Middle School Lesson Plans

In this immigration lesson plan, students will understand how Cesar Chavez’s adolescence as a migrant farm worker influenced his later achievements.  First, students will analyze how an artist and biographer have interpreted Chavez’s legacy.  Then by reading excerpts from Chavez’s autobiography, students will draw connections between how his early years shaped his later beliefs and achievements around organized labor, social justice, and humane treatment of individuals. Once students have read and critically thought about these connections, they will write a response supported with evidence from the text to answer the investigative question on the impact of Chavez’s early years and development.

Extensions and adaptations are available for English Language Learners and readers at multiple levels.

For lesson procedures, Common Core and C3 standards alignment, please click here. 

Year Released: 2015

6-8 and 9-12

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In this lesson, students watch and respond to novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s Ted Talk “The Danger of a Single Story.” In this 18:39 minute video, she tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice and relays the potential risks for misunderstanding a group of people when only a single story is shared as representative of that culture. This film and corresponding discussion guide can enhance the reading of diverse literature in the classroom and lends itself to a discussion on the benefits of diversity.

For lesson procedures and Common Core alignment, please click here.

Year Released: 2015

10-12

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In a video and service project “Health First, Protection for Migrant Workers,” students brought awareness and assistance to migrant farm workers as a result of our community grant awarded to Delia Lancaster, a teacher at St. Joseph Catholic School in Palm Bay, Florida.  Through their work, teachers are now provided with a Common-Core aligned model to have students launch a donation drive to collect supplies to protect migrant workers laboring in hazardous conditions, as well to conduct research and interviews on health and safety issues in order to educate their school and community in two student-produced news broadcasts.

For lesson procedures and Common Core alignment, please click here.

Year Released: 2015

Middle School and High School Levels

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The one-week immigration community outreach project and lesson plan meets three objectives: 1) to educate students on the experiences of the immigrant population; 2) to celebrate and welcome immigrant students; and 3) to empower all students to implement a social justice project. Read more...

Year Released: 2015

Middle School 6-8 and High School 9-12

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In this Common-Core aligned immigration lesson plan, teachers are guided step-by-step through a process for launching a digital storytelling project on immigration in their own classrooms.  Recommended writing prompts, easy to use digital platforms, as well as resources and collaborative planning tools are shared and explained. 

Using digital storytelling to capture immigration stories is a powerful way for teachers to create opportunities for “empathetic moments” among students and shape classroom environments.  Telling stories of family immigration history – no matter how distant or recent – allows for common threads and variations of the immigration experience to be seen, heard, and reflected upon.  Digital storytelling offers the advantage of authentic engagement to reach all learning styles as well as to teach technological skills while exploring connections and understandings to an important issue.

Watch this video for an example of a digital story based on a poem written by a fifth grade student about her grandfather’s immigration from China to the U.S.

Year Released: 2015

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It's clear commonsense immigration reform is good for the economy as a whole. Don't take our word for it — study after study has shown that commonsense immigration reform will strengthen the economy, spur innovation, reduce the deficit and increase US trade and exports.

Year Released: 2013

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Teachers and students can read this beatifully illustrated storybook on Storybird and learn about current issues in immigration.  Students of all ages can use the artwork on Storybird to create their own written works.

http://storybird.com/books/bring-the-nine-dreamers-home/

Year Released: 2013

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Fred T. Korematsu was a national civil rights hero. In 1942, at the age of 23, he refused to go to the government’s incarceration camps for Japanese Americans. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the government’s order, he appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled against him, arguing that the incarceration was justified due to military necessity.

In 1983, Prof. Peter Irons, a legal historian, together with researcher Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, discovered key documents that government intelligence agencies had hidden from the Supreme Court in 1944. The documents consistently showed that Japanese Americans had committed no acts of treason to justify mass incarceration. With this new evidence, a legal team of mostly Japanese American attorneys re-opened Korematsu’s 40 year-old case on the basis of government misconduct. On November 10, 1983, Korematsu’s conviction was overturned in a federal court in San Francisco. It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history.

Korematsu remained an activist throughout his life. In 1998, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton. In 2010, the state of California passed the Fred Korematsu Day bill, making January 30 the first day in the US named after an Asian American. Korematsu’s growing legacy continues to inspire people of all backgrounds and demonstrates the importance of speaking up to fight injustice.

Year Released: 2012

The objective of From War on Terror to War on Bias is to broaden the view students may have of Iraqi and Muslim immigrants. Students will examine current stereotypes and other forms of judgment as well as gain insight into the struggles immigrants face while adapting to a new culture.

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Oral History - Creating an Immigration Museum will aid students in developing a deeper understanding of the immigrant experience through a series of Oral History projects-interviews, writing, research and art-culminating in the creation of an Immigration Museum.

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