The Slave Dancer Lesson Plan | Unit Objectives
1. Through reading Paula Fox's The Slave Dancer, students will gain an understanding of the effects of cruelty and the vicious cycle it can create.
2. Students will be exposed to gross racial injustice portrayed through the horrors of slavery.
3. Students will do background research to become familiar with relevant geographical locales and the history of slave trade.
4. Students will become familiar with and able to identify ship terminology.
5. Students will demonstrate their understanding of the text on four levels: factual, interpretive, critical and personal.
6. Students will gain appreciation for and demonstrate proficiency in identifying and using figurative language.
7. Students will be given the opportunity to practice reading aloud and silently to improve their skills in each area.
8. Students will answer questions to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the main events and characters in The Slave Dancer as they relate to the author's theme development.
9. Students will enrich their vocabularies and improve their understanding of the novel through the vocabulary lessons prepared for use in conjunction with the novel.
10. The writing assignments in this unit are geared to several purposes:
a. To have students demonstrate their abilities to inform, to persuade, or to express their own personal ideas
Note: Students will demonstrate ability to write effectively to inform by developing and organizing facts to convey information. Students will demonstrate the ability to write effectively to persuade by selecting and organizing relevant information, establishing an argumentative purpose, and by designing an appropriate strategy for an identified audience. Students will demonstrate the ability to write effectively to express personal ideas by selecting a form and its appropriate elements.
b. To check the students' reading comprehension
c. To make students think about the ideas presented by the novel
d. To encourage logical thinking
