Day of Tears

Use these activities to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of each activity.

ACTIVITY 1: “Letter to the Future”

In this activity, students write an expository letter to future humans, warning them to avoid the pitfalls and practices that led to the transatlantic slave trade and the events that followed.

There are certain historical periods and events that most people agree shouldn’t ever be repeated. The transatlantic slave trade, or the Maafa, is one of them. Imagine a child 300 years into the future. Write a letter to them explaining the concept of slavery, and include a list of things they can do to ensure that it never happens again. Your list can include habits of character, beliefs, or practices that may prevent humans from treating other humans as personal property based on race or any other identifying markers.

• Remember that you may be writing to someone who has little background knowledge or context for your basic ideas. When you present an item on your list, include a few sentences that explain how to do it in explicit detail.
• You might include historical research or direct quotes from the novel to justify your points.
• You might also use social science research, government documents, philosophy, etc., to persuade and warn your readers.

Teaching Suggestion: In this activity, students have the opportunity to engage with the novel’s theme Slavery as an Inhumane Practice Against Nature. Depending on the depth of their background knowledge, students may need support or additional time to find resources to substantiate their claims as the assignment dictates. An emotional toll may also weigh on some students (and teachers!) more than others in reading this novel and completing the related assignments. Activity 2 is somewhat less emotionally intense and can be presented as an alternative for those students who need a different entry point into this topic.

ACTIVITY 2: “Craft a Scene”

In this activity, students craft a monologue in the voice of one of the novel’s characters.

Choose one or more of the novel’s characters and write a monologue or a dialogue that takes place before or after The Weeping Time. Below is a potential list of ideas for crafting your scene; you may also create your own. Use the novel’s details and/or historical research to inform your writing.

• What might a conversation between Fanny Kemble and Pierce Butler have sounded like before their divorce?
• Imagine a conversation between Fanny Kemble and her daughters as children, or later as adults.
• Write a letter from Emma to Sarah and/or from Sarah to Emma.
• Write a monologue from the point of view of Dorcas.
• If Dorcas and Jeffrey had been able to write letters, what might they have written to one another?
• What might Sarah have said to her father in their last conversation before she left his household? How might he have responded?
• If it had been safe to correspond, what might a letter from Emma to her parents have sounded like, describing her life in Philadelphia or in Nova Scotia?

Teaching Suggestion: In this activity, students can engage with the novel’s various themes and motifs, depending on their approach. Student work might benefit from additional time to conduct some historical research or additional reading to enrich the details of their scenes.

Differentiation Suggestion: For a more kinesthetic and creative approach, it might be valuable to allow students to perform their scenes and/or write them in pairs for the purpose of performance.

Paired Text Extension

Both activities can be enriched by reading excerpts from the following titles:

• Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-1839 by Fanny Kemble
• The Weeping Time by historian Anne C. Bailey

Teaching Suggestion: Advanced students studying rhetoric and expository writing may benefit from Kemble’s journal, which served as an example among many other texts as a testimony against the institution of slavery. Both Kemble’s journal and Bailey’s text can help students identify historical details to round out their letters or make their scenes come to life. Both texts will also allow students to further engage with the novel’s themes (The Vulnerability of Black People and Enslaved People, The Significance of Location in the United States Prior to the 13th Amendment, Slavery as an Inhumane Practice Against Nature) via both primary and secondary sources. The resources made available in the Before Reading section are valuable for this exercise as well.