ABSTRACT
Over the course of this unit, students engage in several activities designed
to extend and refine their understanding of slavery. In their second lesson,
for example, they work in groups to develop a list of basic human rights-
they suggest such things as privacy, being safe outside, speech, feelings, re-
ligion, clean air, nature, life, freedom, and “being yourself.” She then
shows them engravings of enslaved Africans and examples of slave codes
from colonial Virginia; students compare these restrictions to their own
list of rights and analyze why slave owners considered such measures
necessary. The class concludes this lesson by discussing contempo-
rary examples of violations of human rights; some students’ families
come from Guatemala and El Salvador and can supply examples from
those countries, while others make comparisons to what they have learned
at school about the Civil Rights movement, to media reports of events
in Bosnia and Rwanda, or to their knowledge of topics-such as
child abuse and sexual abuse-which rarely are discussed in school.
