The Emperor Jones Lesson Plan

Collective Trauma

Kind of Activity:

Research

Objective:

Students will research and wrie about the psychological effect of collective trauma.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.1, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.1

Structure:

In Scene 6, Jones encounters in his hallucinations a group of Africans being herded into a ship destined for the United States, and their enslavement. As the scene progresses, a collective wail of anguish rises up out of the apparitions, and Jones is inexorably compelled to join them in this scream, marking an outward expression of the collective trauma that centuries of forced enslavement has had on African Americans.

In Day 2, we discussed...