Read the following excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s autobiographical nonfiction book Between the World and Me (2015), in which Coates, a Black American, writes a letter to his young son:

Part 1: Warm-up

Read the following excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s autobiographical nonfiction book Between the World and Me (2015), in which Coates, a Black American, writes a letter to his young son:

Part 3: Frederick Douglass Introductions

Please watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl0gm8CHOl8) as a brief introduction to Frederick Douglass. (Out of all the brief introductory videos I’ve searched through, this was one of the best!)

What are two facts about Douglass that you found most impressive?

Part 4: Before we read Frederick Douglass’s autobiographical personal narrative…

Frederick Douglass writes his personal narrative about the atrocities of what it was like to be enslaved.

1. Why do you think he chose to write about his experience; what do you think was his purpose?

1. Who do you think was the intended audience of his autobiography?

Vocabulary Terms:

• Humanize/humanization — To make someone’s humanity clearer; to see someone as a full, complex human being
• Dehumanize/dehumanization — To deprive someone of human traits; to treat someone as less than human
• Seldom — Rarely, infrequently
• Inquiry/To inquire — Question(s); to ask
• Mulatto — Someone with a mixed-race ancestry that includes white European and Black African roots. [THIS PHRASE IS NO LONGER POLITICALLY CORRECT/SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE; DO NOT USE]
• Overseer — Employed by the plantation owner, the overseer was also responsible for “supervising” the enslaved people

Part 5: Reading Chapter 1 of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Quickwrite/Reflect:

What does your birthday mean to you? Why do you think birthdays are so important and celebrated by society?