'12 Years a Slave': Would it be a good classroom teaching tool?

Not only is the memoir by Solomon Northup now an Oscar-nominated film, but director Steve McQueen is encouraging schools to use the book as part of their units on slavery and the Civil War.

|
Francois Duhamel/Fox Searchlight/AP
'12 Years a Slave' stars Michael Fassbender (l.), Lupita Nyong'o (center), and Chiwetel Ejiofor (r.).

Might “12 Years a Slave” be the next “Diary of Anne Frank”: a literary and big screen hit that translates well into the classroom?

The popularity of the movie – which is nominated for nine Oscars – propelled Solomon Northup’s memoir to the top of bestseller lists. And now educators are betting that that same popularity may render the gripping story about a free black man kidnapped into slavery before the Civil War into a golden learning opportunity for secondary school students.

That’s why movie director Steve McQueen is working with Penguin Books to encourage public schools to teach the story as part of slavery and Civil War lesson plans, according to a report in USA Today.

In the book, “Northup describes how he was lured from New York to Washington in 1841 and then sold into slavery. He endured horrific conditions on Louisiana plantations until he was saved by friends from the north,” as the paper reports. 

Though the book sold well when it was published in 1853 and was written in “surprisingly accessible prose for a  19th-century narrative,” it faded into obscurity, unlike another classic slave narrative, “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.” 

"This is a book nobody was really aware of, except scholars in the field, which is being introduced to the country," John Siciliano, executive editor of Penguin Books, told USA Today of "12."

And possibly, to public schools.

Penguin has so far planned a teacher’s guide, available in March, for educators to teach students Northup’s story and discuss elements of the Civil War and slavery. The publisher also has plans to work with curriculum developers to get the book into public schools in the US and UK.

Some schools are already integrating the book into lesson plans. At Quality Education School, an African-American-owned charter school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, social studies teacher Aisha Booth-Horton introduced the book to her 11th-grade students as part of the slavery section of their American History curriculum.

Having read about the horrors Northup endured, initially, the students were angry.

But Booth-Horton pushed them to find the lessons in his struggle.

Soon, they were “creating a 21st-century version of Solomon,” “part President Obama, a little bit Mandela, and some Muhammad Ali,” she says.

Booth-Horton calls the book is "controversial" and "hard," but says it should be taught in schools.

"Any hard story should be told," she says, "but told under guided hands."

Movie director McQueen likens “12 Years” to another “hard” story that should be told – and has been – in schools across the country and the world.

“I live in Amsterdam and Anne Frank is all around us,” McQueen told USA Today. Like Anne Frank’s diary, he’s betting Northup’s story will speak to kids.

“[I]t’s so accessible, it’s readable, it’s so engaging. Solomon, like Anne Frank, is talking directly to us.”

For many school students, Solomon Northup may be to slavery what Anne Frank was to the Holocaust: a youth-appropriate entrée to one of the most painful parts of history.

Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to '12 Years a Slave': Would it be a good classroom teaching tool?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0219/12-Years-a-Slave-Would-it-be-a-good-classroom-teaching-tool
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe