Comments on: Presidents and the Enslaved: Helping Students Find the Truth https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/presidents-and-slaves-helping-students-find-the-truth/ Free lessons and resources for teaching people’s history in K-12 classrooms. For use with books by Howard Zinn and others on multicultural, women’s, and labor history. Tue, 10 May 2022 13:11:05 +0000 hourly 1 By: lovulovu https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/presidents-and-slaves-helping-students-find-the-truth/#comment-142153 Wed, 18 Feb 2015 01:58:13 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=564#comment-142153 Bush had something more powerful than slaves; something no period of captivity no matter how brutal ever produ?ced in slaves…sheep with a vote.

]]> By: Pam Gunkel https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/presidents-and-slaves-helping-students-find-the-truth/#comment-142130 Mon, 16 Feb 2015 23:03:08 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=564#comment-142130 I have a picture I took at the Smithsonian that I use in class. The display had a smaller version of the Jefferson statue with names on a wall as the background. I ask my students who they think the names represent,? They guess friends, family and people he worked with. This year was the first time one student guessed slaves. They had noticed repeating names such as Hannah, with no last names. Behind him are the names of the people Jefferson owned. I suggest to my students, we think we know these famous people, but do we really? We research to write essays and 6-word memoirs to address the full story.

]]> By: William Brown https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/presidents-and-slaves-helping-students-find-the-truth/#comment-84 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 07:37:48 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=564#comment-84 This lesson truly engaged my students. As a concluding assignment, I had students produce an episode of Maury. It may seem like a crazy idea, but, all of my students were familiar with the paternity tests that are frequently shown on the show, and there were obvious ways to connect it to the topic of this lesson. Students conducted research and based their characters, as well as the results of the paternity tests, on research. There were definitely some comedic moments, but the students gained a lot.

– William Brown

]]> By: Amy Lake https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/presidents-and-slaves-helping-students-find-the-truth/#comment-72 Sun, 20 Feb 2011 21:46:15 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=564#comment-72 The website, understanding prejudice.org invites visitors to guess which, if any of the first 16 presidents owned slaves and the numbers they owned. The data is plotted on a bar graph then compared to the actual numbers. A powerful learning tool.
-Amy Lake

]]> By: Pearson Cotton https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/presidents-and-slaves-helping-students-find-the-truth/#comment-59 Mon, 25 Oct 2010 23:43:15 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=564#comment-59 Excellent exchange with your students. These are very difficult issues for 5th graders to understand. But we have to make sure that they are not shielded from historical reality.

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