Deepen Discussion of "Twelve Years a Slave" with Vocabulary Lists and More

Thinking of teaching Twelve Years a Slave after Sunday's Oscar win? Not only does the movie make a memorable addition to English and Social Studies lessons, the slave narrative on which it was based can serve as a primary source or literary text as well.

Find an electronic copy of Northup's original narrative here as well as in a new Penguin edition edited by Henry Louis Gates, with an introduction by Ira Berlin, foreword by Steve McQueen, and afterword by Henry Louis Gates. Reading guides and discussion questions for this edition are available online, and we've just posted vocabulary lists here: 

The words Northup used and the words that appear in the film are much the same. Accepting the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, John Ridley said, "These are [Northup's] words, this is his life." Earlier, in an Entertainment Weekly red carpet interview, Ridley had elaborated on the process of transforming the narrative into a screenplay: 

It was daunting. The way that Solomon Northup wrote, his words, his language, honestly, his ability to see beauty in a very difficult circumstance, that was way beyond me. So a large part of the process was just preparing myself to be able to try to translate his words into a modern setting, in terms of writing a screenplay. And for me, I just tried to be reductive, take 12 years and put it into what ended up being about two hours, but not additive. I had nothing better, greater to say. That situation, that circumstance, that period in our history, it's Solomon's words, his work. You said very nice things about people expecting [the film to win an Oscar] ... but if they were expecting anything it's because of what they heard from Solomon in his words.

Looking for more ways to bring Northup's story to life for your students? Check out PRI's interview with Solomon Northup's great-great-great-grandson, Clayton Adams, on The Takeaway.