HOW DID SLAVES FIND A ROUTE TO FREEDOM?: AND OTHER QUESTIONS ABOUT THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

How Did Slaves Find A Route To Freedom?: And Other Questions about the Underground Railroad is a an amazing Nonfiction genre children's book full of information about the Underground Railroad and slavery. Written by Laura Hamilton Waxman, this book has multiple text features that help organize the information presented and make it more accessible and easy to digest for grades 4-12.  With a table of contents, Chapter headings, and subtitles students are able to more expertly navigate the timeline of the Underground Railroad through its history.  However, it's the artwork illustrations, maps, and real photographs, contained within this text, that truly paint a beautiful picture of such a terrible time in our country's history, as it visually fills any textual gaps for the reader.  Through this book the reader is able to, in essence, take a virtual field trip through these pages. They are able to see what life was like, for a slave, before the Underground Railroad and what radical changes were left afterward. It's concise, informative, and a definition of an excellent Nonfiction book.

Discussion Questions:

- What was life like, for a slave, before the Underground Railroad?  

- How did masters treat their slaves?

- What would it have felt like to be a slave back then?

- Who were some of the people who helped make the Underground Railroad possible?

- Where were some of the important places along the Underground Railroad?

- What transpired, or happened, because of the Underground Railroad?

Motivational Activity:

Students will work in small groups with pieces of paper, pencils, and tape as they construct and fill in their own Underground Railroad timeline.  Each student in the group will have a job assigned to them such as group leader, group recorder, group analyst, and group reporter. Each group will use this nonfiction text as a resource to fill in their Underground Railroad timeline with information, dates, places, and people that they believe are pertinent. Then each group will have the opportunity to share their timeline with the rest of the class as one definitive timeline is composed from all the data collected from all of the small groups. 

If you like this Nonfiction book, here are some other titles you might enjoy:

*Fleeing to Freedom on the Underground Railroad: The Courageous Slaves, Agents, and Conductors (2006) : Grades 5-12

*If You Traveled on the Underground Railroad (1993) : Grades 2-5

Resource:

Waxman, L. H. (2011).  How did slaves find a route to freedom?: And other questions about the underground railroad. Minneapolis, MN: Learner Publications