Lesson One: Grabbing the Students' Attention

Overview

Students will be introduced to modern-day slavery by reading undated accounts of slavery. Students will examine their beliefs about when slavery occurred and whom it affected. Students will consider their emotional and intellectual responses to the knowledge that slavery still exists throughout the world.

Objective

Students will use prior knowledge of slavery to internalize information presented in an article about modern-day slavery.

Time Frame

15 minutes: Independent student reading
15 minutes: Whole class discussion
15 minutes: Independent student journal writing
Total: 45 minutes

Materials

1. Edited first-hand accounts of modern-day slavery (PDF)
2. Unedited first-hand accounts of modern-day slavery (PDF)
3. Chalkboard
4. World Map

Procedure

1. Students read edited version of first-hand accounts of modern-day slavery. Students are not informed that these accounts take place in the present. While reading, students consider the following questions:

1. In what year did the events occur?
2. Where does this slave live?
3. In which type of slavery is this person enslaved?
4. If you were alive when this atrocity was taking place, what would you do?
5. What could or should the slave do to become free?
6. Remember any other issues that come to mind while reading. Discuss these issues in the whole class discussion.

2. When students finish reading the accounts, take a survey of when students believe the account of slavery occurs. Write the guesses in a timeline form on the board so that the timeline serves as a visual representation of history.

3. Take a survey of where the students believe slavery occurs. Mark the locations of the guesses on the world map.

4. Inform the students about where and when the slavery occurs. Discuss students' emotions and reactions to this information. Discuss their assumptions about the accounts of slavery.

Follow-Up Activities

Allow students time to write in their journals about their reactions to this new information. Encourage students to include their original assumptions about slavery and their new understandings of the victims of slavery.

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