"Forward" to the Great Escape

In this lesson, the students will read a primary source document from Documenting the American South and examine a painting by Jacob Lawrence to illustrate the conditions of the underground railroad before the US Civil War. The students will create a painting and a narrative related to the underground railroad.

A lesson plan for grades 11–12 Social Studies

By Jamie Lathan

Learn more

• Jacob Lawrence's Freedom Trail From the Yale-New Haven Teacher's Institute, this website provides resources and lesson plans about Jacob Lawrence and his artistic contributions.

Related pages

• Exploring the church in the southern black community: Students explore the Documenting the American South Collection titled, the “Church in the Southern Black Community.” Beginning with a historian's interpretation of the primary sources that make up the collection, students search the collection for evidence to describe the experiences of African Americans living in the south during the Antebellum through the Reconstruction Period centering on their community churches. The activity culminates in student presentations of a digital scrap book.
• Plantation life in the 1840s: A slave's description: This lesson introduces students to a description of life on the plantation and the cultivation of cotton from the perspective of a slave. It focuses on the use of slave narratives made available by the Documenting the American South collection.
• The African American experience in NC after Reconstruction: The documents included in this lesson come from The North Carolina Experience collection of Documenting the American South and specifically focus on African Americans and race relations in the early 20th century. The lesson juxtaposes accounts that relate to both the positive improvements of black society and arguments against advancement. Combined, these primary sources and the accompanying lesson plan could be used as a Document Based Question (DBQ) in an AP US history or African American history course.

Related topics

• Learn more about African American history, American history, Underground Railroad, slavery, and social studies.

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Learning outcomes

• Students will examine primary sources from the Documenting the American South collection.
• Students will read and analyze “The Autobiography of Henry Parker”.
• Students will look at “Forward” by Jacob Lawrence and examine its meaning as it relates to the underground railroad.
• Students will create a painting and a narrative about the underground railroad experience.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

90 minutes

Materials/resources

• Access to computers with the internet
• “Forward” painting by Jacob Lawrence
• “Autobiography of Henry Parker”
• Markers or color pencils
• Poster paper
• College-ruled paper and pencils

Technology resources

Access to computers with the internet

Pre-activities

Students should be familiar with the institution of slavery in the United States. They should also know how the enslaved Africans were able to resist the oppression of slavery.

Activities

1. Students should be taken to the Documenting the American South website.
2. Students should examine the following primary source document “Autobiography of Henry Parker”from the website.
3. In three or more sentences, the students should answer the following question: Explain the conditions of the underground railroad based on the experiences of Mr. Parker.
4. Students should also examine “Forward” by Jacob Lawrence.
5. As the students look at the painting, have them write down what they believe to be going on in the painting. They should spend three minutes writing down their thoughts.
6. The students should then draw a picture of what they think happened before the painting and then draw picture of what they think happened after the painting. (This should be done on either construction paper or poster board paper).
7. After drawing the pictures, have the students write a story similar to the “Autobiography of Henry Parker”. The story should detail the life of one of the people in the painting. It needs to be at least three paragraphs in length.

Assessment

Pass: The students have drawn two pictures similar to the “Forward”. The students have written a three paragraph narrative about the life of one of the people in the painting.

Fail: the students did not draw two pictures from “Forward”. The students only wrote one or two paragraphs on the narrative about the persons in the painting.