Student Impressions of the Middle Passage: 2010-2020

Juliette Caruso O'Dell has just completed her twentieth year teaching, seventeen of those teaching United States history. As a teacher, she struggled teaching the institution of slavery to her eighth graders. She turned to respected black authors and other resources to help instill in her students awareness of how a specific group of people were forcibly brought to the shores of the newly 'discovered' Americas. Juliette didn't want to just "tell" her students and stop there. She wanted to share with them how people can and did endure horrendously inhumane physical and mental cruelty and survive to tell their stories.

Juliette then turned to Tom Feelings drawings in his book, The Middle Passage. She used them as a visual tool. As she lectured on the book, she noticed her students' uncomfortable faces, many of them drawing their own interpretations and feelings while seated at their desks. She knew this would be a way for them to express themselves with this outlet for both the ugliness and their understanding of what they were being taught. Throughout years of teaching, Juliette developed lesson plans for her classroom and bought many charcoal pencils. Her students were the motivating factor to continue using art, as Tom Feelings did, to educate about the Middle Passage. Also included in this book, is a 3 day - 50 minute lesson plan. Student Impressions of the Middle Passage: 2010-2020 is a compilation of her students' work.

About the Author

Juliette Caruso O'Dell lives in Indiana with her husband Scott. She received her bachelor's degree in education from Indiana State University in 2000 and her master's degree in urban studies from Indiana University in 2013. Juliette spends time with family and friends when not in class or traveling. She loves to visit foreign countries to learn their histories and their cultures.