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The following is student work and feedback for a one-of-a-kind US History Lesson: Close Your Eyes: Teaching A Slave Narrative by Henry Bibb (1849). Reading the lesson will help you understand the feedback much better!
After the students complete the artwork of this activity, there is a written reflection. Students will respond to the prompts in a Google Doc. The prompts are presented in Google Slides. We like to used “timed writing” for some of our class writing prompts. We find students are more focused and have a better opportunity to succeed.
Student responses were not changed for spelling or grammar
Time Writing Directions: Simply do the best you can in the time you are given. Just get your fingertips tapping on the keyboard. Don’t worry about spelling or punctuation. Write down your detailed and descriptive thoughts. You will be able to edit it later.
Writing Prompt #1 My ULTIMATE PRIDE SLIDE: Take a picture of your favorite slide and place it in the Henry Bibb reflection document. My Pride Slide. Explain why you chose this slide as your favorite. Explain your creative process. Describe what you included in your slide. What is your favorite image? (3:13)
Reasoning: This prompt is a “feel good” prompt. It simply asks the students to write about why they are proud of their art work. ALL students can feel good about their work and effort.
Student Drawings and Responses:
This slide was my favorite because it was the most fun to draw, and I think it was the best one I made. I also thought it was one of the easiest, and I put the most detail into it, especially the person. I included the Kentucky Senator in the suit with a big mansion behind him. My favorite image is Senator Thais is rich.
I chose this slide because I think this is my best work on the paper. I put a lot of effort and I loved the detail that was put into this. It is a slave running to freedom, and I love the message the picture gives.
I chose this slide because you should run like a man if someone is chasing you with a weapon. I also like it because I took the running from sponge bob. I thought of sponge bob running from doodle bob and I just decided to draw the guy running like that.
I chose the Canada slide to draw because I liked the different features. For example the rainbow, the butterflies, and the slave with the happy expression saying, “IM FREE!” I hope the viewers could feel the same emotion of happiness and freedom coming from the image and take that with them.
My slide shows an old woman who is very dirty and smells bad. She has an unpleasant surrounding and is laying down. I chose this slide because it stood out to me as a powerful way to show what Henry Bibb experienced throughout slavery. When I was drawing it, I focussed on details like the flies to show how neglected Henry was.I hope people who see my slide take away a deeper understanding of how difficult everyday life was for Henry Bibb and others in similar situations.
Student feedback: There is a star in the top right corner. At the end of one class, another student selected their favorite slide. This slide happened to be both the artist’s favorite and the viewer’s favorite. With the star, the students are asked to write a brief comment.
Writing Prompt #2 Visualization: Tell me how well you were able to visualize the images and scenes being described. How vivid were the images? Did you find it easy or challenging to create the images? Elaborate and explain your experience with your EYES closed. (Also include if you did not really try to close your eyes or visualize the image. I know this is hard for some students.) (3:14)
Reasoning: This prompt can be extremely helpful. Unless the teacher experiences the activity as the artist, he/she does not understand a student’s perspective.
I was able to visualize this well because the teacher was very descriptive with the reading. I could see the images very well in my head, though they were difficult to get down exactly on paper. It was easier to create the images in my brain than write them on paper. When I had my eyes closed, it made me tired,d but I focused on what the teacher was saying and pictured it in my head. The images were vivid. I closed my eyes and visualized what was being described.
I thought I was pretty good at getting a decent visual of the scene being described. It was quite easy because the only limit was our imagination, which allowed us to get a little creative, with the help of descriptions and settings. Some images were challenging because I got distracted and overthought the scene, while others had a lot going on.
I was able to visualize the images and the scenes that were being described very easily. I would just imagine the scene and every idea that popped into my head I drew. My images were very vivid. When my eyes were closed I would just imagine what was being described the best I could.
