Slave Narrative Essay Due Dec. 20-You Decide

Ladies and gentlemen,
In an effort to remain College Preparatory, I must insist that all scholars come prepared to every class every single day.

It has come to my attention that several scholars have failed to obtain a copy of Henry Louis Gate's "The Classic Slave Narratives". You were physically given handouts and warned of the time-lag of 3-5 business days if ordering from Borders or Barnes & Nobles. Those with other issues were informed of local libraries.

If you scroll down in October's logs, you'll notice the advanced advertisement for getting this book. We even started reading it a full week later due to concentration upon Gates' "The Trials of Phillis Wheatley"

While a handful of scholars informed me of difficulties obtaining this tome, still approximately 18 others have failed to do so.

As of tonight, we are 84 pages into this book, including the 14-page Introduction.

Every person in your class must have a copy of this book with annotations up to at least page 299 by Monday or each class without 100% preparation (book in hand, highlights, Post-Its and at least 1 Window per 30 pages read) will have to do a 5-page Essay in addition to Historical Fiction Slave Narrative Journals.

Topics for Essay will be:

"Equality" and Legal Racism


Rhetoric and Reasons Behind Slavery


Paradoxes of "America"


Each scholar will be required to use a minimum of six resources
1. "Roots" Parts I and II (and any subsequent Parts III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII)
-no more than three of these can be used for essay-
2. Mary Prince's Narrative
3. Fredrick Douglass' Narrative
4. "The Trials of Phillis Wheatley"
5. (any of the three Wheatley poems studied) - no more than two of these poems
6. A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution, by Carol Berkin
7. Other approved source
8. Pre-approved articles
9. Pre-approved PBS.org programs
10. Historical Resources (pre-approved)
11. Excerpts from "Notes on the State of Virginia", by Thomas Jefferson


All these and other approved sources must be clearly cited and included within a properly formatted bibliography.

Naturally, this can all be avoided by living up to your end of the written Declaration, signed by most of you the third week of September.