Straight from the Source Close Readings for Elementary Social Studies
Biography of a Young African American Author: Phillis Wheatley
Grade Level: 3
MA Standards: After reading a biography of a person from Massachusetts, summarize the person’s life and achievements.
Common Core Standards: RI. 3.2, RI3.4, RI3.7, RI3.8, RI3.9; W3.1, 3.2
Image Source: Library of Congress. “A Voice of Her Own.” American Treasures of the Library Congress Online Exhibition. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/u c003921.jpg
Abstract: Students read a brief biography of Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved West African child who became an accomplished poet and free woman in 18th century Massachusetts. They consider the genre of biography and what makes a life story notable, while gaining a broader perspective on the African American struggle for freedom in a revolutionary era. Students compare the written text with a visual portrait of Wheatley, and decipher lines of her poetry, integrating information from multiple sources and source types. Writing prompts are provided for the Common Core text types, as well as an accompanying academic vocabulary list. Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author
Rationale and Source Context:
The life of Phillis Wheatley is one of the most exceptional biographies in all of American history. Phillis Wheatley was foremost a writer, the author of elegant and erudite poetry and the first published African American poet. Wheatley was a child prodigy who was publishing poetry by the age of eleven. She was also, from early childhood, a slave, a status imposed upon her even at the time that her poetry was most famous and admired. In her brief life she struggled with the extreme limitations that eighteenth-century society imposed on people of her race, birthplace, gender and social status. Yet her life and accomplishments defied every one of these limitations.
To understand the many paradoxes of Phillis Wheatley’s biography, it is vital to understand several layers of historic context. One of these is the reality that colonial New England was a slave-holding society. Slavery was a labor practice and social institution in seventeenth and eighteenth century New England as it was in every region of the colonies. Many slave trade voyages from America began and ended in one of New England’s busy ports. African-born and African-American slaves in colonial New England worked on middle-income farms as laborers and servants, and as household servants in the homes of affluent urban dwellers of Boston, Providence, Salem and the like. The Senegalese child re-named Phillis Wheatley was one of the so-called “refugee slaves” reserved for the Boston market—too delicate or sickly for the backbreaking labor of the Caribbean slave plantations, these enslaved individuals were discounted and sold for the best offer a slave-ship captain could demand. John Wheatley purchased the child his family named Phillis from the Boston wharf as a house slave for his wife Susanna, mother of two teenage children. The Wheatleys estimated the small child’s age to be seven due to her recently missing front tooth.
Another layer of context for Wheatley’s story is the educational and cultural setting of late colonial Boston. A world of literacy and print culture existed up and down the Atlantic seaboard, shared by a small but influential elite of American colonists. In the Wheatley household Phillis had serendipitous exposure to advanced learning that was far beyond that of most Americans, white, black or Native American. Studying advanced subjects such as Latin, theology, and classical history, Phillis Wheatley was enchanted by the sounds, stories and images that opened up to her. These she wove into her verses and correspondence. The prominent and educated colonists who encountered her poetry had great difficulty believing that a young woman, a slave and a person of African birth could write with such knowledge and skill.
The late eighteenth century was also an age of revolution and enlightenment, when many people on both sides of the Atlantic began to challenge received truths about authority, power, and the rights of human beings. Some people incorrectly assume that Christianity and reform were opposing forces. But Christians were themselves divided into radical and status-quo sects. Within denominations such as the Society of Friends (Quakers) and Methodists, evangelical preachers in England and the colonies were espousing a gospel of full equality before God, and gaining converts among servants, slaves, Native Americans and the poor. (Wheatley’s first poem to bring her widespread fame honored evangelical Methodist preacher George Whitefield.) In these same denominations, some began to question the morality of slave-holding and the slave trade. The small but growing fellowship of anti-slavery activists in England and North America was a receptive Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author audience for Phillis Wheatley’s verses. Her contact with British abolitionists in particular may have helped strengthen her commitment to revolutionary change and her denouncements of slavery. As her letters and poems make clear, Phillis Wheatley took a strong political stance during the American Revolution, championing independence from all forms of tyranny.
Freedom came hard to Phillis Wheatley in reality, a final paradox of her life. The American Revolution set in motion slavery’s demise in Massachusetts. It also ushered in an era of extreme hardship for free African Americans in New England, where an economic downturn pushed them into marginal positions. Freed from slavery by the Wheatley family near or just after the end of Susanna Wheatley’s life, Phillis Wheatley struggled to find stability, health, housing and an income in a world where her race, gender and social status were all stacked against her. Yet she continued to write poems and correspondence championing freedom until her untimely death just past the age of thirty.
Wheatley’s ornate eighteenth century style of verse and Christian themes put her out of synch with modern readers for many years. Her life and work were re-discovered and celebrated once again when African American studies and women’s history emerged beginning in the 1970s.
