Lesson 4: Communication and Visual Images
Goal: Students will know and understand the Underground Railroad movement.
Benchmarks/Standards:
ELA I/Standard 3/
ELA II/ Standard 4/ Benchmark 1
Objectives:
1. The students will understand why the participants of the Underground Railroad used patterned quilts to communicate in a secret code.
2. The students will be able to identify the various secret quilt pattern codes and their meaning.
3. The students will be able to explain how the participants in the Underground Railroad communicated using quilts.
4. The students in written form will indicate how a slave might respond upon seeing a particular secret quilt pattern.
Materials:
Paper, crayon, and pencil
Procedures:
1. The teacher will read or review The Secret to Freedom by Marcia Vaughan.
2. Using the book, the teacher will instruct students on the various secret codes used in the quilts to communicate during the Underground Railroad movement.
Some of the most important quilt patterns used during the Underground Railroad include the following symbols:
• Bear’s Paw
• Bow Tie
• Crossroads
• Drunkard’s Path
• Flying Geese
• Log Cabin
• Monkey Wrench
• Shoofly
• Star
• Tumbling Blocks
• Wagon Wheel
These quilt pattern codes are listed at the end of the book The Secret to Freedom.
3. The teacher will assign each student a quilt code. She will have each one draw the code with a paragraph(s) stating what the code means, and indicating what that code would mean to a fugitive slave.
Assessment:
The teacher will create a rubric which will give students a grade based on their quilt piece and paragraph.
Resource:
Underground Railroad Quilt Kit by Really Good Stuff. 2000.
www.reallygoodstuff.com #120018
• Full-color poster, 19” by 24”, featuring Underground Railroad map and Quilt Patterns
• Reproducible quilt patterns
• Really Good Activity Guide
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