The
Process
Now that you've accepted the task of recreating one of America's most
intersting historical stories, its time to see exactly how you need to
do it.
Step
#1
Before
you can truly jump back into time and become an immigrant you'll need
to learn a bit more about who the people were and why they made the
move to America.
- Find the defition of immigration by visiting Columbia Encyclopedia , it will
give
you a more clear explanation and reasons why people made the move.
- Check each
of the following sites to see examples of the reasons from specific
countries, because remember not everyone moved for the same reason!
- After seeing some examples of immigrants its now time to choose
the country that you will be sent back into time to immigrate from!
- Don't forget to send the email now! (Minimum of 2 paragraphs!)
Step #2
Now that you've
gotten a better
idea on who the immigrants were and why they were leaving their
respective countries its time for you to learn a little more about
their journey and what is was like to finally reach Ellis Island!
- Revisit some of the sites above to search for some of the
personal accounts of the actual journey across the Atlantic or Pacific
Ocean.
- You should be searching for specific bits of information:
- City and country that you immigrated from
- How long the journey took
- What mode of transportation did you use
- What were some of the ups and downs of the trip
- Next you should visit Ellis
Island
and read some of the first hand accounts of what it was like to be
processed. You should also take a virtual tour to paint a better
picture in your mind of what it might have been like to see America for
the first time.
- Send another email!
Step #3
Next you
will need to dig
a little deeper into the life of the immigrants. But instead of
observing what the trip was like or why the came here, you need to find
out what you are going to do now that you've become an American!
- Using your favorite search engine look for the following:
- What area of the U.S. did people of your ethnic background move
into?
- What was your new home/neighborhood like?
- What type of job could you find and describe the conditions of
it?
- What is your family life like now that you've made the journey?
- If you don't
have a favorite here are a few related sites and search engines that
might help you:
- Send another email!
Step #4
We've finally made it! You have endured the
long and hard journey
that millions of people faced in order to start new lives. Now it
is
time for you to think about one last aspect of immigration before you
complete your journey.
- Place yourself in the shoes of your character and think about
what it means to now be an American.
- Send your last email!
Now that you have
completed the
journey and gathered tons of vital information its time to organize it
all and begin writing your first person account of the trip.
Remember
you will have a written version and then you will present your story to
the class. In my opinion it is best to organize your information
directly inline with the 4 steps that you've just completed. The
steps
were designed to work you through the story from start to finish.
Remember to be creative and use as much detail as possible. The
requirements for the paper are found in the following link Paper
Instructions.
I will discuss due dates, and presentation dates at a later time.
Be
sure to move onto the evaluation page to see the grading rubric for the
entire project.
Note to teachers:
This lesson was
designed to follow a small unit on how America became an urban society
during from 1860 to 1930. The students should already have some
background knowledge before getting into this webquest. It is
best to discuss how America was changing into a modern industrial
nation with massive opportunities to everyone in the world. I
have used this lesson as a single student project in the past, but you
may also try to use groups as well.
To use as a group project you may want to have the groups becom members
of a family or a group of friends that decided to immigrate
together. And each member would be responsible for telling the
story from his or her point of view. Then when they come together
to present they can create a small skit with each telling their own
portions of the required aspects.
This lesson is usually done in about 3-4 weeks, with most of the time
used as independent work by the student. I usually allow 2-3 days
for library/online research. But with the addition of the
webquest I would extend it to 3-4 days depending computer/library
availability. It really only covers Social Studies topics, but
other disciplines include research skills, presentation skills and the
various reading, writing, and speaking, and technology standards listed
on the
standards page.
The only real stumbling block that I see is that if
the project is done by individuals and not groups some of the students
may not have the computer skills, or even public speaking skills
necessary to complete it efficiently. Ways to fix that would be
to have your more advanced students help the lower level ones with
their research when needed. You should also plan a few days of
some other types of presentations to familiarize the students with
speaking in front of the class. Overall this lesson is easy
enough for the novice teacher, although you will need to know how to
use the web in case of small problems like pages not loading, or not
fniding the right information on the particular page.
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Process Introduction
Standards Learners
Process Evaluation
Resources
Student Pages Credits
Author