History Friday
In today’s writing prompt, we will be discussing the sensitive, but critical issue of slavery in the United States. The beauty, advancement, and noted achievements of African Americans of today do not make much sense without a meaningful understanding of the history of slavery. The earliest recorded period of slavery begins in the 1600s. Although it thrived, slavery also underwent significant changes until a pivotal point in history in 1863, when President Lincoln announced his life-changing Emancipation Proclamation. Your job is to pick a few moments from the slavery timeline and compare them with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Writing Prompt 015
- Step 1: Do basic Internet research on slavery. There are many excellent resources on the Internet that provide detailed facts, dates, and information about the history of slavery.
- Step 2: Pick one or two key moments within the historical timeline of slavery. Think about what moved you. Did something upset you? Did something cause you to feel relief? Did you think something was unfair?
- Step 3: Do basic Internet research on the Emancipation Proclamation. Determine the significance of the Emancipation Proclamation in today’s society.
- Step 4: Compare your chosen moments from the slavery timeline (step 2) with the Emancipation Proclamation in a nonfiction writing. Include your own analysis as to why you think slavery prevailed initially and why it ended.
- Bonus Step: If you own a blog and wish to share a link to the blog post that contains your response to today’s writing prompt, we welcome your permalink and encourage you to post it as a comment below!
Please be sure to leave your comments about this writing challenge and prompt below. We want to hear from you!
About the Author
Amanda M. Socci, J.D., is a freelance writer with 14 years of experience writing professionally. Socci currently cuts her blogging chops on her personal portfolio blog, the Creative Idea Gal blog, and on an online news site, Mount Vernon Patch. Inspired by Nina Amir’s Write Nonfiction in November writing challenge, she created a unique 10-month training program for Writenonfictionnow.com and Writenonfictioninnovember.com blog visitors.
Grab the badge of honor and upload it to your blog. Follow the prompts three times a week (M-W-F) right here.
If all writing prompts were this interesting–this meaninful–I’d like writing prompts a lot better. Rarely is one arresting enough to make me want to get busy at it. Thank you!
Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Excited about how much the new edition of the Frugal Book Promoter (expanded! updated!) can help writers with the tried and true and the new media, too. Now a USA Book News award-winner in its own right (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) it the original edition was also a Reader Views winner and an Irwin Award winner.
Thanks, Carolyn. Amanda is doing a great job with these writing prompts. It’s a full 10-month training for the Write Nonfiction in November writing marathon. I’d love it if you would share with others so they would know to come by and train…or try the writing prompts.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson: Thank you so much for the positive feedback! You are the first to comment on our new training program. And, I just realized I had been forgetting to add my bio to the writing prompts 🙂
It is a great pleasure coming up with thematic writing prompts for Nina Amir. It is a fun project and I hope nonfiction writers are benefiting from them!