Who Killed Avery Chase? (A Document Activity)

Lesson Goals & Logistical Clarifications

“Who Killed Avery Chase?” is a Document Activity I’ve use in workshops and in a variety of classes with great success. It has two primary purposes.

First, to introduce (or review) content with students in a somewhat interesting way. Depending on your specific goals and style, it can go fairly deep into American slavery, the Underground Railroad, and life in the U.S. in general in the first half of the 19th century.

Second, to spur legit close reading and document-analysis-type behaviors and thinking. Students who “buy in” to the activity apply themselves to solving the mystery or making their case in ways it’s difficult to inspire in more traditional activities.

Before talking about a few teacher-helpful specifics regarding the actual activity, I feel obligated to offer a disclaimer or seven.

I compiled and created large parts of each of these, but I borrowed heavily from existing sources online and in various books. In other words, I may ‘own’ the product and idea, but I certainly don’t own the original documents, photos, fonts, etc. I haven’t intentionally stolen anything proprietary, but if you discover an issue with anything used in one of these, let me know.

Many of the documents are ‘real’. Newspaper articles, excerpted speeches, photos, etc., are legit primary sources and accurately attributed where feasible. If the document says Booker T. Washington said such and such in Atlanta on this date, then as far as I know he said it in Atlanta on that date. On the other hand, I’ve taken great liberty with many of the visuals to make them fit the time and place I wanted. If you’re curious about something specific, feel free to ask. If I remember, I’ll let you know.

The rest of the documents aren’t real. Most of the major characters are fictional, although I’ve tried to stay true to TYPES of people active in these times and places. My goal is a reasonable compromise between historical legitimacy and keeping things readable and accessible to students, like good historical fiction. I have no doubt the results are flawed, but such is the nature of compromise and good intentions.

Preparations & What’s Usually Worked For Me

This activity is built around the death of a (fictional) slave catcher in the Cincinnati area in 1858. What happened? Who was involved? It’s a very volatile time in American history to take a stand on contentious issues – sometimes those doing the most say the least about it.

1. Preparation – you’ll need 5 or 6 sets of the attached documents, which are sized so as to fit two on each page. They should be cut into 30 distinct documents. Mix up each set and put it in a large envelope. The expense will depend on the quality you want. I spent around $60 for mine, but I did high quality glossy paper at my local Staples. You can probably have workable copies for far less should you choose, or even use whatever the school is willing to provide without any real loss.

2. I’m a big fan of teacher-assigned groups or randomly assigned groups (as opposed to student self-selection) with a designated ‘Table Leader’ in charge of the Envelope and coordinating the group. You know your kids and your dynamics, but I like groups of 4 – 5 for this.

3. I like to establish the opening description and set-up as having a kind of ‘dinner theater’ feel. (I coach students to ‘ooohhh’ or ‘aaahhh’ or otherwise express the appropriate – if melodramatic – reactions to the background story provided.) The whole ‘Professor Hugh Everlearn’ is absurd enough that it really works much better if not taken too seriously. I’ve had other teachers who’ve used it tell me they format it as a trial, in which case the approach is a bit more serious and methodical. You’ll figure out what works for you; know in advance that this is OK.

4. On the slide allowing groups to choose a ‘researcher’ to look up words, background info, real people, etc., I encourage you to stop for 30 seconds and have them decide right then – maybe even report to you who it is for each group. If your technology policy is different than mine, adjust accordingly. There are a few obscure references which ideally require Googlability, but again – your classroom, your call.

5. The ‘One & One’ slide… this one has evolved and been changed on the fly more than any other part of the activity. The point is to give groups an incentive at this stage to formulate some specific thoughts – backed by evidence from their documents – about the time, the characters, or important issues so far. Preparing a good Y/N question to ask YOU is almost just as important.

But how I actually handle it, in terms of what I ask them, how much specificity I require, etc., is situation-specific. I want it to be a waypost and brief plateau in the activity, NOT a chance to fail and get lots of stuff wrong. I’ll often be asked Y/N questions that I don’t have a clear answer for, or which require some explanation in order to be educational without giving too much away. I tell them just because it’s a Y/N question doesn’t mean I’ll give a Y/N answer.

6. The key to all decisions and adjustments throughout is for you (their fearless guide) to be confident and keep things moving – push content and skills, discussion and appropriate use of evidence and inferences, while maintaining a semi-fun atmosphere. I’m all for high expectations, but this isn’t made to be a destroyer of the young. We can do that part next week.

7. This was originally intended to be a one class period (56 minutes) activity. The first time I did it, I rushed it a bit and we made it to the final synopsis, sort of, but students wanted to come back to it the next day and keep working on it. I nearly fell over.

Now I just plan on two days. Ideally we get through the three stages of ‘get seven more documents’ and have at least one Q&A period (the ‘One & One’ or some variation thereof) on the first day. On Day Two, they’re back in their same groups, but as I have no way of knowing who had which documents, each group gets the full packet. That wasn’t by design, but it’s worked out OK. They’re given a target time at which I’ll ask each group for their hypothesis, or about the time period, etc., and they’ll earn another Y/N question or whatever.

I’ve been known to add a second round of ‘One & One’ or even just the ‘Y/N Questions’ part. It just depends on how it’s going and what feels right. I’d love to pretend I have a pure methodology to it, but mostly I’m just going with it and trying to throw learnin’ at them until something sticks.

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