Frederick Douglass Unit Plan, Resources, and Handouts

10 reasons to teach Douglass plus the unit plan

As I promised last week in my post about Frederick Douglass graphic essays, I’m providing a link below so you can purchase a PDF of my unit of instruction for The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Although this unit was designed for regular, in-person teaching, its activities and resources could be incorporated as part of a distance learning plan.

One more note: this plan isn’t perfect. Rarely does any topic or book I teach go exactly the way I want it to. However, this is my starting point or my game plan, if you will, for approaching this wonderful book that many of my former students have told me is one of their favorites from my classes.

But first, why teach Frederick Douglass’ narrative?

Here are ten reasons, in no particular order, of why we all should be teaching Frederick Douglass to our middle and high school students.

1. So kids read an eyewitness account of the institution of American slavery.
2. So kids understand the dehumanizing effects of slavery and that dehumanizing language and actions are used by oppressors around the world still today .
3. So kids can recognize directly the connection between the horrors of American slavery and its legacy… racial strife in America today.
4. So kids understand the power of reading and, more generally, education.
5. So students know the risks Douglass took in telling the world about the horrors of slavery.
6. So kids understand the roots of racism in the United States as expressed in the inhumane and abusive treatment of African-Americans, and how those roots continue to reveal themselves today.
7. So students can understand connections between the America of 1845, when Douglass’ narrative was first published, and the America of 2020.
8. To learn the strength of powerful arguments told through both prose and poetry.
9. To be inspired and to work for a better world.
10. To learn that no matter how tough life gets, others have gone before them and survived their own equally harrowing ordeals.

Also in this post: unit plan resources and handouts available for purchase. See below.

Whenever I teach Frederick Douglass, I truly desire that students read the entire text and understand and appreciate its tough lessons, grim realities and inspiring anecdotes. To that end, each chapter includes…

• traditional reading comprehension questions
• discussion starters
• a drawing/sketch activity
• collaborative textual analysis
• brief, low-stakes presentations
• written responses
• cloze activities
• vocabulary instruction
• a culminating argument essay

And of course, based on the particular mix of students in my classes, each year is different when I teach Douglass. As a result, some years I design on-the-fly, ancillary activities that tend to be more creative. During Chapter 10, the longest chapter (by far!) of the book, you may feel — as I do — that students would enjoy some creative artistic projects.

In the past I’ve had students work on these activities as they listen to Chapter 10 from an audio CD or a streamed service. It’s been a beneficial way to help students persevere through the longest chapter in the book while letting their creative juices flow.

One year, students located passages in the chapter that revealed one of Douglass’ personality traits and incorporated that passage into a drawn portrait. Another project asked students to create an illustration of the ships in Chesapeake Bay that included a passage from text in the background of the illustration.

Without further ado…

I’ve made my Frederick Douglass Unit Plan plus Resources and Handouts available for purchase from my shop on this site. To see sample pages from the 67-page plan scroll through the images below. This plan is not available on my TpT store.

Please contact me with any questions by leaving a message on my Contact page. I will receive an email notification and will respond as soon as I can today.

Download these additional items for the unit plan at no charge:

And here’s the Kevin Bales video featured in the unit plan infographic extension. Bales is Professor of Contemporary Slavery and Research Director of the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. He’s written numerous books on modern slavery, including Blood and Earth, Disposable People, and Ending Slavery.

Thanks for reading!

I consider Frederick Douglass to be our country’s greatest unsung hero. His narrative is a must-read for every student in the United States. Feel free to share your ideas and comments about this unit plan. If I have omitted a needed detail or step, or if you notice errors, please comment and I’ll make the needed changes asap.

Contact me via my Contact page. Enjoy!