Lesson plan
Voices and Acts of Resistance
Grade band: upper secondary · 60 minutes
Objectives
- Identify several forms of resistance used by enslaved people.
- Analyse how resistance influenced the politics of slavery and abolition.
- Evaluate a first-hand account with attention to audience and purpose.
Materials
- Extracts from published narratives by formerly enslaved authors, with background notes
- Short readings on maroon communities and the Haitian Revolution
- Graphic organiser for source analysis
Steps
- Open with a quick write: what does resistance mean, and what forms can it take?
- Present a spectrum of resistance from everyday acts to armed revolt, using short readings.
- Give small groups a narrative extract and the organiser asking who wrote it, for whom, why, and what it reveals.
- Groups share findings, and the class builds a list of forms of resistance supported by evidence.
- Discuss how resistance affected laws, security measures and public debate, referring to the Haitian Revolution.
- End with a reflection on how stories of resistance honour agency without romanticising the cost.
Discussion questions
- Why is it important not to portray enslaved people only as victims?
- How might the intended audience have shaped what an author wrote?
- How did resistance change the political situation in which slavery was debated?
Assessment
Students write a paragraph arguing which form of resistance had the greatest political impact, citing at least one source and acknowledging a limit of the evidence.