CONTEXT
& RATIONALE
My Unit in Context
Immigration:
Why do people leave home and how do they create a new home?
When I first met the third graders in room 110 at Penn Alexander, I was struck by the diversity. It was beyond Black and White, which is what I tended to see in my previous student teaching experiences in West Philadelphia. Instead, 110 felt international. This diversity came through when the students read an article about Ellis Island and Angel Island in their English Language Arts textbook and I saw that they were bursting at the seams to share their stories. I sensed how much they wanted to talk about the countries their families came from and the languages that their families spoke. Students conversed at different tables around the classroom and I overheard them say that their families spoke languages like Bengali, French, Creole, and Thai. There were others, this is just what I managed to hear. Their diversity is a resource. Their families are a resource. The West Philadelphia community around Penn Alexander has the same kind of rich diversity that I see in my classroom. I can see it in the array of food options that are available near the school: Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Indian, Caribbean, vegetarian and vegan ‘spirit’ foods.
At the same time, I want to teach my students that immigration is more than just people coming from other countries—but sometimes state to state and city to city. In other West Philadelphia schools I’ve worked in I’ve heard stories from students about visiting their families who live elsewhere; about visiting their families who live in the countryside. Students have family ties to the South and I can see these Southern roots in some of the food and culture present here in Philadelphia. This is why am planning a lesson in my unit on the art of Jacob Lawrence and The Great Migration of the 1920’s. Additionally, I will be introducing the students to the idea that not all immigration, or migration, is voluntary; we will discuss the fact that early colonists to America brought over Africans in slave ships.
I felt that an immigration unit would fit into my students’ lives because it would offer the opportunity to celebrate the diversity of the Penn Alexander neighborhood and of the Penn Alexander students and families. Students will have the opportunity to talk to their parents and family members about their own experience of moving from one place to another and I hope that this will give students a chance to develop a deeper appreciation of their own family stories. They will also have the opportunity to hear one another’s family stories. I hope that gaining information about their own families, and one another’s families, will make the unit, as a whole, feel personal and memorable.
Also, during the conversations that we’ve been having this month concerning the Civil Rights Movement, and Black History, I’ve seen that these third graders like to talk about serious things and like to be taken seriously. I felt that immigration might hold a similar weight and interest for the students. It’s always been a contentious topic in our country but in the last month, since the inauguration of Donald Trump, it seems to have become even more so. While I do not plan on explicitly discussing the politics of immigration, I do think that it is important for the students to be learning something about a conversation that is taking place in our society right now. I think that they want to participate. And I see the unit as a way for them to participate in this broader societal conversation.
A Rationale for my Unit
Immigration:
Why do people leave home and how do they create a new home?
My goal for my students is for them to have a more complex understanding of immigration, and migration, and for them to understand that it is a personal and human experience, one that has affected each and every one of our families at one time or another. My unit will integrate multiple disciplines: history, literacy, science, and art and it will draw on many resources.
The National Council for Social Studies says in an article about preparing elementary school children for the 21st century that ‘young children need to understand both their own uniqueness and their relationship to the world’ (NCSS, pg. 5). I see this unit as a way for my students to develop a stronger sense of who they are, based on where their family came from, as well as to develop an appreciation and respect for the journey of their classmates’ families. NCSS claims that, ‘for children to develop citizenship skills appropriate to democracy, they must be capable of thinking critically about complex societal problems and global problems’ and that ‘teachers must arrange the classroom environment to promote data gathering, discussion, and critical reasoning’ (NCSS, pg. 10). My unit will put students in charge by having them develop questions and collect information about immigration through a variety of sources. They will conduct family interviews, read new articles, analyze primary sources, meet guest speakers from a local organization, and look at art and poetry. Since immigration is a personal and human topic, one that affects people’s lives, there is a wealth of material to look at and many first-hand accounts. I feel that these first-hand accounts will make the topic accessible and meaningful for my students.
The mandated skills that I will cover are third-grade Pennsylvania core curriculum skills such as understanding and explaining author point of view (CC.1.2.3.D) and learning to write, through modeled and guided writing, opinion pieces with the support of reasons (CC.1.4.3.I). They will also explain, through analysis, how a series of historical events, concepts, or steps in a procedure is connected within a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect (CC.1.2.3.C). Working with primary sources will require that they refer to a text to ask and answer questions and make inferences from the text (CC.1.3.3.B)—important reading comprehension skills for third-grade students. Also, they will consider their audience and demonstrate fluid reading at an understandable pace when they create an audio recording of a collective classroom poem (CC.1.5.3.F).
