Frederick Douglass: Learning to Read and Write

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This activity contains 3 questions.

In various ways throughout this essay, Douglass makes the point that education—learning to read and write—and slavery are “incompatible with each other,” for both slaves and those who own them. Using evidence from the text, as well as your own conclusions, explore why this would be so.

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Douglass’s autobiography was written before slavery was fully abolished in the United States. In what ways can his narrative be read as an argument against slavery? Consider this issue from the perspective of readers who might be slaveholders, those who were already abolitionists, and those who did not own slaves but were undecided on the question.

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

How do you respond to Douglass’s situation and to the portrait he presents of himself across the distance of more than a hundred and fifty years? Do you find that you can apply any of what he says to the world you live in today? Explain why you feel as you do.

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

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