8. What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. lesson - Anthology.docx

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?/ Frederick Douglass/ Created by SAP District
Unit 2/Week 18
Title: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
Teacher Instructions
Preparing for Teaching
1. Read the Big Ideas and Key Understandings and the Synopsis. Please do not read this to the students. This is a description for
teachers about the big ideas and key understanding that students should take away after completing this task.
Big Ideas and Key Understandings
Slavery was an inhuman and cruel institution made more so by America’s rhetoric and celebration of freedom and liberty.
Synopsis
Frederick Douglass, a freed slave, is asked to give a speech to a group of Americans on the 4 th of July. Douglass uses the
occasion to eloquently and forcefully address the hypocrisy of a nation celebrating freedom, while enslaving so many. With
equal forces, he strips bare the arguments for slavery, concluding with a call for radical action to end slavery in America.
2. Read the entire selection, keeping in mind the Big Ideas and Key Understandings.
3. Re-read the text while noting the stopping points for the Text Dependent Questions and teaching Tier II/academic vocabulary.
During Teaching

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?/ Frederick Douglass/ Created by SAP District
1. Students read the entire selection independently.
2. Teacher reads the text aloud while students follow along or students take turns reading aloud to each other. Depending on the
text length and student need, the teacher may choose to read the full text or a passage aloud. For a particularly complex text, the
teacher may choose to reverse the order of steps 1 and 2.
3. Students and teacher re-read the text while stopping to respond to and discuss the questions, continually returning to the text. A
variety of methods can be used to structure the reading and discussion (i.e., whole class discussion, think-pair-share,
independent written response, group work, etc.)
Text Dependent Questions
Text-dependent Questions Evidence-based Answers
Background Knowledge: Briefly state the information about
Douglass provided in this section.
Why might so many people not have believed Douglass was a
former slave?