The short biography that students read here is from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, a project initiated by teachers and students in the Boston Public Schools. (When students were invited to choose accomplished Boston women to honor, they gave Phillis Wheatley more first-choice votes than any other figure.) Her life raises questions fundamental to any biographical study: What does it mean to be accomplished? What are the various occupations and activities through which people can contribute to bettering their society and helping their community? How do individuals overcome adversity and hardship to allow their talents to shine? And finally, what does a society’s choice of heroes and heroines tell us about its values and priorities?
Original Source: Bonnie Hurd Smith, “Phillis Wheatley” from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, http://bwht.org/phillis-wheatley/
Text Complexity (Grade-Level Edited Text)*
Lexile ATOS Degrees of Flesch-Kincaid Reading Power 780L 6.5 58 7.9
*The readability measures listed here refer to the adapted grade-level edited version of the text, not the original text. Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author
Suggested Guidance for Teaching Close Reading of Text with Accompanying Materials
Pre-Reading 1. Without prior information, students should examine this portrait of Phillis Wheatley: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/uc003921.jpg. Ask students to make comments and predictions about this person based on their observation of the portrait. When do they think she lived, for example? What was her occupation? What were some things she cared about? Looking at her picture, what is one word they would use to describe her? (e.g., “I think she looks thoughtful.”) 2. Tell students they will read a short biography of the woman in the portrait, Phillis Wheatley. Have students look at the words “autobiography” and “biography,” considering how they overlap and how they differ. Help students find definitions for these words. (Some 3rd grade students may have read from the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin in Straight from the Source.) Emphasize one purpose of biography: highlighting the achievements of individuals who made important contributions to their world. 3. To understand Phillis Wheatley’s life story, students will need to be aware of African enslavement in the new world, including New England. The topic of slavery can raise powerful emotions for people of all ages. These sources share practice and resources for teaching this topic to elementary learners: “How Parents and Teachers Should Teach Children About Slavery,” http://www.sheknows.com/community/living/how- parents-and-teachers-should-teach-children-about-slavery; Beverly Daniel Tatum, “It’s Not So Black and White,” Scholastic Teacher https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/its-not-so- black-and-white/; “Slavery in America: Building Background Knowledge, Elementary Grades,” Teaching Channel (video). https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-slavery. 4. Have students read the text independently and annotate for understanding.
1st Reading: 5. Focus on these questions for the first reading of the text: Key Ideas a. In paragraph 1 the author describes Phillis Wheatley as and Details “frightened.” Identify the facts in that paragraph that could explain why she was afraid. b. What was the origin of Phillis’s name in English? Do you think she would have been proud of her new name? Why or why not? c. In paragraph 2, what accomplishments of Phillis Wheatley does the author describe? d. What is the main idea of paragraph 7? How does reading the paragraph make you feel, and why? Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author
2nd Reading: 6. Focus on these questions for the second reading of the text: Craft and a. Using context clues, what do you think the phrase “doubtful Structure Bostonians” means in paragraph 2? How does this phrase relate to the information in paragraph 3, that eighteen prominent Boston men wanted to test Phillis Wheatley? b. What did the author of this biography decide to emphasize in the conclusion? How is paragraph 8, the conclusion, different from paragraph 7? Why do you think the author made this choice about how to end the biography?
3rd Reading: 7. Focus on these questions for the third reading of the text: Integration a. People sometimes call a biography a portrait using words. Compare of the visual portrait of Phillis Wheatley with the written portrait of Knowledge the biography. and Ideas • What ideas about Wheatley are the same in these two versions of her life? • What differences, if any, do you notice? b. What are some of the ways that Phillis Wheatley improved the society she lived in? What do you consider to be the most important of these and why?
Post-Reading 8. Share with students the lines below from a poem by Phillis Wheatley (“To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North America,” excerpted in Writing for Change: The Power of Women’s Words). Working together as a class, see how much of the poem students can “translate” into familiar words. How does the poem connect to the biography they read? What wish or prayer does she make at the end of the stanza? What does this tell them about Phillis Wheatley and her beliefs?
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat: What pangs excruciating must molest, What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast? …
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author
Post-Reading 9. If you are in the Boston vicinity, take students on a walking tour of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail to learn more about Phillis Wheatley’s life and the lives of other accomplished women. Alternatively, students anywhere can learn from the trail using its website: http://bwht.org/. They will encounter among other sites the Boston Women’s Memorial, a monumental work of public art which honors Wheatley and two other female writers. Volunteer educators from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail Foundation will visit your class, lead a tour for free, or help your students conduct their own women’s history research. See the website for information. 10. Do a biography study in independent reading. Have every student choose a person they are curious about. After they read, students can fill in a chart comparing aspects of Wheatley’s life with those of their own biographical subject.
