Powerful Narratives of the Disempowered: January 9, 2020

Focus: What does it take to disempower a human?

*Please turn in your signed class syllabus/expectations.*

1. Warming up with a book talk

2. Observing images of slavery

Peruse the images at your own speed. In your notebook, make some notes on your specific observations of each image:

• What are you looking at in each one? What details strike you? What story is being told here?
• Which images surprise you/are new to you?
• What is your reaction to each one?
• What does each image reveal about the practice of slavery?
• What do the images reveal about specific ways in which slaves were disempowered?

Sharing aloud

• Who are you (think back to your "I Am" poem), and how does this impact the way you draw meaning from these images?
• How are you being pushed to understand in a new way different people's experiences?

3. Revisiting the concept of perspective; starting the first chapter of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

• Mark up lines that connect to the images/quotations from today's class.

• Mark up lines that respond to our focus question: What does it take to disempower a human being?

HW:
1. For TOMORROW: 

• Finish reading Chapter 1 in Douglass (through page 3 in your packet) annotating for passages that reveal something about power, disempowerment, and/or empathy.

2. For NEXT MONDAY: Bring your independent reading book and signed letter to class.