Sojourner Truth Curriculum Development

The goal of the Curriculum Subcommittee is to disseminate materials and information that will encourage educators and teachers to insert Sojourner’s life story into their classroom curricula. Our first project was researching books and lesson plans available on the internet for elementary school level classrooms. We decided on a packet of materials based on the book “Only Passing Through” by Anne Rockwell; these materials were donated to 3rd - grade teachers in surrounding towns.

Most recently the subcommittee has partnered with the Deerfield Teachers Center to develop curricula for teacher workshops with a focus on Sojourner and her time in Florence. Primary source materials illuminating Sojourner’s time at the Northampton Association for Education and Industry and her 13 years in Florence have been developed into a sample curriculum for social studies teachers. The first workshop was presented in the fall of 2007 to teachers at a western Massachusetts curriculum workshop.

Another teacher support center, the Hampshire Educational Collaborative, has recently put primary source materials about the Northampton Association for Education and Industry on a new website available at http://tah.collaborative.org/NAEI/ .