An American hero: Harriet Tubman

In this lesson, the school librarian and classroom teacher should work together to teach students about the life of Harriet Tubman in recognition of African-American History and Cultural Heritage Month.

A lesson plan for grade 1 Information Skills and Social Studies

By Floanna Long

Credit

Think-Pair-Share

In think-pair-share, the teacher asks an open-ended question and gives students a half to one minute to think about the question on their own. Students then pair with a classmate and discuss ideas about the question. This structure gives all students the opportunity to discuss their ideas. After a few minutes the teacher solicits student comments or takes a classroom vote. Students are much more willing to respond after they have had a chance to discuss their ideas with a classmate because if the answer is wrong, the embarrassment is shared.

Learn more

• Harriet Tubman Information and activities about Harriet Tubman from Enchanted Learning
• George Washington Carver Coloring and Activity Book From the USDA
• Pathways to Freedom: Maryland and the Underground Railroad Pathways to Freedom allows learners to travel back in time as a young slave who must make some important and life-changing decisions; experience eyewitness accounts from the autobiographies, interviews, and biographies of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and others; and use the interactive timeline with slave population statistics by county in Maryland.

Related pages

• Freedom songs of the civil rights movement: Students will listen to freedom songs recorded during the civil rights movement, 1960–1965. Students will write about personal reactions to the music and lyrics. Through reading and pictures, students will briefly explore historical events where these songs were sung. Listening again, students will analyze and describe — musically — particular song(s).
• Black American leaders as responsible citizens: Their roles, their contributions, their diversity: The focus of this lesson will be to help third grade students to clearly identify the need for having leaders arise from the citizenry of a given community. Students will review factual information to guide them in distinguishing the positive and negative qualities of leaders. Techniques will include guided reading of factual historical text during a Jigsaw, student note taking, student development of open-ended questions, and student engagement in a Socratic seminar.
• 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.

Related topics

• Learn more about African American history, African Americans, Harriet Tubman, heroes, history, information literacy, and social studies.

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Learning outcomes

The goal is to introduce students to that time in American history when slavery was legal and accepted in society and business.

Students will:

• listen to and view appropriate materials about Harriet Tubman’s life and discuss
• re-tell parts of Harriet Tubman’s life as they create a class chart or diagram with the teacher
• select events from Tubman’s life that illustrate why she is considered an American hero
• write a follow-up paper to take home and share with their parents

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

2 45-minute class periods

Materials/resources

• Appropriate picture biographies of Harriet Tubman’s life
• TV and VCR player (or DVD player).
• Computer and TV that interface (or a computer with a data projector).
• White board and markers.
• Video: Harriet Tubman from Animated Hero Classics, NEST Entertainment, Inc. Length is thirty minutes.

Technology resources

Computer and TV which interface and are internet accessible.

Pre-activities

• The students should have some understanding about African-American History and Cultural Heritage Month.
• Classroom teacher should introduce American slavery and plantation life, especially in North Carolina and other agrarian states in the South.

Activities

Day 1 (45 minutes)

1. Class discussion: what is a hero? Make a class list of attributes.
2. Ask students what they know about Harriet Tubman. Ask who, what, when, and where questions.
3. Show video. Make it interactive, stopping at appropriate places to explain unfamiliar vocabulary, to discuss feelings, to emphasize actions of characters, to predict next events, etc.
4. After the video, make a class graphic organizer of the events from Tubman’s life that students recall.
5. Send a letter home with students explaining that they are learning about Harriet Tubman in recognition of African-American History and Cultural Heritage Month and ask them to retell Harriet’s story to their parents.

Day 2 (45 Minutes)

1. Review the previous lesson, the list of attributes that make a hero, and the graphic organizer of events of Harriet Tubman’s life.
2. Read aloud a short biographical picture book and fill in any holes in the “events” organizer.
3. Prepare a class chart reflecting the students’ thoughts as to why Harriet Tubman is considered an American hero.
4. At the computer-television station (or with the data projector), show the students the Harriet Tubman timeline. Explain to the students that these timelines were done by students working with Kid Pix and other drawing software programs in a setting very much like the computer lab at school or the computer stations in the classroom.
5. Ask the students to comment on the parts of these two lessons that they enjoyed most. Use a think-pair-share strategy.
6. Ask the students to recall some of the facts about Harriet Tubman’s life. Again, use a think-pair-share strategy.
7. Ask students to explain to their parents why Harriet Tubman is considered an American hero.

Follow-up activity: With the classroom teacher, choose another prominent African American (such as George Washington Carver to research and construct a pictorial timeline using Kid Pix or Microsoft Paint. These illustrations might be published on the school’s web page or printed and displayed on a class bulletin board.

Assessment

Rubric

Supplemental information

The teacher should be sensitive to the community from which the students come, the values, attitudes, etc.

Comments

As a media coordinator from Maryland, I brought with me to Iredell Statesville Schools a vision and a dedication for instructing students during African-American History and Cultural Heritage Month. Harriet Tubman was active in the part of the Maryland where I had lived and I had explored much of her background while living in Maryland.