American Literature Periods 4 and 5

Period 4: These questions are HOMEWORK if there is a guest speaker today.  Period 5: These questions are classwork and are based on Chapters 6 and 7 read in class yesterday. After Friday Freewrite, you must complete and submit to guest teacher. You may copy and paste in to a word document and submit electronically. 

Chapters 6 and 7 of The Narrative of Frederick Douglass

 1.      Why is Mr. Auld angry when he finds that Mrs. Auld is teaching Frederick his letters? Why does Frederick call Mr. Auld’s forbidding his learning how to read “invaluable instruction” (p. 49)? (Education) *

2.      Why is this lesson so important to him? Why is the life of a city slave so much better than the life of a plantation slave?

3.      Why does Frederick relate the story of the slaves Henrietta and Mary? (English)

4.      Why does Frederick call slavery and power “poison”? What does this poison do to Mrs. Auld?

5.      What plan did Frederick adopt to learn how to read now that Mrs. Auld was no longer teaching him?

6.      What did Frederick use to bribe the little white boys? Why is it ironic that he bribed them?

7.      How does Master Auld’s prediction about Frederick and learning come true?

8.       How does Frederick learn to write? How does he trick the white boys into teaching him new letters?