Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom

1. Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom Lisa B. Randle College of Charleston randlel@cofc.edu

2. OverviewLiteracy Outreach Initiative • College of Charleston Honors College • College Reads! • The Known World by Edward P. Jones • Ellen and William Craft • Avery Research Center for African American History & Culture • Craft/Crum Collection

3. Program Overview • Four 45-minute classes • Four week period • Week 1: Introduction & Comprehension Strategy • Week 2: Readers’ Theatre • Week 3: Found poetry writing • Week 4: Graphic Illustration • Honors mentors role assigned classes • Lead identified parts of the curriculum • Share their love of literacy • Share experiences as college students

4. Objectives • To cultivate fourth grade students’ love of reading through social studies • Themes • Mistreatment of African Americans • Sense of Community for Freed/Escaped Slaves • Perseverance

5. Connection to the Curriculum • Social Studies Standards • SC History – 3rd Grade • Slavery • Abolitionist Movement • ELA Standards

6. Teachers’ Kit Provides • Books • The Known World (novel) • Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom (autobiography) • Ellen Craft’s Escape from Slavery (picture book) • The Brave Escape of Ellen and William Craft (graphic novel) • Primary Sources Documents from the Craft/Crum Collection • Objects • Curriculum

7. SC Social Studies Standards • 4-2: The students will demonstrate an understanding of the settlement of North America by Native Americans, Europeans, and African Americans and the interactions among these people. • Indicator 4-2.6: Explain the impact of indentured servitude and slaves on lives in the New World and the contributions of African slaves to the development of the American colonies, including farming techniques, cooking styles, and languages.

8. SC Social Studies Standards • 4-6: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the Civil War and its impact on America. • Indicator 4-6.1: Compare the industrial North and the agricultural South prior to the Civil War including the specific nature of the economy of each region, the geographic characteristics and boundaries of each region, and the basic way of life in each region. • Indicator 4-6.2: Summarize the roles and accomplishments of the leaders of the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad before and during the Civil War, including those of Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and William Lloyd Garrison

9. SC ELA Standards • 4-1: The student will read and comprehend a variety of literary texts in print and non-print formats. • Indicator 4-1.1: use information from text to draw conclusions and make inferences • Indicator 4-1.4: understand character traits and motives, theme, and main ideas • Indicator 4-1.6: understand the effect of author’s craft including word choice, figurative language, and dialogue on meaning • Indicator 4-1.7: create responses to text through a variety of methods such as writing, creative dramatics, and visual and performing arts • Indicator 4-1.9: paraphrase text to demonstrate understanding of the main ideas

10. SC ELA Standards • 4-2: The student reads and comprehends print and non-print information. • Indicator 4-2.1: analyze evidence which supports the central idea • Indicator 4-2.2: use information within and across texts to draw conclusion and inferences • Indicator 4-2.3: use text features including titles, print styles, chapter headings, caption, subheadings, and white space • Indicator 4-2.4: use text structures such as tables of contents, glossary, index, and appendices. • Indicator 4-2.5: interpret graphic features • Indicator 4-2.6: create responses to text through a variety of methods such as writing, creative dramatics, and visual and performing arts • Indicator4-2.9: analyze text to locate cause and effect relationship

11. SC ELA Standards • 4-4: The student creates writing which includes a clear focus, cohesive organization, sufficient elaboration, effective voice, and appropriate use of conventions • Indicator 4-4.1: use pre-writing strategies such as graphic organizers, brainstorming, and literary models • Indicator 4-4.3: create writing that maintains focus across multiple paragraphs • Indicator 4-4.4: use a variety of words to make writing precise and vivid • Indicator 4-4.5: use transitional devices; future verb tenses; adverbs of time, place, manner and degree; conjunctions (while, although, when); nominative and objective pronoun cases; and pronoun-antecedent agreement in writing • Indicator 4-4.7: use previously learned revision strategies to enhance meaning, clarity, tone, and progression of ideas • Indicator 4-4.8: use proofreading to edit for previously learned conventions • Indicator 4-4.9: integrate expanding vocabulary from reading and listening into writing

12. SC ELA Standards • 4-5: The student will write for a variety of purposes and audiences • Indicator 4-5.2: create descriptive writing • Indicator 4-5.3: create reflective writing • Indicator 4-5.4: create narratives using dialogue and a specific point of view (first and third person) • Indicator 4-5.5: create expository writing such as biographies and content-area reports • Indicator 4-5.6: create writing such as plays and songs

13. Materials Needed • Texts for Students • Ellen Craft’s Escape from Slavery by Cathy Moore • The Brave Escape of Ellen and William Craft by Donald B. Lemke • Primary Source Documents • Objects • Cotton boll, powdered ink, chocolate brick, glasses, sling, compass, etc.

14. Found Poetry-selected phrases • Christmas just meant more work • Bone tired • Slaves had no freedom • Travel many miles and fool many people • They had to try • Ellen asked for two tickets • The railroad officer looked serious • What would a man do? He would not be afraid • It was Philadelphia! • We will never be slaves again • Finally we are safe

15. Edit Your Phrases!

16. Share with us • You have just created your own Found Poem • Please be brave and share what you have created

17. Resources • Story of Ellen and William Craft: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Great-Escape-From-Slavery-of-Ellen-and-William-Craft.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyPZB5hnPc (video created by students) • Readers’ Theatre: http://www.literacyconnections.com/ReadersTheater.php http://bms.westport.k12.ct.us/mccormick/rt/RTHOME.htm • Teaching using graphic novels: http://teachinggraphicnovels.blogspot.com/2009/05/nctes-tips-for-teaching-with-graphic.html http://www.google.com/search?q=teaching+with+graphic+novels&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a • Found Poetry: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5780 http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/poetry-from-prose-49.html

18. Additional Resources • Bogin, R., Loewenberg, B. J. (1978). Black women in the nineteenth-century American life. Pennsylvania State University Press, 104-126. • McCaskill, B. (1994). “Yours very truly”: ellen craft—the fugitive as text and artifact. African American Review, 28 (4), 509-521. • “William and Ellen Craft (1824-1900: 1826-1891)” The New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-622 • R. J. M. Blackett, Beating Against the Barriers: Biographical Essays in Nineteenth-Century Afro-American History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986). • Sarah Brusky, "The Travels of William and Ellen Craft: Race and Travel Literature in the Nineteenth Century," Prospects 25 (2000): 177-91. • William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: The Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999). • Barbara McCaskill, "Ellen Craft: The Fugitive Who Fled as a Planter," in Georgia Women: Their Lives and Times, vol. 1., ed. Ann Short Chirhart and Betty Wood (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009). • Ellen Samuels, "'A Complication of Complaints': Untangling Disability, Race, and Gender in William and Ellen Craft's Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom," MELUS 31 (fall 2006): 15-47. • Dorothy Sterling, Black Foremothers: Three Lives (Old Westbury, N.Y.: Feminist Press, 1998). • Daneen Wardrop, "Ellen Craft and the Case of Salomé Muller in Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom," Women's Studies 33 (2004): 961-84.

19. For More Information Patricia Williams Lessane Education & Outreach Coordinator Avery Research Center College of Charleston 66 George Street Charleston, SC 29424 (843) 953-7234 lessanepw@cofc.edu

20. Thank You!