The Collaborative for Educational Services (CES) provides workshops and grad courses (including for teacher / administrator licensure) both for specialists in ELL and for general education educators. Most of the courses work mostly online.
This spring, we will create a one-hour online module for these courses providing background and context on the history of immigration and of efforts by non-English speakers to integrate into American life, culture, and citizenship.
We need your input!
- What do you think of the following draft core historical question for the module?:
- What events and actions have been most important to enable English Language Learners to build new lives in America?
- What are the most important events and concepts that teachers ought to know and understand to illuminate the history of U.S. immigration and of non-English speaking communities in the U.S.?
- What are the most evocative primary sources on immigration from the Library of Congress to feature in the module?
- Identify the top two historical-cultural resources every teacher should know to support teaching ELs.
- What should we be concerned about as we tackle this project?
Thanks! I hope the conversation will surface ideas and resources all of us can use.
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I saw your post and indeed, it will be a big concept to tackle. I am sure you have thought about looking at the basics but I thought maybe this would help spur some thoughts. I always like to think out loud...The United States is a nation of immigrants from a variety of different backgrounds. These immigrants come from nations across the world, have differing reasons for living in the United States, and have unique stories about their journey.
What are the different reasons immigrants come to the United States?
How does the immigrant experience relate to my own identity?
What challenges do immigrants face in the United States?
What is the difference between a refugee and an immigrant?
Is immigration a problem or a solution?
Is immigration a positive or a negative?
What stories should be told? Are their stories that show both positives and negatives?
I always included the study of the Statue of Liberty when I taught 1st and 2nd grades so to help them understand the symbolic purpose of the statute. I always included Emma Lazarus Poem as well in the study.
Cheryl - Thanks.
It's helpful to be reminded not to forget the basics. And this is a useful start of an outline for those topics.
- Rich
I'm glad to see this conversation picking up after a two-week lag due to winter breaks. A tag search on immigration right here in the TPS Teachers Network brings up a number of useful hits, from 
Neme Alperstein
's recent link to a PBS interactive game for middle schoolers to outstanding resources from the Library of Congress primary source set on immigration to 
Cheryl Davis
's work on the Chinese immigrant experience.
Sometimes I think simple is better, and this might be true of the list of questions. What would you predict might result from this simplified question: "Why have people chosen to emigrate to the United States throughout history?"
To build empathy for the immigrant experience years ago, I used Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a literary connection. Here's how I introduced the lesson:
"Relocating to a new country can be a disorienting experience. Immigrants often find themselves in a strange new world where the rules have changed, the surroundings are unfamiliar, and the inhabitants speak in strange tongues. In some ways, the immigrant experience is like the dizzying journey taken by the lead character in Lewis Carroll's 19th-century novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
In this lesson, students used class discussions of students' experiences, the first-hand accounts of immigrants, and other primary source documents and images from the collections of the Library of Congress to uncover the common themes of the immigrant experience.
I'm not sure that these ideas really respond to your questions, but I'm sure other TPS Teachers Network users will offer additional input. Thanks to 
Cheryl Best
for starting off the discussion!
Neme Alperstein
's recent link to a PBS interactive game for middle schoolers to outstanding resources from the Library of Congress primary source set on immigration to
Cheryl Davis
's work on the Chinese immigrant experience.
Sometimes I think simple is better, and this might be true of the list of questions. What would you predict might result from this simplified question: "Why have people chosen to emigrate to the United States throughout history?"
To build empathy for the immigrant experience years ago, I used Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a literary connection. Here's how I introduced the lesson:
"Relocating to a new country can be a disorienting experience. Immigrants often find themselves in a strange new world where the rules have changed, the surroundings are unfamiliar, and the inhabitants speak in strange tongues. In some ways, the immigrant experience is like the dizzying journey taken by the lead character in Lewis Carroll's 19th-century novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
In this lesson, students used class discussions of students' experiences, the first-hand accounts of immigrants, and other primary source documents and images from the collections of the Library of Congress to uncover the common themes of the immigrant experience.
I'm not sure that these ideas really respond to your questions, but I'm sure other TPS Teachers Network users will offer additional input. Thanks to
Cheryl Best
for starting off the discussion!
Alice in Wonderland! I would not have thought of that, but what a great idea and metaphor. In workshops, we use documents in Japanese, with some graphics, as a means to explore unfamiliarity. (Works well in Massachusetts; maybe not so well on the West Coast!)
In addition to Alice, Shaun Tan's wordless picture book The Arrival supplies an updated and accessible literary connection to build empathy for the immigrant experience.
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