“Like all good works of fiction, it lies like the truth.”
-Robert Crossly in his critical essay on Kindred by Octavia Butler

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"Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them."
—American Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne, May 18, 1848

Kindred Audio Book

The audio sections (discs) below are labelled by page numbers and divided into parts, but do not necessarily line up exactly with chapter beginnings or endings. Please be sure to note the time stamp when you stop listening to a part. That way you will be able to restart and fast forward ahead to the spot where you left off.

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Click on the image above to go to the ENTIRE Audiobook of Kindred by Octavia Butler.

Reading Schedule
Suggested Homework Pacing:
 
Day 1: In-class reading & discussion of “The River” (Chapter 1, pages 12-15)
 
Day 2: “The Fire” (Chapter 2, pages 18-51)
 
Day 3: First half of “The Fall” (Chapter 3, pages 52-81)
 
Day 4: Second half of “The Fall” (Chapter 3, pages 82-107)
 
Day 5: First half of “The Fight” (Chapter 4, pages 108-143)
 
Day 6: Second half of “The Fight” (Chapter 4, pages 144-188)
 
Day 7: First half of “The Storm” (Chapter 5, pages 189-217)
 
Day 8: Second half of “The Storm” (Chapter 5, pages 218-239)
 
Day 9: “The Rope” & “Epilogue” (Chapter 6 + Epilogue, pages 240-264)
 
Day 10: Poems by Lucille Clifton and/or Natasha Trethewey
 
Days 11-15: Writing assignment on Kindred

Octavia Butler (1947-2006)

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Click on the image above to go to New York Public Library's page, "Where to Start With Octavia Butler" (2018).
Course Hero Infographic

Critical Essay Resources: NPR 

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The image above is one of the many notes Octavia Butler wrote to remind herself to keep her characters credible to her audience.

Click on the image above and read the NPR article as background to the interview linked below.

Please read the NPR article and listen to the short NPR interview linked above. Then compose and create a brief evaluative essay (250-300 words) discussing whether Butler has succeeded in her purpose based on the text you’ve read so far.

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Click on the image above to read an article from Persephone Magazine about Octavia Butler and Kindred.

Teaching Tolerance Resources:
​Teaching Hard History

(Video 1) Slavery, which Europeans practiced before they invaded the Americas, was important to all colonial powers and existed in all North American colonies.
Historian Ibram X. Kendi uses the case of Elizabeth Key to trace how Virginians changed British law to protect the growing institution of slavery in the 17th century. 
(Video 2) “Slavery was an institution of power,” designed to create profit for the enslavers and break the will of the enslaved and was a relentless quest for profit abetted by racism.
Please watch: Historian Daina Ramey Berry describes the sale of an infant named Rachel to explore how enslaved people were commodified. 
(Video 3) Enslaved people resisted the efforts of their enslavers to reduce them to commodities in both revolutionary and everyday ways.
Please watch: Historian Tera Hunter discusses Henry “Box” Brown’s escape from slavery and his work as an abolitionist. 
​(Video 4) Slavery shaped the fundamental beliefs of Americans about race and whiteness, and white supremacy was both a product and legacy of slavery.
 Please watch: Historian Martha Jones traces the development of racist ideas about people of African descent from the colonial period through the early 19th century. 
(Video 5) Enslaved and freed people worked to maintain cultural traditions while building new ones that sustain communities and impact the larger world. 
Please watch: Historian Ibram X. Kendi discusses how the foodways and music of enslaved Africans helped shape American culture as we know it today. 
(Video 6) By knowing how to read and interpret the sources that tell the story of American slavery, we gain insight into some of what enslaving and enslaved Americans aspired to, created, thought and desired. 
Please watch: Scholar Annette Gordon-Reed discusses the challenges of using texts created by enslavers to understand the lives of enslaved people. 
(Video 7) The experience of slavery varied depending on time, location, crop, labor performed, size of slaveholding and gender.
Please watch: Historian Edward L. Ayers describes how the age and gender of enslaved people, along with the labor needs in different parts of the country, affected the domestic slave trade. 

Artifacts

#1

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Certificate of Freedom of Harriet Bolling, Petersburg Virginia, 1851

#2

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Patrol Regulations for the Town of Tarborough

#3

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Slave Pass for Benjamin McDaniel to Travel from Montpellier to New Market

#4

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Mount Harmon Plantation at World's End

#5

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"Bible Pages." Barnett Family Genealogy

#6

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"The State of Maryland, from the Best Authorities" by Samuel Lewis. W. Barker Sculp.

Documents

williamsck-aow_data_sheet-sat-style_2.0.pdf
File Size: 173 kb
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reynoldsj.howpoetrycanhelpkidsturnfearofliteratureintolove.pdf
File Size: 164 kb
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day2-faster-than-light-time-travel-article.pdf
File Size: 91 kb
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day2-professor-predicts-human-time-travel-this-century-article.pdf
File Size: 144 kb
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day3-kindred-questions.doc
File Size: 32 kb
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eng_iv_l1_kindred_artifact_inquiry_project.pdf
File Size: 84 kb
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mid-unit_summative_assessment.pdf
File Size: 76 kb
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lens_and_artifact_essay_presentation.pptx
File Size: 28749 kb
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lens_and_artifact_practice_worksheet.docx
File Size: 12 kb
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kindred-12yearsaslavelensandartifact.docx
File Size: 15 kb
File Type: docx
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writing-a-lens-essay.pdf
File Size: 100 kb
File Type: pdf
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