My ability while visualising images was pretty vivid; I had details down to the wrinkles of an old lady’s face or the wooden planks on the side of a wall. I found it pretty easy to create images in my head, as I believe I’m pretty imaginative in my own ways. I didn’t really enjoy the fact that we absolutely had to close our eyes, because I can think just as well with them open. In total, imagining images wasn’t a major problem in my drawing process.
I saw the images very clearly in my head and I just thought of all he said and it was very clear. I found it easy to imagine the stuff he said in my head. I understanded all the stuff he said. It was clear in my mind and I drew it how I saw it.
I drew the picture in my head and wrote it down based on what I saw in my vision. The images were not vivid. I found it easy to create the images as there was nothing that hard that I had to draw. When I had my eyes closed I found peace with my mind and relaxed to fit the picture. Whatever the teacher said I added it to my picture in my head. By the time he was done with saying things I had a whole perfect picture of what I was going to draw.
Writing Prompt #3: Understanding Henry Bibb: The goal of reading the slave narrative is for you to have a better understanding of his experience as a slave, a runaway slave, and later a free man. Explain how this activity helped with understanding Henry Bibb’s experience. Did the images help you understand his experiences as a slave working in the field, doing chores, running away, gaining freedom, being chased, getting captured, dealing with siblings being sold, and being whipped? (4:14)
Reasoning: This is probably the most important prompt for the teacher because the goal of the activity is to understand a little about the life of a slave. Hopefully,jn the feedback from the students matches the learning objectives of the activity.
This creative activity helped me to understand better the challenges of a working slave, a runaway slave, and a free slave. It gave me a better understanding of the sacrifices and pretty much never knowing what would happen next because they got treated as things, as if they were worth money. The empathy I had for him when his siblings got sold was very deep, and I was also getting hurt for not doing well or what you’re supposed to do. This overall helped me and showed me the tenacity from a hard-working slave being born into slavery, from then being incarcerated in chains, with death in the matter of seconds if have done something wrong, to then escaping and running away from a lady chasing him with a whip, to finally reaching a new free country, Canada.
I think I have a better understanding of how difficult and painful his life was as a slave, a runaway slave, and later a free man. Before reading it, I knew slavery was cruel, but the narrative and images made his experiences feel more real and personal. The pictures helped me imagine what it was like for him working long hours in the fields, doing chores, being whipped, and living in fear every day. The images of runaway slaves being chased and captured helped me understand how dangerous escaping was and how much courage Bibb had to keep trying for freedom. Seeing families and siblings being sold also showed the sadness and pain slavery caused. Overall, the narrative and images together made Henry Bibb’s story more powerful and helped me connect to his experiences on a deeper level.
This activity helped me understand Henry Bibb’s life better. The pictures and descriptions showed how difficult slavery was. I could imagine him working in the fields, running away, getting captured, and being separated from family. Seeing these scenes in my mind made the story feel more real and emotional.
This activity helped me understand Henry Bibb’s life better as a slave, a runaway slave, and a free man. When I was drawing the images it helped me. They showed the chronological order of when he got captured and had to work in a house and then after when he ran away and finally reached Canada. It must’ve been super difficult to walk from Kentucky to Canada, but he had to do it to become free. While he was working he had to do many chores, such as cleaning the floor and brushing a woman’s hair. The part I understood the most about his experiences was when he made it to Canada. He definitely felt very accomplished and finally free.
The pictures were a huge help in helping me understand his experiences and have empathy for him and other slaves. I couldn’t imagine working in the hot fields for so long doing hard chores or forced to be a personal servant for a master or other white men and women I feel like I understand his escape the most, since if I was in a horrible work environment like that, getting abused and forced to do hard labor, I would want to leave too.
This activity helped me understand Henry Bibb’s experience a lot more. I understood both the hardships and the accomplishments that Bibb made and concord over the span of his life. The slide when he made it to Canada was the slide that most made me understand the joy and relief that he must have felt after seeing that welcome to Canada sign. The slide about Bibb being chained and caught by the slave catcher helped me understand the struggle and pain that he endured throughout his time as a slave.
