Students’ age range: 12-14
Main subject: Social studies
Topic: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Description: Procedures
Engage
Lesson will begin with a recap of the previous lesson. Students will be shown a blank map of Africa and asked to locate the different places in Africa that they came from. They will also be asked questions about the key concepts/terms and content from the previous lesson.
Sample Questions
1. Define and use correctly the concepts/terms: Sugar Revolution, slave trade, enslavement, enslaved Africans, Middle Passage, Trans- Atlantic trade, chattel slavery, slaver, production, exploitation, resistance, settlers, colonists, ethnic groups, superior, inferior, plantation.
2. Identify places in Africa that the Africans were taken from and brought to the West Indies
3. Explain three reasons the Africans were brought to the Caribbean and enslaved.
Explore/Explain
Students will be asked to put forth ways they thought the Africans were captured and bought to the Caribbean. Their responses will be recorded on the board. Students will be shown a power point presentation, which highlights the ways in which Africans were captured and brought to the Caribbean. A fish bowl discussion will ensue.
Sample Question
1. Explain the ways in which Africans were captured and brought to the Caribbean.
2. If you were an African during that time, how would you respond to being captured?
Explore/Explain
Students will be shown a video (conditions of the Middle Passage). They will be given a guided question before the video is shown and a class discussion will ensue afterwards.
Sample Question
1. Assess the conditions of the Middle Passage
2. How do you think you would react if you were a passenger on the slave ships?
Elaborate/Extend
Based on how the Africans were captured and the conditions of the Middle Passage, students will be asked to comment on the arrival and sale of enslaved Africans (how they thought the process went) through a class discussion. Throughout discussion, teacher will clear up any misconceptions that students might have.
Sample Questions
1. Describe the conditions on the Middle Passage during the Trans-Atlantic trade.
2. Describe the arrival and sale of West Africans in the West Indies.
Summary
Teacher will review the lesson by asking students questions about the lesson. This will be done as a means of reinforcing content that students were exposed to.
Sample Questions
1. Explain the ways in which Africans were captured and brought to the Caribbean.
2. Assess the conditions of the Middle Passage
3. Describe the conditions on the Middle Passage during the Trans-Atlantic trade.
Evaluation 1 In groups of five, create a song, poem or rap about the conditions of the Middle Passage. 15 marks
Extended Activity Draw a diagram which illustrates the conditions of the Middle Passage