Sarny Response Activities
Nightjohn and Sarny Unit
By Rick Vanderwall

Overview

This lesson will allow students to react three times during the reading of Sarny. The first response activity relates to the introduction and chapters one and two. Students reflect in a written paragraph about Sarny's experience of separation from her children and an actual ex-slave, Mr. John W. Fields. The second response activity covers the middle chapters, three through ten. Students are asked to crate a fictional story of a character gaining freedom. In the third response students will discuss in groups the similarities and differences in Sarny's life before and after slavery. In the Culminating Response students compare the life of Sarny to the life described by one of the ex-slaves in the Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938.

Student Objectives

Students will:

• Read and compare their own experience with the experiences of a character from the novel and of an ex-slave.
• Use ex-slave narratives to support a thesis statement.
• Express in writing their reaction to the similarities and differences.

Skills Attained

Students will be able to:

• Compare and contrast experiences of diverse individuals.
• Reflect on what they have read and the lives of real people.

Materials Needed

• Response Handouts
• Access to the Internet

The Lesson

Anticipatory Set

Ask one or two students to share their experiences about learning to read.

Procedures

1. Have students discuss the events that take place in Sarny as they read the book.



2. Offer the Vocabulary List below for student reference. As the words on the list appear in the text, check students’ understanding, especially with the antiquated words. You can use the contextual meaning of the words as wonderful discussion prompts for not only aspects of the novel, but also their connection to the history of slavery. You can also use this list as a resource to discuss the language spoken by the novel's characters with your students.



3. Discuss the events that took place in the assigned chapters students have read from Sarny.



4. Hand out the Response One sheet. Ask students to make a random list of all that they remember about learning to read.



5. Introduce the concepts of a thesis statement and supporting it with facts. Discuss the violence of Chapters Three-Five. Then, hand out and have students complete the Response Two sheet.



6. Open this response with a discussion of why or why not your students value the right to attend school. Then hand out and have students complete the Response Three sheet.



7. Give out the Culminating Response sheet without introduction and give students 15-20 minutes to write.



8. Ask each student to share as much of what they have written as they are comfortable. You should also give students the right to pass. (Most will share a sentence or two.)

Assessment

To grade students’ work, you can use a rubric, such as the one below:

Grading Element	Points (out of 15 total)
Completion of the handouts	10
Participation in sharing (optional)	5 (optional)

Rick Vanderwall teaches Sixth Grade Language Arts and Social Studies at Price Laboratory School located at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Return to main unit page.

Chapter One

signifies--to have significance
I know he cares and that's all that signifies. (page 2)

molasses--the thick dark to light brown syrup that is separated from raw sugar in sugar manufacture
Running was the same as reading. It started slow like molasses. (page 9)

shirtwaists--a woman's blouse
Time passed, and more time until both the babies were weaned and running in shirtwaists. (page 16)

emancipation--free from bondage
Said the war was to make southern states come into line with the North and that emancipation was part of the fighting. (page 17)

quarters--living place of slaves on a plantation
…we all hid in the quarters or in the barns or in the bushes…. (page 19)

Chapter Two

plantation--a farming estate usually worked by resident workers
…I saw men running towards the plantation across the north field. (page 23)

bayonet--a steel blade attached at the muzzle end of a rifle.
Waller, he had the other pistol and, the boy, he ran around the corner and the bayonet went into Waller. (page 24)

Chapter Five

hants--a variation of haunt

specters--visible, disembodied spirits
We'd been up so long I was seeing things, hants and specters and such…. (page 44)

linsey--a coarse sturdy fabric of wool and linen or cotton
Some had grey on, most just tatters of homespun or linsey…. (page 45)

abomination--an object of disgust or hatred
God, this whole thing is…an abomination. (page 50)

Chapter Six

gant --lacking strength
Black or white they were gant and walked weak…. (page 62)

vittles--supplies of food
Now we had some vittles in us and she was laying up next to the small fire…. (page 63)

Chapter Eight

mammies--variation of mamma
…they died hard, asking for their mammies or sweethearts…. (page 73)

Chapter Nine

fidgeted--to move or act restlessly or nervously
He pulled the team up next to our fire and they fidgeted, stamping to go. (page 78)

