Geography – Economic Lesson Plan/
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt

Teacher Materials Needed:
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, Atlases – one for every 4 to 6 students, Underground Railroad Routes map, U.S. Free and Slave States map, Agricultural Specialization: 1860 map, paper measured for quilt squares, sheet of bulletin board paper

Student Materials Needed:
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, Atlas, Underground Railroad Routes map, U.S. Free and Slave States map, Agricultural Specialization: 1860 map, quilt squares

My Social Studies Goals for This Lesson:
Students will –
Identify landmarks in the story that Clara could use on her quilt.
Explain how the physical setting of Home Plantation was modified in ways that reveal cultural and economic values.
Analyze the effects of economic growth on the standard of living in the South.
Describe how plantation workers used natural, capital and human resources.
Write a description of a route Clara could have used to get to Canada once she crossed the Ohio River.
Work in cooperative groups to make a quilt that describes the journey Clara might have taken.

Related NC Standard Course of Study Goals/Objectives:
6.1 Analyze the movement of people, goods, and ideas within and among the countries of
      the United States, Canada, and Latin America and between the Western Hemisphere
      and other places.
9.1 Categorize economic resources found in the United States, Canada, and Latin
      America as human, natural, or capital.
9.5 Assess economic institutions in terms of how well they enable people to meet their
      needs.

Launch:
Discuss the following vocabulary terms with the students:  seamstress, overseer, plantation, Canada, underground railroad, freedom, Ohio River, Mississippi River, North Star, contrary, field hand.  To reinforce vocabulary skills, play vocabulary bingo.  On a blank bingo chart fill, in definitions of vocabulary words.  Call out the terms and have the students cover the definition.  Read Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt using the “popcorn method”.

Explore:
1. Show students the pages in the book where Clara is on the hill overlooking Home Plantation.  What are some ways that the environment of Home Plantation has been changed to meet people’s needs and their wants.  List their responses on the board.
2. Keeping the book and what you have just learned about its setting, where do you think the story took place and why do you think it took place in that state?
3. Ask students to identify the human, capital and natural resources of Home Plantation.  List their responses on the board in the appropriate category – human, capital, natural.
4. What are some physical and human-made features that Clara uses to make her quilt?

Summarize:
What was Clara’s opportunity cost when she chose to run away?
Why did she think her choice was better than what she gave up?
How do you think the plantation owners felt about runaway slaves?  Why?
What they think were the effects of having slaves on the standard of living of the plantation owners and their families?

Assessment/Evidence of Learning:
Explain to the students that they are going to make a “quilt map”.  Distribute copies of the Underground Railroad worksheet to the students.  Explain that there were many routes slaves could follow, depending on where they started.  Have students read the worksheet and discuss responses.  Instruct students to sketch a quilt in the squares on the worksheet to show the route from Charleston, South Carolina to New Haven, Connecticut.

Group Project:
Once Clara and Jack crossed the Ohio River, their journey was not over, but this is as much information as we have from the story.  Many runaways did not feel safe until they had reached Canada.  We are going to finish the story of Clara’s and Jack’s journey to freedom in Canada.
* Put the students in groups of no more than six.
* Distribute one copy of the map of Underground Railroad Routes to each group.
* Have students study the map and a U.S. map and name the three stations where Clara and Jack could have crossed the Ohio River.
* Instruct the students to select one of the stations and look at the route that would take runaways north to Canada, thinking     about physical and human made features that could be seen along the route.  Allow students to use books, atlases, encyclopedias, etc. to research information.
* Have each group make a list of these features, decide which ones to use on their quilt, and who should draw which features.  (Have them choose enough features that each student will have one to draw and color.)
* Before making the quilt, students should sketch their quilt design on 3” x 3” post it notes.  (Be sure to explain what quilt patterns are to students.)  Students need to realize that the map is hidden within the quilt.
* Give each student one or two “quilt squares” (8” x 8”) on which to draw and color the assigned features.
* When all pictures are finished have students in each group glue the squares on bulletin board paper.  Have each group share their quilt square with the other groups.
* Instruct students to write a paragraph to finish the story using the quilt they made.  The paragraph should tell how Clara and Jack satisfied their needs along the way, what they would want and need in Canada and how they might meet their needs and wants once they settled in Canada.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Routes for the Underground Railroad
 Listed below is one of the routes of the Underground Railroad. Read the stations for the route and plot them on your map. Clara did not travel this route, but other slaves did.
A runaway slave left Charleston, South Carolina, traveled north by boat along the Atlantic coastline into Delaware Bay. Then traveled by land to Philadelphia and continued by land northeast to New York City and then to New Haven Connecticut.
Think about this route and what a runaway would see at the various stations along it. Make a list of the physical and human-made features that could be seen at each station and places between stations.
Resources:
National Geographic - Underground Railroad:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/99/railroad/

On an Underground Railroad:
http://www.capecod.net/nhwixon/railroad.htm

Escape to Freedom:
http://www.headbone.com/derby/escape/main.b.html