Phillis Wheatley: Poems Lesson Plan

Missionaries and Slavery (Day 1)

Kind of Activity:

Research

Objective:

Students will be able to contextualize Wheatley's belief in the wider history of slavery and Christian missionary work

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.7; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.8; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.2; CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.3

Structure:

By now students know a few of Wheatley's central characteristics: she was a very young woman when she wrote most of these poems; she was Black and, for most of her life, enslaved; she endured the notoriously horrific Middle Passage at the age of seven; she was an extremely devout Christian intent on spreading...