MUMIA ABU-JAMAL TEACH-IN
Last Revised: 5/7/99
Personal Experience Essay
A
Christmas Cage by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Aim: To provide students with a sample personal experience essay which they will reflect and respond to.
Materials: Reading handout A Christmas Cage from Survival Is Still A Crime, by Mumia Abu-Jamal. Philadelphia: Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal Press, 1990. Click link to full text.
Classroom/Student Activities: This lesson can be done as an introductory lesson to Mumia, a follow-up to the film A Case For Reasonable Doubt or another presentation which give background information on who Mumia Abu-Jamal is. It is also a good follow-up lesson for any discussion of police brutality (i.e. Diallo, Louima, Huang, Rosario, Baez or Bumbers)
Students, take turns, reading out loud the entire essay.
Student write the first part of a three part reaction paper.
Part one: What is/are your reaction(s) to the essay? Clearly state what caused your reaction(s) and use specific support for the essay to support your reaction.
In groups of two to four, students share their initial reactions as well as identify ten vocabulary word needed to understand the selection.
Students would then be asked to writes out the vocabulary words they identified in their groups on the blackboard for a full class discussion.
Homework: Students complete part one and work on parts two and three of reaction paper.
2. What is the meaning and understanding you obtained from the essay. This in not an outline of the essay, but rather a summary of what you gleaned from it.
3. Clearly relate a specific part or parts of the essay to a specific events(s) or issue(s) in your life. Event(s) or issued(s) can be from your past, present, or future.
