Lesson Plan on The Middle Passage
from Transoceanic Cultures: A Connected Classrooms Course
Select lesson plan from a connected classrooms course between University College Dublin (Ireland) and University of the West Indies (Trinidad)
By Savrina Chinien and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert
University of the West Indies, Trinidad-and-Tobago; Nantes Université
Table of Contents
Course Objectives and Learning Goals
Lesson Plan for the Middle Passage
Bibliography for The Middle Passage
Suggested Works and Topics for Group Digital Project
Digital Group Project Checklist
Background
“Transoceanic Cultures” was a connected classrooms course between the University of the West Indies (UWI) and University College Dublin (UCD) in 2022-2023. The course was taught in the undergraduate French program at UWI and in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at UCD.
The following lesson plan is excerpted from the course and made publicly available as an open educational resource (OER) for educators to reuse, remix, adapt, and build upon.
This resource is made and published by the creators under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. You are free to copy, distribute, and transmit any part of this work for noncommercial purposes if you credit the authors.
Work for this OER was funded in part by grants in 2023-2024 from the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC, www.dloc.com) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Course Overview
Sea voyages have been a source of poetic inspiration since time immemorial. From Homer’s “The Odyssey” to James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and Derek Walcott’s Omeros (1990), maritime journeys have traditionally been a great source of artistic creation and exploration. Yet, real and imagined experiences of journeys across bodies of water such as the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Pacific have also been synonymous with coerced passages that are deeply linked to memories of loss, trauma and death. Seeking to explore connections between aquatic spaces and experiences of forced migration before, during and after the Middle Passage, up to the present day, this elective module will aim to offer a transoceanic perspective on multilingual (English, French, Spanish) nomadic identities, intergenerational trauma and gendered experiences of sea crossing. As they embark on a transoceanic journey of their own, students from all disciplines will be given the opportunity to connect with international partners to work together to produce a joint digital project on oceanic crossings. To do that, students will utilize various digital tools and platforms – all of which they will become familiar with during the course of the module.
Course Objectives and Learning Goals
Course Content:
- Topics covered during the seminars will include the following: slavery, indentured labour, sex and human trafficking, experiences of displacement and unhoming.
- Reading and visual materials will be provided to students during the first week of the module; English translations will be provided for materials provided in other languages.
- Certain seminars will be devoted to introducing students to digital publishing in blog format, digital mapping and digital storytelling.
Learning Outcomes:
- Students will learn about coerced maritime journeys and crossings across the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean and their enduring effects across time and space.
- In particular, students will be introduced to literature and art forms, including cinema, from various Francospheres that will be connected with other linguistic areas (knowledge of French will be a bonus, but not necessary).
- Through seminar-based discussion and analysis of a selection of primary sources, students will enhance their knowledge and competence in document analysis and presentation.
- By connecting with international peers, students will be offered a unique opportunity to work on a joint project and acquire transferable skills in minimal computing tools to create digital content.
- Students will learn to acknowledge and use appropriate copyright citation and licensing for online content.
- This collaborative project will also enhance the students’ team building, communication, time management and problem solving skills.
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
- Weekly two-hour seminars, with an initial lecture component followed by discussion of extracts from primary sources and related critical readings.
- A number of seminars will also be devoted to introducing students to the creation of digital contents through the use of minimal computing tools.
- This course will offer blended learning: classes will be taught online (as this is planned as a “connected classrooms” course) and in-person.
- Guests speakers will also be invited to present on specific topics. This is a valuable strategy to expose students to diverse perspectives and a more nuanced understanding of the subject.
- UCD Students will be paired with UWI students for their group project. They will be responsible for planning their online work sessions together.
- A padlet will be created and the link will be made accessible for both UCD and UWI students. This will enable the students and the instructors to post comments or any relevant information online for further discussions.
Assessment Strategy
| University College of Dublin | |
|---|---|
| Quizzes | 40% |
| Connected Classrooms Group Digital Project | 60% |
| University of the West Indies | |
|---|---|
| Midterm Essay | 20% |
| Connected Classrooms Group Digital Project | 20% |
| Final Essay | 60% |
Feedback Strategy:
- Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment.
- Feedback individually to students, post-assessment.
- Group/class feedback, post-assessment.
- Online automated feedback.
- Students can also meet with the instructors during their office hours.
Course Schedule
Weeks 1-4: The Middle Passage
Weeks 5-8: The kali pani
Weeks 9-12: Contemporary boat people
Lesson Plan for the Middle Passage
Week 1
Works Studied:
- The Middle Passage – Guy Deslauriers (film, 2000)
- Scene to be discussed in depth: “The Death Dance”
Plan/Discussion:
- What is the difference between “The Middle Passage” and “Amistad”?
