Developed in conjunction with a graduate course and used in classrooms with all types of learners, this paper presents a 6-week unit of study on slavery based on two adolescent novels--"NIGHTJOHN" by Gary Paulson and "My Name Is not Angelica" by Scott O'Dell. After a brief introduction to the unit, the paper presents the 14 activities of the unit: discussion of what the titles of the novels might mean; reader response journals; use of dialect in the novels; research on the historical facts in the novels; response to and debate on the issue of whether students would take in fugitive slaves; main character descriptions; description of moments of conflict in the novels; extrapolation of a scene from each novel; discussion of themes in the novels such as death, life, marriage, illness, and freedom; composition of a "riddle poem" for the theme of the novels; analysis of hidden themes in slave songs; creation of diary entries from the point of view of a slave; creation of a play using the diary entries; and a field trip. Appendixes contain 10 reader response journal ideas, steps in the slavery novel research project, and the outline of the main character sketch. (RS)