Students will create their own illustration of slavery after analyzing and discussing other artistic representations of slavery.
1. Provide each student with a copy of the Image Analysis Chart. Have the class examine Kitchen Ball at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia and Plantation Burial. Encourage students to record their observations on the Image Analysis Charts.
2. Divide the class into pairs. Assign each pair of students to complete one Image Analysis Chart by combining their individual observations to create the best possible Image Analysis Chart. Allowing students to look at their Image Analysis Charts, hold a whole-class discussion focused on the following questions:
3. Give students some background information about slavery in the United States. Select a short video from the PBS series Africans in America and see the related teacher resource guide for additional information about the program.
4. Provide each student with a sheet of white paper and markers or colored pencils. Assign each student to illustrate a representation of slavery in 19th-century America. Students should be asked to consider symbols, people, and things as well as colors that would influence the composition of their illustration. Allow the students to post their illustrations.
5. Hold a whole-class discussion focused around several students’ brief presentations of what they portrayed in their illustrations and why they emphasized those things. Have students compare/contrast their own representations with Christian Mayr’s painting.
6. If time allows, have students compare their work and the Mayr painting to Forward, Jacob Lawrence’s image of Harriet Tubman. Consider the ways power and identity play a role in all of the images.
Written by Zoe Voigt, Humanities Teacher
• The teacher will use the Image Analysis Charts, illustration, and class discussion to determine students’ understanding of the ideas and culture that influenced white artists in their portrayal of African American slavery.
• The teacher will use the illustration and class discussion to assess students’ ability to analyze how economic, cultural, political, and social factors influenced the institution of slavery and patterns of migration in the United States.
• The teacher will use the Image Analysis Charts to assess the students’ analysis of the composition and content of visual sources.
• The teacher may use an art rubric to assess the students’ illustrations.
Vocabulary
composition
content
illustration
mood
portray
portrayal
portrayed
representation
ssetting
subject
symbols
Materials
white paper, colored pencils, markers, or crayons
To compare with a 20th-century interpretation of slavery, representing an occurrence in the life of Harriet Tubman:
Jacob Lawrence, Forward, 1967
Links
PBS series Africans in America and the related teacher resource guide
John Antrobus, A Plantation Burial scene in Louissiana (sic), 1860
