Week One
Lesson One
Open Unit
by reading The Keeping Quilt, by Patricia Polacco.
Discuss with students what it means to be an immigrant is. Next, have students
identify individuals they know who are immigrants.
Lesson Two
Using a smart board have students view a short movie that I have created from film clips from the American Memory site. Ellis Island.mpg Students will also locate pictures of immigrants and write and brief description about three them. Explain this week’s activity.
Week One Activity
Using the Library of Congress-American Memory Site website find a photo using the keyword "immigrant". You are to evaluate your photo using the following criteria:
1. What are they wearing?
2. Where do you think they are going?
3. What country do you think the people or persons came from?
4. After studying the picture, write a short story about the people or person's life or lives were like in America.
Lesson Three
Students will view a PowerPoint presentation Coming To America.ppt on Ellis Island, followed by a discussion on the significance of Ellis Island. Using documents from my own grandparents that I scanned in and included in the presentation, students will be able to view an actual ship passenger manifest, and other papers from Ellis Island.
Introduce Final Project that will serve as a final assessment for the unit (see student page). Students will be given time during our language arts to period to begin their research.
Lesson Four
Using http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/immig/introduction.html as a supplement to our class discussion students will be able to understand the impact immigrants have made on our culture. Students will identify the cultural contribution immigrants have made to the American culture. We will identify the different ethic neighborhoods in Chicago. We will create a mural depicting the different neighborhoods.
Week Two
Lesson One
We will view a timeline from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/immig/introduction.html that shows the different waves of immigrants from the late 1800’s to the 1980’s. We will compare and contrast the early 20th century immigration to late 20th century immigration.
Introduce this week’s activity:
Week Two Activity
Assignment
"Give me your tired, your
poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Emma Lazarus wrote these words in her 19th century poem, "The New Colossus". Do the words reflect the American sentiment about immigration at that time? Do these words express America's feelings about immigration, today?
Lesson Two
Discuss the Emma Lazarus poem “The New Colossus”. Have students interpret the meaning she is trying to convey. Have students listen to oral histories of immigrants from the 1980’s from the American Memory site. Have a class discussion about we heard.
Lesson Three
Using PowerPoint students will view pictures of immigrants from the different eras. Students will compare and contrast them. Students will view an etching by artist Ester Hernandez titled “Libertad”(1976) This print reflects the modern immigrants view of assimilation, or their resistance to fully assimilate into the modern culture.