Who was Sojourner Truth? I
Characters:
Theme: Description. Talk about the painting by Marie-Guillemine Benoist
Competencies
Competence in Linguistic Communication
Personal, social and learning to learn competence
Citizen Competition
Entrepreneurial Competence
Competence in cultural awareness and expressions
Subjects and year by Educational System
Spain > English > 4th ESO > Communication
Spain > English > 4th ESO > Interculturalism
Enunciation
Observations and context
- In groups, students will discuss the relationship between this painting Portrait of a Black Woman (1800, Musée du Louvre, Paris) by Marie-Guillemine Benoist, and Sojourner Truth, and present their conclusions to the rest of the class. They will answer questions and discuss its origins.
- In 1800, the painting was presented at the Paris Salon. In Portrait of a Black Woman, Marie-Guillermine immortalised a former slave, her brother-in-law's maid. With this work, she made two groups, women and people of colour, visible. Although colonial France had abolished slavery six years earlier, the social status of blacks had not improved substantially. Nor had that of women. It is very likely that the painter painted this work with the intention of vindicating the dignity of all women.
- Her chosen name is highly symbolic, since sojourner is the agent form of the verb to sojourn, which means to reside temporarily. The compound thus seems to mean The truth of the temporary resident.
In 1997, the robotic rover on NASA's Mars Pathfinder Mission to the planet Mars was named Sojourner after Sojourner Truth.
Among the first women abolitionists were:
- Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) was a women's rights advocate, a pioneer within the feminist movement, who went down in history, among other reasons, for participating in the organisation of the Seneca Falls Convention.
- Elizabeth Cady Stant (1815-1902), American suffragist and abolitionist who participated in the Seneca Falls Declaration. She was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1890 to 1892.
- Maria Weston Chapman (1806-1885) was an American abolitionist. Elected to the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1839 and editor of the anti-slavery newspaper The Non-Resistant.
- Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906) was an American feminist suffragist, human rights advocate and writer who played an important role in the struggle for women's rights and women's suffrage in 19th century America.
Description
Students will discuss the relationship between this painting Portrait of a Black Woman (1800, Musée du Louvre, Paris) by Marie-Guillemine Benoist, and Sojourner Truth.
Contextual models and discourse genres commonly used in the comprehension, production and co-production of oral, written and multimodal texts, short and simple, literary and non-literary. Description.