School Library Media Specialist as Instructional Partner

The Underground Railroad Pathfinder

Name: Janet Hogue

School: Highland Middle School

Workshop Location: LEECA (Elyria)

Title of Companion Action Plan: Sources for the Underground Railroad

Grade Level(s): 6-8

Curriculum/Subject Area: Social Studies, Language Arts, Science

Specific Topic: Slavery, Underground Railroad

Fiction Books

Beatty, P. (1991). Jayhawker. New York: Morrow. 
  In the early years of the Civil War, teenage Kansan farm boy Lije Tulley becomes a Jayhawker, an abolitionist raider freeing slaves from the neighboring state of Missouri, and then goes undercover there as a spy. 
 
 
Beatty, P. (1992). Who comes with cannons? New York: Morrow. 
 In 1861 twelve-year-old Truth, a Quaker girl from Indiana, is staying with relatives who run a North Carolina station of the Underground Railroad, when her world is changed by the beginning of the Civil War.





Guccione, L. D. (1995). Come morning. Minneapolis: Carolrhoda. 
 Twelve-year-old Freedom, the son of a freed slave living in Delaware in the early 1850s, takes over his father's work in the Underground Railroad when his father disappears.
 
 
Hamilton, V. (1968). The house of Dies Drear. New York: MacMillan. 
 Thomas investigates the secrets locked in an old house said by a century-old legend to have housed two fugitive slaves.
 
 
Jacob, H. P. (1978). The diary of the Strawbridge Place. New York: Atheneum. 
 A family of Quakers operating a station on the Underground Railroad spirits slaves from Ashtabula, Ohio, across Lake Erie to freedom. 
 
 
 
McKiss, P. C. (1997). A picture of freedom: The diary of Clotee, a slave girl. New York: Scholastic. 
 In 1859 thirteen-year-old Clotee, a house slave who must conceal the fact that she can read and write, records in her diary her experiences and her struggle to decide whether to escape to freedom.
 
 
 
Meltzer, M. (1990). Underground man. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 
 A courageous young white man aids slaves escaping from Kentucky in pre-Civil War 
days.
 
Pearsall, S. (2002). Trouble don't last. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 
 Samuel, an eleven-year-old Kentucky slave, and Harrison, the elderly slave who helped raise him, attempt to escape to Canada via the Underground Railroad.
 
 
Pinkney, A. D. (1999). Silent thunder: A Civil War story. New York: Scholastic. 
In 1862, eleven-year-old Summer and her thirteen-year-old brother take turns describing
 how life on the quiet Virginia plantation where they are slaves is affected by the Civil War.
 
 
Non-Fiction Books
 
Cosner, S. (1991). The Underground Railroad. New York: Franklin Watts. 
 Describes the underground railroad which helped slaves escape to freedom.
 
Hamilton, V. (1993). Many thousand gone: African Americans from slavery to freedom. New York: Knopf. 
       Recounts the journey of Black slaves to freedom via the underground railroad, and the 
extended group of people who helped fugitive slaves in many ways.
 
 
Petry, A. (1996). Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad. New York: HarperTrophy. 
 A biography of the famous woman who worked to free her people on the Underground Railroad.
 
 
White, A. T. (1972). North to liberty: The story of the Underground Railroad. Champaign, IL:
 Garrard. 
 Describes the operation, stations, and famous conductors on the Underground Railroad, a network that helped many slaves escape from bondage.
 

Selected Articles from INFOhio Electronics Resources

" Songs of the Underground Railroad," Annals of American History.
<http://america.eb.com/america/article?eu=411466&query=Underground+Railroad>
[Accessed May 1, 2004].

Lyrics to spiritual songs sung during the time of the Underground Railroad.

Levi Coffin " The Underground Railroad," Annals of American History.
<http://america.eb.com/america/article?eu=411575&query=Underground+Railroad>
[Accessed May 1, 2004].

First person account of how the Underground Railroad operated.

Blade, The (Toledo, OH) : HISTORIAN CREDITS 3 TOLEDOANS FOR HELPING SLAVES FLEE
http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:TOBB
&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0EAF39C149E2859C&svc_dat=InfoWeb:current&req_dat=0FCBAB578E7D3992

Newspaper article describing the way three key local office holders bucked the laws to help runaway slaves.

 
 
Videocassettes
 
Altschul Group (Producer/Director). (1998). Underground Railroad: Escape from slavery [Motion picture].
 United States: Altschul Group. 
 Color; Sound; 25 minutes
 
Grace Productions Core (Producer/Director). (1992). Quest for freedom: The Harriet Tubman Story [Motion picture]. United States: Grace Productions Corp. 
 Color; Sound; 45 minutes
 
New Dimension (Producer/Director). (2000). Harriett Tubman and the Underground Railroad [Motion
 picture]. United States: New Dimension. 
 B&W and Color; Sound; 11 minutes
 
Ohio Dept. of Education (Producer/Director). (1985). Ohio's big drum [Motion picture]. United States: Ohio
 Dept. of Education. 
 Color; Sound;15minutes
 
 
Multimedia Kit
 
Safe Passage: The Underground Railroad in Southwestern Ohio. An OET/SchoolNet Project. 2004 CET Learning Services. Contains Teacher Guide, CD-ROM, VHS video, Underground Railroad Poster, Underground Railroad books (4), websites and Professional Development. <www.safepassageohio.org>
 
 
Websites
 
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
http://www.freedomcenter.org/
 
Black History Pages on Slavery
<http://blackhistorypages.com/Slavery>
 
PBS Search on Underground Railroad
<http://www.pbs.org/>

The Friends of Freedom Society: Ohio Underground Railroad Association
<http://www.ohioundergroundrailroad.org/>