Chapter Ten

octoroons--a person of one-eighth black ancestry
Didn't say were they bad or good, just some were called octoroons and they passed. (page 86)

cordials--a stimulating drink or medicine
…Take the lady's wraps and bring us some cordials. (page 89)

petticoat--an underskirt, usually a little shorter than outer clothing and often made with a ruffled, pleated, or lace edge
But Miss Laura had to take off her dress, then one petticoat after another. (page 93)

Chapter 13

caviar--processed salted fish eggs of a large fish
"They're called caviar." Bartlett said. "They come from Russia." (page 122)

Chapter 14

primer--a small book for teaching children to read
…she found me some books for children called primers…. (page 134)

gunny sacks --a sack made of a coarse heavy fabric like burlap
You could have put her in a gunny sack, and Lucy she would have shown through some way. (page 137)

salon room--an elegant apartment or living room
There was a salon room as pretty as Miss Laura's,…. (page 141)

Chapter 16

lynching--to put to death by mob action without proper legal power
It's a lynching--a murder. (page 160)

amassed--to collect for oneself
I do not have a family, and I have amassed a considerable sum. (page 164)

spectacles--an optical instrument or device that has one or more lenses and is designed to aid in seeing.
Brune he put on small spectacles…. (page 171)

Cynthia Pham is an undergraduate student at the University of Northern Iowa. She hopes to be a teacher when she graduates. Ms. Pham created the vocabulary list above.

Activity Sheet

Name: __________________________________________________

Date: __________________________________________________

Period: __________________________________________________

Instructions: After reading the excerpt below, reflect, in a short paragraph, how you might react if you were separated from your family. Include any memories you have of times you have been separated from those you love and how a permanent separation might affect your life.

Mr. John W. Fields, Age 89, Ex-slave interviewed September 17, 1937

"My name is John W. Fields and I'm 89 years old. I was born March 27, 1848 in Owensburg, Ky. That's 115 miles below Louisville, Ky. There was eleven other children besides myself in my family. When I was six years old, all of us children were taken from my parents, because my master died, and his estate had to be settled. We slaves were divided by this method. Three disinterested persons were chosen to come to the plantation, and together they wrote the names of the different heirs on a few slips of paper. These slips were put in a hat and passed among us slaves. Each one took a slip and the name on the slip was the new owner. I happened to draw the name of a relative of my master who was a widow. I can't describe the heartbreak and horror of that separation. I was only six years old and it was the last time I ever saw my mother for longer than one night. Twelve children taken from my mother in one day. Five sisters and two brothers went to Charleston, Virginia, one brother and one sister went to Lexington, Ky., one sister went to Hartford, Ky., and one brother and myself stayed in Owensburg, Ky. My mother was allowed to visit among us children for one week each year, only remain a short time at each place."

For more narrative excerpts on family being separated under slavery, click here.

Activity Sheet

Name: __________________________________________________

Date: __________________________________________________

Period: __________________________________________________

Instructions: The narrative below describes one ex-slave's memory of becoming free. Create your own freedom story in 200-300 words. You can write your freedom tale using any period of history or the future.

Tempie Cummins, Age Unknown

"The white chillun tries teach me to read and write but I didn' larn much, 'cause I allus workin.’ Mother was workin' in the house, and she cooked too. She say she used to hide in the chimney corner and listen to what the white folks say. When freedom was 'clared, marster wouldn' tell 'em, but mother she hear him tellin' mistus that the slaves was free, but they didn' know it, and he's not gwineter tell 'em till he makes another crop or two. When mother hear that, she say she slip out the chimney corner and crack her heels together four times and shouts, 'I's free, I's free.' Then she runs to the field, 'gainst marster's will, and tol' all the other slaves, and they quit work. Then she run away and in the night she slip into a big ravine near the house and have them bring me to her. Marster, he come out with his gun and shot at mother but she run down the ravine and gits away with me.

Activity Sheet

Name: __________________________________________________

Date: __________________________________________________

Period: __________________________________________________

Instructions: In your group, compare and contrast the life that Sarny lead as a slave in the first part of the book and the life she leads in New Orleans. Record the group's response to the following question. What about her life is harder now that she is free and what is easier? Report the group's compiled response to the whole class. Write a paragraph on this page as Sarny, answering the question about the difficulty of her life during and after slavery.

Activity Sheet

Name: __________________________________________________

Date: __________________________________________________

Period: __________________________________________________

Instructions: Select an ex-slave narrative from the list on the "Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives" from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, web site, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html. Then, read the complete narrative and compare, in writing, that individual’s real life to the life of Sarny in one to two paragraphs.