Writing 11. After students analyze the text, assign one of the following writing Prompts prompts: a. (Opinion) A historical committee is trying to decide which important Bostonians to include in a new guidebook for visitors. They will vote based on the arguments they hear. After studying her life, do you think Phillis Wheatley should be included in the guidebook or not? Write a speech persuading the committee that your opinion is the correct one. Give specific evidence from the biography, using linking words and phrases (like because, since, and for example) to connect your evidence to your arguments. End your speech with a dramatic concluding sentence! b. (Informative/Explanatory) Many people believe that a person’s accomplishments are even more impressive when she/he has overcome significant obstacles to make their achievements. Apply this idea to the life of Phillis Wheatley. What obstacles or hardships did she face in becoming a poet? What made it possible for her to get around these obstacles?
Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author
Key Vocabulary
Tier 2 ability (n.) a skill or talent accomplishment (n.) an ability or achievement gained through hard work devoted (adj.) loyal doubtful (adj.) not trusting frail (adj.) sickly or fragile infants (n.) new-born babies liberty (n.) freedom prominent (adj.) important, powerful published (v.) printed in a book slavery (n.) being owned and controlled by another person stunned (v.) startled; surprised talent (n.) a special capacity for achievement or success
Tier 3 African American poetry and stories by accomplished writers literature who are African American American (n.) an important historical event when the Revolution American colonists fought for independence from British rule Christian theology (n.) the study of beliefs in the Christian religion evils of slavery an expression that refers to the bad and cruel aspects of treating people as property a free African (n.) a person of African heritage in the 1700s American man or and early 1800s who used to be a slave and woman became free, or was born free geography (n.) the study of places in the world Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author
Tier 3 health failed an expression that means someone became very sick coast (n.) the land near an ocean continent (n.) one of the earth’s seven major areas of land (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica) country (n.) an area of land controlled by a government culture (n.) the ways of life, beliefs, and actions of a group of people instrument (n.) something created to make music migrate (v.) to travel a long way to live in a new place skill (n.) the power to do something well Old South (n.) a large church in Boston built in the 1700s Meeting House pushed her into an expression that means giving someone the spotlight attention, as on a stage West Africa (n.) the coast of the African continent along the Atlantic Ocean; most African people enslaved in the American colonies came from this region
Straight from the Source: Biography of a Young African American Author
Additional Resources:
Lasky, Kathryn. A Voice of Her Own. The Story of Phillis Wheatley, Slave Poet. (Candlewick Press, 2003). “Phillis Wheatley.” Boston Women’s Heritage Trail: http://bwht.org/phillis-wheatley/ Phillis Wheatley: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/phillis- wheatley Richmond, Merle. Phillis Wheatley (American Women of Achievement). (Chelsea House, 1988). “A Voice of Her Own: Phillis Wheatley.” American Treasures of the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tri013.html Writing for Change: The Power of Women’s Words. The Boston Women’s Memorial Curriculum. (Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, 2004).
For Teacher Background:
Gates, Henry Louis. The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America’s First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers. (Basic Books, 2003). Pearson, Kim. “How Parents and Teachers Should Teach Children About Slavery.” http://www.sheknows.com/community/living/how-parents-and-teachers-should-teach- children-about-slavery “Slavery in America: Building Background Knowledge, Elementary Grades.” Teaching Channel (video) https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-slavery Tatum, Beverly Daniel, “It’s Not So Black and White.” Scholastic Teacher. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/its-not-so-black-and- white/
Grade-Level Edited Text
Phillis Wheatley: The Biography of an African American Author
Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Image Source: Library of Congress. “A Voice of Her Own.” American Treasures of the Library Congress Online Exhibition. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/uc003921.jpg.
1 In the 1700s, ships carrying African people into slavery in Boston would land at Beach Street Wharf. In 1761, a sickly, frightened seven- or eight- year-old girl from West Africa landed there. She spoke no English. She was sold to John Wheatley as a servant for his wife, Susannah. Susannah named the girl “Phillis” after the ship that carried her from Africa. The child was given the last name of her owners, the Wheatley family.
2 The Wheatley family gave Phillis fairly light indoor work to do because she was ill and frail. The family included the parents Susannah and John and their two teenaged children Mary and Nathaniel. Phillis’s unusual talent for learning was soon clear. Mary quickly taught her to read and write in English. Phillis also studied Latin, literature, mythology, Christian theology, Grade-Level Edited Text
and geography. She wrote her first poem at the age of eleven. This accomplishment stunned doubtful Bostonians. Phillis also became a devoted member of Old South Meeting House, a Christian church.