- What is the polysemic meaning of “passage” in the film?
- How is the “middle passage” portrayed?
- What are the main themes?
- What is the filmic discourse concerning slavery? Is there a thematic link with Chamoiseau’s discourse on créolité?
- Is there a singular discourse versus a collective discourse?
- Is there an axiological displacement with the African slave being portrayed as enslaved?
- Does the film subvert any genre conventions?
- What is the effect of sound and music in this chapter?
- How is identity (re)-constructed?
- What is the filmic discourse concerning the notion of h/History? (Glissant)
Week 2
Works Studied:
- Middle Passages – Kamau Brathwaite (1993)
- Poems to be analysed: “The Visibility Trigger” and “Colombe”
Plan/Discussion:
- Why does the author use the term “passages” in plural?
- How does the author try to “reverse” the Middle Passage?
- Why does the author put emphasis on the notion of corporeality? What does it entail?
- What do the studied works show with regards to the power of language?
- What does the poet mean by “nation language”?
- What is the importance of musical jazz rhythms in the works of the poet?
- How is identity (re)-constructed?
- What are the main themes of these 2 poems?
- What is the narrative structure of each poem? Is it effective?
Week 3
Works Studied:
- Zong! – NourbeSe Philip (2008)
- Poems to be analysed: “Zong! #1,” “Zong! #17,” “Zong! #18”
Plan/Discussion:
- How does Philip create an altered space through language?
- How and why are words and letters deconstructed?
- Study the paratext, footnotes and layout of poems as sites of re/membering.
- How does Philip use the corporeal experience to reflect on slavery? Is it effective?
- Can performative art help to express certain traumatic experiences?
- What are the main themes of the poems studied?
- What are the shifting grounds of meaning/notion of “passage” for Philip?
- Do a comparative study of the 3 poems studied. Is there a linear progress in terms of the historical event?
Week 4
Guest Lecture:
- Prof. Paula Morgan, UWI, “Antillean trauma and rememory”
Plan/Discussion:
- Trauma History and memory.
- Literary rewriting of history.
- Interface of multiple histories.
- Tropes and symbols.
- Shifting/fluid grounds of meaning.
- The Sea Journey.
- The Sea as Archive.
- Q & A with students.
Plan/Discussion for Module 1:
- What are the main themes of the film and the poems by Brathwaite and Philip?
- How do they use their respective artistic genre to portray the traumas of slavery?
- How do they all reclaim the erasure of lost voices?
- How and why is conventional narrative disrupted?
- What are the complexities of history and memory?
- What are the ethical implications of historical erasure and violence?
- How are readers/viewers invited to engage with the text/film on multiple levels?
Bibliography for The Middle Passage
Primary sources:
Brathwaite, Kamau, Middle Passages (selected passages: “Colombe”, “The Visibility Trigger”), (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Bloodaxe Books), 1992.
Deslauriers, Guy, Le Passage du milieu (1999, French version); The Middle Passage, 2000 docudrama, French version distributed by Les Films du Raffia.
NourbeSe, Phillip, Zong! (Toronto: The Mercury Press), 2008.
Recommended readings:
Benson, Dzifa, ‘Breath and Space: M. NourbeSe Philip Interviewed’, The Poetry Society, 2021, https://poetrysociety.org.uk/breath-and-space-m-nourbese-philip-interviewed-by-dzifa-benson/
Brathwaite, Kamau, History of the voice: the development of nation language in Anglophone Caribbean poetry (London: New Beacon Books), 1984.
Chamoiseau, Patrick, Frères Migrants (Paris: Gallimard), 2017.
Chinien, Savrina, ‘Memory of Trauma and trauma of memory in the Literary and Cinematographic works of Patrick Chamoiseau’ in Caribbeing: Comparing Caribbean Literatures and Cultures, edited by Kristian Van Haesendonck and Theo D’haen (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi), 2014.
Colfer, Eoin et al., Illegal (New York: Barnes & Noble), 2018.
Dabydeen, David, Slave song (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press), 2005 (1984).
Gilroy, Paul, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1993.
Josephs, Kelly Baker, ‘Versions of X/Self: Kamau Brathwaite’s Caribbean Discourse’, Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, 1.1 (Fall 2003)
Saint-Loubert, Laëtitia, ‘“Cari-beans”: Teaching Caribbean Literature in the Indian Ocean’, Sargasso – Transforming Pedagogy: Practice, Policy, & Resistance, 1-2 (2018-2019), 47–69.
Scott, Lawrence, Dangerous Freedom (London: Papillote Press), 2020.