In The Teaching for Understanding Guide, Blythe describes that ‘understanding is a matter of being able to do a variety of thought-provoking things with a topic, such as explaining, finding evidence and examples, generalizing, applying, analogizing, and representing the topic in new ways’ (Blythe, pg. 12). I am excited for my students to have a chance to work with historical texts and to pull evidence from these sources. I am excited for my students to see the power in persuasive writing and to work on their own opinion piece. And as I mention above, they will be creating, toward the end of the unit, a collective class poem, which will be stitched together with short excerpts and quotes that they bring in from their family interviews. Penn Alexander’s art teacher has also kindly offered to align her lesson plans with mine, and work with the students on a mural project in the style of Great Migration artist, Jacob Lawrence. I feel that these many connections and authentic activities will help the students move past a superficial understanding of what it is like to leave a home and start from scratch in a new place.
NCSS claims that ‘by age nine or ten, children have well-established racial and ethnic prejudices’ and that ‘teachers must go beyond studies of other cultures and celebrations of their holidays and include studies of families, music, shelter, customs, beliefs, and other aspects common to all cultures’ (NAEYC 1986). This is partially why I feel that teaching a unit on immigration right now would be developmentally appropriate.
The topic of immigration is interesting to me in the context of my classroom because I see how diverse the students are and I can see how immigration may personally fit into their lives. It is something that my students might know about intimately and that they might feel they can teach the rest of us. It is also interesting to me because there is an aspect of it that is controversial and very relevant to the political moment. I’m sure the students are aware of this controversy and relevance. I’m sure that they hear about it in the news and that they hear their parents talking about it. I’m interested to teach about something that feels timely and important because I think it would be empowering for my students.
I am also taking into consideration what I know about my students and have seen from them in the classroom. When my students read an article back in January in their Pennsylvania Literacy curriculum book exploring similarities and differences between Ellis Island and Angel Island, I observed that they were extremely interested in the topic of immigration--but that they still had a lot to grasp. For example, when they were asked to write a short fictional narrative about their experience leaving a country and coming through Ellis Island, they were detailed and personal writing pieces, but I noticed that there were aspects of the experience that the students struggled with and that were still very abstract to them. They mentioned coming to America simply for ‘a better life,’ for ‘more opportunity.’ They talked about bringing one teddy bear or one photograph. They seemed particularly fixated on the medical exams that people arriving to Ellis Island underwent and the medical care that they received at the Ellis Island hospital. They all ended their narratives by sharing news of what they had managed to accomplish in a short amount of time upon arrival to America: a job as a policeman or a doctor, a bunch of new friends, a beautiful new house, money. From reading their writing pieces, I felt that they had a basic understanding of the immigration experience, but that their vision of it was romanticized; that they didn’t understand the idea that large waves of people leave countries at a time because they absolutely need to. I felt that they didn’t comprehend the real struggles that immigrants face when they leave family and friends and arrive in a new place. And I didn’t feel that they had any concept of what today’s immigration system is actually like.
As I mention earlier, I plan to make the topic as real and accessible as possible by offering my students excerpts from first-hand accounts--letters and diaries. A particular constraint here is that while there are a lot of accounts out there, I will need to find ones that are either on my students’ reading level or that I can easily adapt. Another concern I have is the reception of my unit from the parents of my students. While I do not plan to go into the politics of immigration, I know that it is a particularly sensitive discussion right now in current events and this makes me slightly nervous. But I will be careful to monitor the tone of my lessons. And at the beginning of the unit, when I send home a note about the family interview, I hope that in my letter and assignment description I will be able to convey my intent and alleviate any concerns.
Nevertheless, I feel really excited to go ahead with a unit on immigration. My students’ interest and personal connection to the topic, the fact that they have already had a basic introduction through their readings on Ellis and Angel Island, and their innocent vision of the experience and failure to appreciate the complexity and challenges, all make me feel that this would be a valuable unit for them. And at a time when immigration is so much on the minds of people—politically—I feel that it is especially important for my students to learn about it. I feel that learning about the topic of immigration in the classroom will be a way for my students to participate in the broader conversation that is currently taking place in their society.
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