation of what happened and should use information from the texts to explain your viewpoints.
