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Beloved: A Unit Plan
By Paul Horton and Rick Vanderwall Unit Overview This humanities unit provides a thoughtful approach to a class reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved
. Not only does it address the novel, this unit also gives students the opportunity to respond to the history of slavery's deeper context and its aftermath by creating plays and other writings. This unit is intended
for an upper-level high school class of above average ability, possibly AP. Curriculum Standards The following standards have been taken from the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning
( McRel) standards.
- Analyzes the use of complex elements of plot in specific literary works.
- Understands how themes are used across literary works and genres.
- Understands the effects of author's style and complex literary devices and techniques on the overall quality of a work.
- Understands relationships between literature and its historical period, culture, and society.
- Understands the effects of author's style and complex literary devices and techniques on the overall quality of a work.
- Understands inferred and recurring themes in literary works.
- Understands writing techniques used to influence the reader and accomplish an author's purpose.
- Understands the philosophical assumptions and basic beliefs underlying an author's work.
- Uses criteria to evaluate own and others' effectiveness in group discussions and formal presentations.
- Uses a variety of criteria to evaluate the clarity and accuracy of information.
Lesson Plan Menu: Choose What You Want to Use Pre-reading Activities African Ideas of the Afterlife and Beloved:
Students read excerpts from African-American scholars on African beliefs in the afterlife. They then use that information to better understand Beloved
's role in Sethe's life. Also use these short accounts of African Ideas About the Afterlife from John S. Mbiti's African Religions and Philosophy
and Albert J. Raboteau's Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South.
The Tragedy of Slavery and its Aftermath, in Beloved: Establishing Contexts for Understanding:
Students review the history of slavery in America to understand better its long-lasting damage on the African-American psyche.
Creating Characters in a Historical Context: The Family Tree:
In this extension of the history of slavery activity, students create a family tree based on their research into the periods of history involving slavery.Support for the Reading Activities
Literature Circle Reading Response Activity: Students focus on parts of Beloved in this group activity.
(The following two assignments interrelate) Connecting the History of Slavery and Scriptwriting: A Checklist:
In preparing to write scripts of slaves' experiences, students research slavery by reading slave narratives and analyses of slavery' effect on the people enslaved. Adapting Beloved: A Readers Theatre Approach:
In this extension of the lesson on scripting, students write out class scripts for sections of Beloved.Post-Reading Activity
A Culminating Assignment: Weaving Together Strands of Memory:
In this culminating assignment that synthesizes the history with the fiction, students write their own "re-memories" using Morrison's style. Rick Vanderwall is the Chair of the Language Arts Department at Malcolm Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Paul Horton teaches History at Holy Innocents Episcopal School in Atlanta, Georgia.
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