The Souls of Black Folk Lesson Plan

Black Intellectuals Over Time (Part 1)

Kind of Activity:

Collaborative Writing

Objective:

Students will analyze, compare and contrast three texts in a jigsaw activity.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.7, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.5

Structure:

In this activity, students will engage with three different essays by Black men in three distinct eras. They will look at “Of the Dawn of Freedom” by W.E.B. DuBois (Reconstruction and early Jim Crow eras), “Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin (Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras), and “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America” by Kiese Laymon (Obama and Black Lives Matter eras). While these three essays...