Related OERs in dLOC:
Kamugisha, Aaron, ‘Kamau at 90’, https://nehcaribbean.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/projects/kamau-at-90/
Saint-Loubert, Laetita & Baksh, Anita, ‘A Connected Classrooms Project: Transoceanic Experiences of Indenture’ https://nehcaribbean.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/projects/a-connected-classrooms-project-transoceanic-experiences-of-indenture/
Recommended films and videos:
Asante, Amma (UK), Belle (film), 2014.
BBC Documentary “Coolies: How the British re-invented slavery” (BBC copyright, Fair Use copyright) https://youtu.be/oxl4q_jfDPI?si=YTLTFg0rxneoO4W7
“NourbeSe reads from Zong!”, https://youtu.be/my4eE4denus
Suggested Works and Topics for Group Digital Project
| Type of work | Title | Author/Creator | Possible topics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poems | Slave Song |
David Dabydeen (Guyana) |
– Language & trauma (texts in English and Guyanese Creole) – Transmediality (narrative at the intersection of text, voice & image) |
| Novel |
Dangerous Freedom (Papillote Press, 2020) *possible comparative study of Asante’s film |
Lawrence Scott (Trinidad/UK) |
– Portrait of a mixed-race young woman in C18 England (Dido Belle) – Zong (see chapter 20 in particular) |
| Film | Belle |
Amma Asante (UK) Film available on Amazon Prime (2014) |
– Portrait of a mixed-race young woman in C18 England (Dido Belle) – The Zong as a legal case |
Instructions to students: Works listed as required reading/viewing materials can also be used for your digital group projects, as long as you focus on sections or aspects that were not covered in class.
For Topic 1, these works include:
Brathwaite, Kamau, Middle Passages
Deslauriers, Guy, The Middle Passage (film)
Philip, Nourbese, Zong! (poems + video performances)
Digital Group Project Checklist
| Essential Criteria |
|---|
| – Digital Project needs to include at least one member from each institution. |
| – The topic and related works chosen for the Digital Project fall under one of the three main topics covered in class (Middle Passage; indentured labour; contemporary boat people and asylum seekers). |
| – Each Digital Project should comprise (1) a blog page and (2) a minimum of one map and one timeline (using the digital tools presented in class); alternately, two maps or two timelines could be used depending on the topic. |
| – Each blog page, timeline and map should clearly indicate the title of the Digital Project and the names and institutions of the group participants. |
|
– Blog page: each member of the group should post at least one entry in the blog (logbook), preferably at different stages of the project. |
| – Each interactive map will contain a minimum of five locations, each of which will be properly labeled, pinned, illustrated and commented upon using StoryMaps JS. |
| – Each interactive timeline will contain a minimum of five dates, each of which will be properly indicated, illustrated and commented upon using Timeline JS. |
| The Digital Project will abide by proper use of copyright citation (sources of textual and visual content need to be properly referenced and cited). |
|
For UCD students only: |
| Each Digital Project will be presented by its members to the rest of the class at the end of the connected classrooms project. |
| Essential Criteria |
|---|
| Any additional maps, timelines or digital materials created with other digital tools are welcome. |
| Any additional material relevant to your group topic (i.e. not featured on the list of suggestions), which may include but isn’t limited to video and musical clips, are welcome, as long as they are properly referenced and abide by copyright law. |
| Any artistic material relevant to your group topic and created by one or several of your team members are welcome and can be used on your group blog page, timeline(s) and/or map(s). |
| Personal memorabilia and archives relevant to your group topic are also welcome if you feel comfortable sharing them as part of your group blog page, timeline(s) and/or map(s). |
Partners
Instructors
Savrina Chinien is a Lecturer in French, Francophone Literatures and Film and the Coordinator of the French Program at the University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine Campus, Trinidad-and-Tobago. The “Transoceanic Cultures” module was taught (in conjunction with the UCD students) to the third year Undergraduate UWI students as part of their 2022-2023 French B.A. Degree Program.
Laëtitia Saint-Loubert was an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow during the preparation and implementation of the research-led “Transoceanic Cultures” connected classrooms project. The “Transoceanic Cultures” module was designed and taught as a university-wide elective as part of the 2022-2023 UCD School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics course offering.
Students
University of the West Indies
UWI students: 15 students were registered for the course. All sat the assessments successfully. All UWI students were Year 3 Undergraduate students with the exception of one Year 2 student.
Breakdown of their academic profiles:
| Discipline | Number of students |
|---|---|
| French Major | 6 |
| Double Major (French & Spanish) | 6 |
| Double Major (French & Linguistics) | 1 |
| French Minor & International Relations Major | 1 |
| Double Major (French and Literatures in English) | 1 |
University College Dublin
UCD students: 13 students registered for the course. All sat the assessment successfully. All UCD students were either Year 1 or Year 2 students.
