KS3 British History: The Slave Trade - Conditions on the Middle Passage

In this lesson, students will focus their study on the conditions of the Middle Passage of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The lesson provides facts, visual and written sources to help students understand the Middle Passage. There are also optional tasks relating to the 1977 TV series Roots as well as a further online activity based on the BBC Bitesize website about the Slave Trade. This is a fully resourced lesson which includes printable fact sheets and worksheets as well as engaging background information, warm up tasks and learning reviews.

Please note that I am not able to provide any links to the TV series Roots but this is easily available on most streaming services as well as on DVD.

The lesson includes the following:
Slide 1: Title slide – The Conditions on the Middle Passage
Slide 2: The purpose and aims of the lesson.
Slide 3: Recap Activity: Match the stage of the slave trade to the number on the slave trade map
Slide 4: Recap Activity answers
Slide 5: Starter Task – How could we find out about the Middle Passage?
Slide 6: Recap Activity 2 – Use the 8 images on the slide to discuss how the slave trade worked.
Slide 7: Visual Source Analysis of The Brooks slave ship – source inference
Slide 8: Visual Source Analysis of The Brooks slave ship - source usefulness
Slide 9: Visual Source Analysis of The Brooks slave ship – printable worksheet
Slide 10: Main Task - instructions
Slide 11: Main Task – sources about the Middle Passage printable information sheet
Slide 12: Main Task – Table printout for students
Slide 13: The origins of the TV series Roots – background information
Slide 14: The origins of the TV series Roots – background information
Slide 15: Think & discuss question about the usefulness of Roots as evidence
Slide 16: Roots table task
Slide 17: Assessing the usefulness of the TV series Roots
Slide 18: Online Activity & Research – BBC Bitesize
Slide 19: Printout of the question sheet needed for the BBC Bitesize task
Slide 20: Middle Passage Creative Task options
Slide 21: Follow Up Challenge Questions
Slide 22: Learning Review Activity

I would be grateful if you could leave a review for the lesson if you feel the lesson is effective for you. Many thanks if you spend some of your valuable time doing this as feedback is highly valued.

All images used in this lesson are in the public domain and are therefore copyright free at the time of publishing. Images which require attribution have been attributed in the notes section of each slide where the image appears. If you feel any errors have been made, please contact me at raschoolresources@gmail.com in the first instance to resolve any issues. Thank you.