Get A Mule 40 Acres Or So
Episode
The declaration of Special Field Orders No. 15 was supposed to redress the cruelty and debasement of slavery by providing a way for formerly enslaved people to begin to rebuild their humanity after slavery. Land ownership was to be the basis for any future economic base, however, efforts to give formerly enslaved people access to land ended shortly after they started, and Black Americans faced tremendous violence in response to efforts to create land based wealth. (NOTE: There will be more curriculum soon, we just REALLY wanted to get this one to you...)
Curriculum Materials
Standards & Frameworks
These documents map the activites in this module to numerous national and state standards and frameworks.
Basic Lessons
These activities consist of viewing the episode and responding to the discussion prompts embedded in the episode.
The Conversation Continues
This activity consists of additional discussion prompts and resources that delve into the issues raised in the episode.
Timelining to Understand
These activities ask students to place the events discussed in the video in a larger historical context by working with a timeline of US history.
Deep Dive Read
These activities ask students to closely read, annotate, and interpret complex primary texts mentioned in the episode.
Opening Up the Textbook
These activities ask students to consider the implications of the dominant narrative by seeing how the story in the episode is (or isn’t) talked about in their textbooks.
Into the Archives
These activities ask students to (1) generate their own questions and plan larger inquiries into the historical record regarding the stories presented in the video, and then (2) find, evaluate, and interpret historical documents to develop a research claim.