Title of Book: To be a SLAVE Author: Julius Lester

1. Title of Book: To be a SLAVEAuthor: Julius Lester Victoria Mendez Class Period: 5th

2. Context Clues

3. Text Purpose • The author wrote this book to inform and describe slavery . Julius Lester includes interviews and thoughts of slaves and people who witnessed slavery. The author also records his own thoughts towards slavery in the book. The author’s intended audience is teachers and students because this book can be used in lessons and essays for school.

4. Text Structure • Compare and Contrast since the signal words are although, however, but, also. • Sequence because the author uses dates and signal words before, after and finally. • The text structure affects me by knowing when slavery took place and by the author placing interviews and his own thoughts in this book.

5. Blacks: • Knew that they were individuals with their own minds. • Believed that God had other plans for them. • Whites: • Felt that slaves were owned “property”. • White owners believed that religious beliefs included that blacks should obey their masters. Both had negative opinions about each other. Both lived in fear. The slave owner feared that at any moment his slaves might try to kill him. The slaves feared the owners mistreatment. Text Representation

6. Author’s Perspective/Point of View

7. Main Idea

8. Supporting Details

9. Draw Inferences

10. Title: Slavery During the Civil War (Buzzle.com ) 1. Written as an article. 2. Not written in a journal format and doesn’t include interviews. 3. No dialogue. 4. Organized with titles and paragraphs. • Title: To be a SLAVE • Written as a book. • 2. Written with interviews and in a journal format. • 3. Includes dialogue. • 4. Organized with chapters. Both: 1. Article and book have to do with slavery. 2. The article and book are informative about slavery. 3. Taken place in the same time. Compare-Contrast

11. Facts

12. Opinions

13. Reading Response • On page 40, a woman had newborn babies that she wasn’t able to keep because, her owner would sell them for money. She had seven children and on one occasion she chose to kill her fourth child than to lose him to a sale. I felt very sorry for the woman because its devastating and heart-breaking for a mother to give up her children perhaps never to see them again. This story was very touching and sad and made me realize the many difficulties slaves endured. • On page 42, the selling of slaves was inhuman especially when the slave owners did not even tell a slave that he was going to be sold. Mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, brothers and sisters were many times sold without warning . I think that it was very cruel for families to be torn apart often times without being able to say goodbye such as in the case of a girl name Lucy whose new owner did not allow her to say bye to her child, husband and family. I would be devastated if I had to be forced to be away from my family Page 53 describes how the slave coffles were sometimes such torturous experiences that many slaves died on route. It was very sad to read about the story that described how a mother was shot by her owner because she was unable to walk any further since her feet were raw and bleeding from walkng barefooted in the snow. The heartless slave owner was so cruel he left her there and didn’t even bury her. It is very difficult to imagine how much pain and suffering the slaves had to endure. It made me sad to hear this story about how this mother was killed in front of her family.