Breakdown of their academic profiles:
| Discipline | Number of Students |
|---|---|
| BA in Modern Languages | 3 |
| Information & Communication Studies Joint Major | 2 |
| Social Justice Joint Major | 1 |
| Social Policy and Sociology | 1 |
| Geography | 1 |
| Sociology Joint Major | 1 |
| Economics Joint Major | 1 |
| Politics and International Relations Joint Major | 1 |
| French Joint Major | 1 |
| English with Creative Writing | 1 |
Objectives and Learning Goals
Module Content
- Topics covered during the seminars will include the following: slavery, indentured labour, sex and human trafficking, experiences of displacement and unhoming.
- Reading and visual materials will be provided to students during the first week of the module; English translations will be provided for materials provided in other languages.
- Certain seminars will be devoted to introducing students to digital publishing in blog format, digital mapping and digital storytelling.
Learning Outcomes
- Students will learn about coerced maritime journeys and crossings across the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean and their enduring effects across time and space;
- In particular, students will be introduced to literature and art forms, including cinema, from various Francospheres that will be connected with other linguistic areas (knowledge of French will be a bonus, but not necessary);
- Through seminar-based discussion and analysis of a selection of primary sources, students will enhance their knowledge and competence in document analysis and presentation;
- By connecting with international peers, students will be offered a unique opportunity to work on a joint project and acquire transferable skills in minimal computing tools to create digital content;
- Students will learn to acknowledge and use appropriate copyright citation and licensing for online content.
- This collaborative project will also enhance the students’ team building, communication, time management and problem solving skills.
Approaches to Teaching and Learning
- Weekly two-hour seminars, with an initial lecture component followed by discussion of extracts from primary sources and related critical readings.
- A number of seminars will also be devoted to introducing students to the creation of digital contents through the use of minimal computing tools.
- This course will offer blended learning: classes will be taught online (as this is planned as a “connected classrooms” course) and in-person.
- Guests speakers will also be invited to present on specific topics. This is a valuable strategy to expose students to diverse perspectives and a more nuanced understanding of the subject.
- UCD Students will be paired with UWI students for their group project. They will be responsible for planning their online work sessions together.
- A padlet will be created and the link will be made accessible for both UCD and UWI students. This will enable the students and the instructors to post comments or any relevant information online for further discussions.
Assessment Strategy
University College Dublin
| Description | Timing | Component Scale | % of Final Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class Test: 3 quizzes on BrightSpace to be completed during the trimester. Each quiz relates to material covered in the seminars. | Throughout the trimester | Graded | 40 |
| Group Project: Connected Classrooms group digital project. | Coursework (End of Trimester) | Graded | 60 |
University of the West Indies
| Assessment Type | Description | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Midterm Assignment | Essay to be written in class on Topic 1. Time frame: 1 hour | 20% |
| Group Project | Connected Classrooms group digital project | 20% |
| Final Exams | 2 essays to be written on all the topics covered. Time frame: 2 hours | 60% |
Feedback Strategy
- Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
- Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
- Group/class feedback, post-assessment
- Online automated feedback
- Students can also meet with the instructors during their office hours
Course Schedule
Weeks 1 – 4: The Middle Passage
Weeks 5 – 8: The kali pani
Weeks 9-12: Contemporary boat people
Select Lesson Plan: The Middle Passage
Week | Works Studied | Plan/Discussion |
|---|---|---|
1 | The Middle Passage – Guy Deslauriers (film, 2000) Scene to be discussed in depth: “The Death Dance” | – Notion of “passage”: polysemic, liminality, suspension – Fluidity of genres studied for this course – Thematic connections/passages – Middle Passage in the film (docu-fiction) – spatial, dialogic of adaptation – Axiological displacement: African enslaved as the subject – Singular/Collective discourse – Identity construct(s) – Notion of H/history |
2 | Middle Passages – Kamau Brathwaite (1993) Poems to be analysed: 1. “The Visibility Trigger” 2. “Colombe” | – Reversed the Middle Passage of slavery – Personal “I” and the communal “I” (“X/self”) – Rights/rites of passage – “Passages” for the poet: spatial, temporal, ritualistic, etc. – Corporeality and the power of language |
3 | Zong! – NourbeSe Philip (2008) Poems to be analysed: 1. “Zong! #1” 2. “Zong! #17” 3. “Zong! #18” | – Corporeality and the power of language – Sacred/altered space – Deconstructing words and letters – Comparative study of the 3 works studied – Notion of “passage” in each one – Study of paratext, footnotes and layout of poems as sites of re/membering |
4 | Guest Lecture by Prof. Paula Morgan, UWI, St Augustine Campus: “Antillean trauma and rememory” | – Trauma History and memory – Literary rewriting of history – Interface of multiple histories – Tropes and symbols- Shifting/fluid grounds of meaning – The Sea Journey – The Sea as Archive – Q & A with students |