3 Newspapers in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania published one of Phillis’s poems in 1770. This publication pushed her into the spotlight. Susannah Wheatley was so impressed with Phillis’s ability she wanted to publish a book of her poems. But eighteen prominent Boston men did not believe Phillis Wheatley wrote the poems herself. They tested her to see how much knowledge she had. Phillis passed their test. Phillis’s book of poems was published. Phillis Wheatley became the first African American published poet in America.
4 Phillis Wheatley’s book of poems was published in England in 1773. Phillis traveled there with Nathaniel Wheatley that year. She met prominent British citizens who thought it was wrong she was a slave. They cried out for America to end the hateful practice of slavery.
5 When Phillis returned to America, Susannah Wheatley freed her. But Phillis remained in the Wheatley household until Susannah died in 1774.
6 Phillis continued to have poetry and letters published in local newspapers. She wrote about the evils of slavery. She expressed her hope that the American Revolution would bring liberty to everyone including slaves. She wrote a poem in 1776 praising General George Washington. General Washington thanked her for the poem. He invited Phillis to visit his headquarters in Cambridge. It is unclear if she ever did.
7 As a free woman, Phillis struggled to earn enough money to live on. Even after marrying John Peters, a free African-American man in 1778, her family was poor. Their first two children died as infants. Phillis suffered from poor health. She wrote another book of poetry that no Boston printer would publish. Shortly after her third child was born, Phillis Wheatley’s Grade-Level Edited Text
health failed. She died in 1784 at the age of thirty. She was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Boston.
8 Today, Phillis Wheatley’s book of poems is considered the starting place of African American literature.
Source: Bonnie Hurd Smith, “Phillis Wheatley” from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, http://bwht.org/phillis-wheatley/. Used with permission. Grade-Level EditedOriginal Text Text
Phillis Wheatley: The Biography of a Young African American Author
1 The corner of Beach and Tyler streets marks the spot where ships carrying kidnapped Africans would disembark at Beach Street Wharf. In 1761, a sickly, frightened seven- or eight-year-old girl from West Africa who spoke no English was “sold” to John Wheatley as a servant for his wife, Susannah. Susannah named the girl “Phillis” after the ship that carried her from Africa; she was given the last name of her “owners.”
2 Ill and frail as she was, Phillis Wheatley was given fairly light indoor work to do for the Wheatley family who included Susannah, John, and their two teenaged children Mary and Nathaniel. Phillis’s aptitude for learning was readily apparent, and Mary soon taught her to read and write in English. Phillis also studied Latin, literature, mythology, Christian theology, and geography. She wrote her first poem at the age of eleven, which stunned doubtful Bostonians. Phillis also became a devoted member of Old South Meeting House.
3 In 1770 newspapers in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania published Phillis’s poetic tribute to the evangelical preacher George Whitefield who had recently died, which propelled her into the spotlight. Susannah Wheatley was so impressed with Phillis’s ability she decided to publish a book of her poems in England. Eighteen prominent Boston men tested Phillis first to prove that she had, indeed, written her poems and did possess the knowledge of religion, mythology, and Latin her poems illustrated. Their signed statement appears at the beginning of Phillis’s book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, which was published in England in 1773 while Phillis was traveling there with Nathaniel Wheatley. During her London visit, Phillis met some of Britain’s most prominent Grade-Level EditedOriginal Text Text
citizens who decried her legal status as a slave and renewed cries for America to end the hateful institution of slavery. With the publication of her book, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American published poet in America.
4 Susannah Wheatley freed Phillis upon her return to America, but Phillis remained in the Wheatley household until Susannah died in 1774. She continued to have poetry and letters published in local newspapers, focusing particularly on the evils of slavery and expanding the liberating expectations of the American Revolution to everyone. Her 1776 poem in praise of George Washington prompted a personal response from the General who invited Phillis to visit his headquarters in Cambridge. It is unclear if she ever did.
5 As a free woman Phillis struggled economically, even after marrying John Peters, a free African, in 1778. Their first two children died in infancy, and Phillis suffered from poor health. She wrote another book of poetry, which no Boston printer would produce, and published a poem in 1781 called “Liberty and Peace” that expressed her hopes for the new United States of America. Shortly after their third child was born, John Peters apparently deserted Phillis.* Finally, her health failed and Phillis Wheatley died on December 5, 1784 at the age of thirty, followed soon after by her infant. The two were buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Boston.
6 Today, Phillis Wheatley’s book of poems is considered the starting place of African American literature.
*Recent scholars have called the desertion into question: evidence shows John Peters was in debtors’ prison at this time, thus forced to leave his family rather than choosing to do so (though he was an erratic breadwinner). See Phillis Wheatley: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/phillis-wheatley
Source: Bonnie Hurd Smith, “Phillis Wheatley” from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, http://bwht.org/phillis-wheatley/. Used with permission.