Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Lesson plans and teaching resources

The Black American Family in Literature and Art
This plan uses Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl as one book in an extensive unit. It includes discussion questions and related titles within this theme.

Harriet Jacobs
Biography at Wikipedia.

Harriet Jacobs
Links to online resources, including links to online copies of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Harriet Jacobs
This biographical site includes links to a variety of resources.

Harriet Jacobs
On this page, a brief biography. Follow the links to teaching tips, discussion questions, and archieved support materials.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Text of the book.

An introduction to slave narratives: Harriet Jacobs' Life of a Slave Girl
Students read a primary source document, an excerpt from Jacob's biography, and discuss their understanding and interpretation.

"The Lover" by Harriet Jacobs
Brief biography and text of the story, autobiographical in nature.

Mapping Slavery
From the U. S. Library of Congress: "The 1860 census was the last time the federal government took a count of the Southern slave population. In 1861, the United States Coast Survey issued two maps of slavery based on the census data: the first mapped Virginia and the second mapped Southern states as a whole." This infographic may contribute to student understanding of the background to the book.

A Teacher's Guide to the Signet Classics edition of Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Summary and a wide variety of activities to support study of the autobiography. This 40-page document requires Adobe Reader for access. Consider saving the document to your computer and printing only the pages you need.