It helped us understand what family he came from and how he got himself into this mess. The images helped us picture what his life is compared to ares now and how he was treated for doing nothing wrong just being determined by the color of his skin. I understand how hard he worked the most, he pushed through every obstacle and worked his hardest to become a free man.
The images help me understand Henry’s experience better and it made me sympathize with him more. Henry went through a lot, from having his siblings sold off, working laborious hours in the field and finally running away after years of mistreatment. I understand all of the big feelings that he was feeling(sad, angry, confused), and I couldn’t imagine how I’d be able to go through the same struggles he did.
Writing Prompt #4 Mr. Molloy Evaluation: Evaluate the teacher’s reading. Did he do a good job of describing the people and scenes? What scene was the teacher’s best? List the scene and explain what YOU saw in your mind. What could the teacher do differently to improve this activity in the future? (4:14)
Reasoning: Especially when completing this activity for the 1st time, it is good to get student feedback. As a teacher, your own observations will help you improve. The scenes and people will be described in more detail. Google Slides can be edited with each presentation.
I think the teacher could show some examples of the previous slides created to give a better understanding of what we are doing and how much detail we should add. So these should be good examples of what to do.
One thing the teacher could do differently by specifying certain schemes that we didn’t have to draw before I started drawing. There was one time when he told us to imagine the baby, then told us to open their eyes. Me and my neighbor started drawing the baby, then he told us that this one wasn’t meant to be drawn.
I think for the future to better this activity, you could allow maybe a couple of images on the screen to let the students get a little bit of an idea. For example, some pictures of chains, whips, a rocking chair, a slave owner’s house, fields, etc.
The thing that he could have done better is not read the slides that we were not going to draw because it got a bit confusing.
The only thing the teacher could’ve done differently was give us a paper with the prompts on it so we could read it over how many times we wanted to.
One thing he could have done differently to provide a better listening or imaginative experience for the audience was to cut out the random, more useless information that doesn’t immerse us into the story.
The teacher should give more time to complete it.
The teacher’s voice and details helped make the scene feel intense and realistic. In the future, he could make the activity even better by pausing more often to explain important events or showing more images while reading so students can better connect to the story and understand Bibb’s experiences more deeply.
Writing Prompt #5 Self-Evaluation: Review all 8 of your slides. Evaluate the story you told. Explain your creative process. How hard was it to take the images from your mind and put them on paper?
List the Hardest Square to Draw:
List the Easiest Square to Draw: (4:14)
Reasoning: Just another prompt to have the students write a little more and reflect on the experience.
When I reviewed all 8 of my slides I think that I created the picture pretty good and they match the scenarios well. My creative process was I would really use my imagination to add details that would make the picture make sense. It was a little hard to take the images from my mind and put them onto the paper because you had to remember details to create a good drawing.
I think all 8 of my slides were decent. They weren’t all great but they were decent. There were definitely some better than others. I would say the easiest one was the dad and the hardest one was the one were the woman was chasing henry with the whip.
I think that I did an okay job. My best slide was the Kentucky senator because I used the most detail. My worst slide was the one running in the woods because I could not really see it in my head very well. Overall I think I did a good job but I definitely could have done better with a few of my slides. The thing that I could have done better is definitely adding a more detailed background and not just the person or people.
The story I told was one of struggle and hardship. My creative process was first imagining, then visualizing, and then putting it on the canvas, all in one big art masterpiece. My favorite slide was the chase in the woods, and my least favorite was drawing the lady. The hardest slide to draw was the man in the chains as I had to draw them wrapped around wrists and ankles, a hard angle to perfect.
All of my slides were very different from one another. The first slides were all pictures of the different characters of the story. The others were the ones that told the story and happened to Henry. I got to tell the story of Henry Bibbs and what he went through, through different images and visuals. After hearing the reading and picturing the scene in my head, I would then draw each part. I found it pretty easy to do because I had already seen what I would draw in my head. The hardest to draw was Henry in Canada because I did not know what to draw for it. The easiest one was when he was chained up, because I had made an easy visual in my head already.