Action plan: integrating History and English- slavery

Mrs. Smith 09 Aug 08
Edg Action Plan
I am going to be a secondary History or English teacher. For this action plan, I am pretending that I’m teaching a sixth grade History classroom. We are going to be starting the unit on slavery and in order to get students more involved and be able to retain the information better; I will begin this unit using Harry Potter as an example. I will have a few sections of the book that had Siruis treating the house elf poorly; and then, Ron telling Hermione and Harry about house elves and how they are slaves. Lastly, I will show them some of the sections that Hermione started talking about SPEW and the things that she did to try to trick the elves into freedom. All of the sections that I will need for this will be found in, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
By using this information, I will show how this was very similar to the treatment of slaves in the United States. I plan on showing students how slaves were treated as property, and because of this, owners felt like they had the right to treat slaves anyway that they want to. I will use examples from Roots and maybe another slavery movie to show how they were treated. I want students to understand that slaves were beaten so bad sometimes they were killed. Even though a master killed a slave, there would be no murder charges filled because the master only treated his property badly.
I will also teach them how families were split up and marriages were not considered legal because the slaves were not treated like people. I will remind my students that not all master treated slaves badly, but a lot of them did not mind separating families because they needed the money from the sale.
When we start talking about people that were trying to help slaves escape and become free, I will remind my students about reading about SPEW and Hermione. There were some people that thought that a person should not be owned by another person and the United States was built on freedom. We will learn about the important people that helped lead slaves to freedom through the underground railroad. I will make sure that my students understand what the underground railroad was and how this was much like what Hermione was trying to do with SPEW.
Harry Potter can be used in almost any classroom, when used correctly. There are many benefits, including, being able to connect the new content to something that students already know and like. Even if some of the students haven’t read any Harry Potter, I will make sure that there is enough background information for students to be able to connect a fun theme with a hard subject. There can be a draw back because not every student is guaranteed to have read the series or even one of the books. The other problem could be that some students have read some of Harry Potter and just don’t like the books, so they decide to distract the other students. Also, there may be student’s parents that don’t want them hearing or reading about Harry Potter because of their religious beliefs. I will need to decide which classes this will work for and which ones this won’t because every classroom will be different.

Harry Potter in the classroom

Mrs. Smith 10 Aug 08

Annotated Bibliography
Topic: Slavery and the House Elves
Baggett, David, Shawn Klein and William Irwin. Harry Potter and Philosophy. NA: Open Court Publishing, 2004.

This book is about are about the insights to the different characters and what would the school be like if Aristotle ran Hogwarts. The part that I would use would be where they are talking about Ron explaining how house elves enjoy doing their jobs. I will have the students read the rational of these two authors and think about how that would transfer over to African slaves.

Books, Wiki. “Muggles Guide to Harry Potter/Magic/House Elf”. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Muggles, 1.

This website is a general overview of what a house elf is and what their job is in the wizarding world. I plan on using this site to show that you can start with a generalization and cross- reference the information with other sources. I am using this site specifically because there are things on this site that are not as reliable as others.
.Com, HP Proogs. “Episode 28: SPEW- A House Elves Podcasts”. http://www.hpprogs.com/2007/04/11/episode-28-spew-in-this-a-house-elves-podcast/, NA.

This website allows people to read or navigate to the podcast about the house elves. I think that I would play a few relevant parts for the class; while they were looking on with their copies of what was being said. I think that podcasts do have a good reason to be used in the classroom because they do get students more intent in what they are learning and more eager to figure out how this fits with the classroom.

Douglas and Seward. “Senator Douglas on Slavery, States Rights, Senator Seward on Popular Sovereignty, and Territorial Expansion”. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?, 1-2.

This was an article that was written in the New York Times in 1858 with the southern senator supporting slavery by using the excuse of states rights. The northern senator, in this articles, was talking about the U.S.’ territorial expansion and the need for people that live in that state to decide whether there will be slavery or not. I am going to use this article to show students why the question of slavery mattered to the government; and the big split between the northern and southern perspectives.

Epstein, David G. and Gizelle Liza Anatol. Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. NA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.

This book looks critically at the Harry Potter series and analyzes: themes, characters, attitudes towards life. In the attitudes that people have in life about slavery is where I would use the book, so students realize that societal problems can be found in modern day literature. Does that mean the information is put there deliberately? There is a section that I would use that compares Doby, the house elf, to the slaves coming from Africa. Also, where Winky is compared to slaves that are set free and do not understand freedom because they have been forced into slavery for most or all of their lives.

Incorporated, IPS. “NA”. http://www.leakylounge.com/House-Elf-Liberation-Fr%20t58703.html, 1.

The leaky lounge has a lot of site, links, and discussion boards. I would use this to show students how a discussion board works and people’s opinions of matters such as slavery do count. I will also use this site to get my students to post something about Harry Potter and the house elves life’s of slavery. I will also remind them hear that history was written by a person, so there is always an underlining perspective written within the history of any event.

Morgan, Edmund S. “Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox”. The Journal of American History, 59 (June 1972): 5- 29.

This article is about how the United States used the free labor of African slaves to build a new and separate nation from the British. The new leaders of America knew that they needed to have a solid economy to ensure the freedom of the country; and they did this by the free labor of indentured servants, but mostly slaves. I will use this article to show that there were people that were willing to defend the idea of slavery and the necessity of the slaves in America to ensure American freedom from Britain.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Broadway, NY: Scholastic Incorporated, 2007.

This was the last book in the Harry Potter series where Harry Potter finally beats Voldemort for good. However, the parts that I would use from the book would be from chapter ten, in the beginning Harry Potter was ordering the house elf to say certain things and do certain things because he belonged to Harry Potter. The house elf was handed down through the Black family to Harry’s godfather; and when Harry’s godfather died, the house elf became his. Essentially, the house elf, which was a living being, was considered a piece of property.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Broadway, NY: Scholastic Incorporated, 2003.

This was the book that came after Harry won the Triwizard Tournament, Cedric was killed by Voldemort, and Harry tried to warn the wizarding world that Voldemort was back and his Death Eaters were becoming active. However, the parts that I would use would be when Sirius was treating Kretcher, the house elf, like he was property to do his bidding. I would also use parts where Ron explained to Harry and Hermione that house elves liked serving their masters and Hermione getting mad at him. Then I would compare Hermione’s SPEW to the underground railroad.

Thwaites, Reuben Gold. The Colonies, 1492- 1750. NA: Longmans Green, 1890.

This book is about the beginning of colonization of what is now known as the United States. The part of the book that I will be focusing on will be how the first African slaves were treated when they came to the U.S. I want students to understand that slaves were not always treated badly or seen as property; the idea of slaves being property developed over time.