10/23/08

Objectives: E3.Students will articulate personal opinions to clarify stated positions, persuade or influence groups.
E 3. Students will present reasons, examples, and details from text to defend opinions and judgments.
E4. Students will Speak
informally with peers and
in group settings
E4. Respect the age, gender, social position, and cultural traditions of peers
Background for understanding: Students would have read Chapters 11 to 15.
Aim: How can we present reasons, examples, and details from the text to defend opinions and judgements?
Do Now (ties in to the Critical Lens of ELA Regents): Read the following quote and state if you agree or disagree with the quote and why “To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.”
—Bernadette Devlin
The Price of My Soul, 1969
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Cooperative Learning: Form groups of 3-4 and each group will be responsible for responding to one selected chapter in 15 minutes and present to class on chart paper. Groups must also cite sources and “direct quotes”. The audience will take notes on each presentation.

XI “The New Tie to Life”

Comprehension Check:
Linda’s first child was a, and his name was_. He was named after < style="font-weight: bold;">(62)
Interpret:
What is Dr. Flint suggesting to Linda when he said “he is a physician [who] could save [her] from exposure?” (59).
Explain what Linda is inferring when she said “I did not feel as proud as I had done. My strongest weapon with him was gone” (59)?
Linda made choices with deliberate calculation. How did her plan backfire? (61)
Vocabulary:
(59)= Avowal, Obstinate
(60)= Insolence
(63)= Solace
XII “Fear of Insurrection”
Comprehension Check:
What historical insurrection is Brent referring to in this chapter? What is an insurrection?
Analyze and Interpret:
In this chapter Linda points out that some whites can’t read. However, why were they looking for written correspondence among the slaves?
Vocabulary:
(65) Marauders
(66) Consternation

XIII “The Church and Slavery” Teacher will read the following excerpt from Graduate Thesis. Students will analyze and discuss. How does Christianity masks some of slavery’s atrocities in Jacobs’ narrative?

Jacobs also exposes the Christian hypocrisy < style="font-weight: bold;">when Reverend Mr. Pike calls for “Servants, [to] be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in the singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. If you disobey your earthly master, you offend your heavenly Master” (70). Rather than denounce slavery, he enforces a dogma that obedience to white masters will lead to spiritual liberation. Slaves are therefore brainwashed believing there is a direct correlation between Christ and their white slave masters. Furthermore, they must be submissive to their masters. This hypocrisy is seen when a Northern clergyman visits a southern slave master’s home and is exposed to a dinner table “loaded with luxuries,” lush gardens, spiritual talks, and the “comfortable huts of the favored household slaves,” who [slaves] tell him that they do not want to be free for fear of their lives (76). He returns to the North publicizing that he has seen “slavery for himself; that it is a beautiful “patriarchal institution” and the terrible acts of slavery are exaggerations of abolitionists. However, Jacobs exposes slave masters’ totalitarianism and the ignorance and trickery of the clergyman stating:
does he know of the half-starved wretches toiling from dawn till dark on the plantations? of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from their arms by slave traders? of young girls dragged down into moral filth? of pools of blood around the whipping post? of hounds trained to tear human flesh? of men screwed into cotton gins to die? (76).
Furthermore, Jacobs was “much surprised [when Dr. Flint, her oppressive slave master had joined the Episcopal church, and thought] that religion has a purifying effect on the character of men; but the worst persecutions [she] endured from him were after he was a communicant” (70, 77). Flint announces that he joined the church because he is aging and his social position in the community requires it. It would also end the gossip of his transgressions on his plantation.
Another well-known Christian hypocrisy is the forbidding of slaves from reading the Bible. Jacobs tells of Uncle Fred whom she taught to read the Bible in concealment because it was “contrary to the law; and that slaves were whipped and imprisoned for teaching each other to read” (74). Here, her audience are compelled to reflect on their own ethos and scruples about God’s laws and man made laws that prohibits the inferior slave like Uncle Fred (who only wanted to better serve God) from reading the Bible. She boldly attacks both institution of Church and Slavery < style="font-weight: bold;">and illustrates how they unite in the oppression of slaves:
There are thousands, who, like good uncle Fred, are thirsting for the water of life; but the law forbids it, and the churches withhold it. They send the Bible to heathen abroad, and neglect the heathen at home. I am glad that missionaries go out to the dark corners of the earth; but I ask them not to overlook the dark corners at home. Talk to American slaveholders and you talk to savages in Africa. Tell them it is wrong to traffic men, [women and children]. Tell them it is sinful to sell their own children, and atrocious to violate their own daughters. Tell them that all men are brethren, and that man has no right to shut out the light of knowledge from his brother. Tell them they are answerable to God for sealing up the Fountain of Life from souls that are thirsting for it (75-76).
Jacobs illustrates race superiority and moral contradictions in church teachings. Furthermore, slave masters; intentionally use them to deny slaves their freedom.

XIV “Another Link to Life”
Comprehension Check:
How old is Linda in this chapter? (80)
What was Linda’s near death experience? (80)
Analyze and Interpret:
According to Linda Brent “the slave child shall follow the condition of the mother, not the father; thus taking care that licentiousness shall not interfere with avarice.” Explain (78)
What heinous act did Mr. Flint bestowed on Linda when he learned that she was pregnant with another child? (79)
Why was Linda highly concerned that her second born was a girl?
Literary analysis:
Identify device “he was like a restless spirit from the pit” (79).
Linda refers to her daughter’s gift of the gold chain as an emblem. What literary device is this? (81)
Vocabulary:
(78)= Forbearance, Reprobate, Descanting, Lacerated
(80)= Vituperations,
(81) Skeins, Genealogies, Emblem

XV “Continued Persecution”

Comprehension Check:
How much money was offered to Flint for the purchase of Linda? (81)
How is child abuse evident in this chapter? (82)
How is Flint trying to domesticate Linda in this chapter? (85)
One can say that the constant conflict between Linda and Flint is a power struggle. According to Linda, Dr. Flint loved money, but he loved power more.” Can we find/recall further support for this in the previous chapters?
Interpret:
According to Linda Brent “My master had power and law on his side; [and] I had a determined will—How is there might in each?
Vocabulary:
(81) Paramour
(84) Indignant, Sanctioning, Complusion
(85)= Facetious, Jeers, Wilfulness

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Homework: Reminder that you have your first test on Monday 27th. The Test will be from chapters 6-15 of Incidents. Read to chapter 25.