Disciplinary Unit: Lesson Plan 6

Interviewing an Immigrant
Student Name: Leah Elsted
I. General Information:
Grade Level
Discipline
Unit Topic
Time frame

Third Grade
Social Studies: History
Emmigration
45 Minutes

Anchor Text: Grandfathers Journey by Allen Say

Text Set:

I was dreaming of coming to America: Memories of the Ellis

Island Oral History Project by Veronica Lawlor.

Scholastic Immigration Interivews

Other Materials:
Student Anthology of Grandfathers Journey
Students copy of 4 pages of I was dreaming to Come to America
Oral History Project Biography.
Scholastic Immigrant Student Videos
Bitstrips Comic Strip Website
Media Forms, ipads, laptops (if available)
Different Perspectives Talk Bubble Sheet
Interview Question Sheet
Lesson Summary 6
This lesson consolidates learning of immigration to America in the 19 th and
20th Century by comparing and contrasting various media forms with the
anchor text of immigrants in the past and immigrants arriving in America
today. Students also get the opportunity to further empathise with
immigrants by constructing interview questions for the anchor text
protagonists. Sudents may also integrate their home learning environment,
family and community members, friends or peers, who have previously
emigrated and have made America their new homeland. This lesson serves
as a solid foundation to recall the theme of immigration, before the
culminating performance assessment begins.
Standards/Indicators
Maryland College and career Readiness State Standards:

Reading/Writing
RL1 CCR Anchor Standard: Read closely to determine what the text
says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it;cite specific
textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions
drawn from the text.
RL1: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a
text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers
RL2 CCR Anchor Standard: Determine central ideas or themes of a text
and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details
and ideas.
RL2: Recount stories from diverse countries and culture; determine the
central message, lesson or moral and explain how it is conveyed
through key details in the text.
RL3: Describe characters in a story and explain how their actions
contribute to the sequence of events.
RI3: Describe the relationship between a series of historical events,
scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text,
using language that pertains to time, sequence and cause/effect.
SL3: Evaluate a speakers point of view, reasoning and use of evidence
and rhetoric.
SL4: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience
with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking
clearly at an understanding pace.
W2: Write informative/ explanatory texts to examine and convey
complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the
effective selection, organization and analysis of content.
Social Studies:
Standard 6B1: Use Informal writing strategies, such as journal writing,
note taking, quick writes and graphic organizers to clarify, organize,
remember and express understandings.
Standard 6A2: Use strategies to prepare for reading
Standard 6A3: Use strategies to monitor understanding and derive
meaning from text and portions of the text.
Standard 6E1: Organize social studies information from non-print
sources.

Standard 6D1: Idetify primary and secondary sources of information

that relate to the topic/situation/problem being studied.

III. Specific Lesson Objectives

Strengthen re-reading skills and reading strategies of prediction and
making connections within Grandfathers Journey and I was dreaming
of coming to America through the use of Jigsaw Reading, speech
bubble concept map and a read aloud.
Revise and Consolidate disciplinary literacy knowledge of the anchor
text and develop writing skills through the use of the online bitstrips
comic strip website and constructing interview questions for past and
present immigrants.
Synthesize the underlying theme of comparing and contrasting current
immigrants with past immigrants from the 19 th and 20th Centuries
through the use of vaired media, interactive videos, primary sourced
biogrpahies and the anchor text, Grandfathers Journey.
Conclude and Revise this unit of immigration in the past and present
through the exit ticket it never happened and a written response
journal.
Language objectives:
Through discussion, writing and interpreting a variety of past and
present emigrants through biographies and videos, students will
understand the reality of immigrating.
Students will engage in a range of collaborative interactions virtually
and build on others talk in conversation by responding to the
comments of others through multiple exchanges after reading
Grandfathers Journey and modern immigration vocabulary from
Scholastic Videos and I was dreaming of coming to America.
Accommodations:
Use appropriate accommodations as designated by students IEPs and
in response to students needs.
Use of kinesthetic and visual summarizing and evaluative
methodologies such as active the bitstrips and the visual media of
videos.
Students may synthesize information successfully through the use of
another text from the text set, I was dreaming of coming to America.
Students can benefit and are supported through the use of peer
tutoring and mentoring during group work and the jigsaw reading
group activity.
Big Ideas and Key Understandings

Empathise with characters who immigrated and create a connection and

realistic view of immigration to America for the students through
interviewing a person who adopted America as their new homeland.
IV. Procedures:
Introduction
BitStrips.com Comic Strip: To revise the anchor text, Grandfathers
Journey and the expedition and feelings of the grandfather immigrating to
America and leaving his family customs and traditions, students will work in
groups to create a bitstriponline comic strip of the feelings and encounters
of the grandfather in Grandfathers Journey. As a whole class, students can
explore what the website offers with design, set up, characters and mood
boards for their comic of Grandfathers Journey and then plan this comic strip
in groups on one electronic device or else drawn and scanned. Students
must refer and reread their own copy of Grandfathers Journey during this
activity. The class will combine all 4/5 group strips to make a comic page on
the arduous journey of the grandfather.
Teaching/Activities
1. Different Perspectives Video Activity: Students will then think back
to previous lessons with many other immigrants within their own learning
environments and from the variety of texts and media explored. Students
will be asked how they might find out more about people who immigrated
and if there are students their own age in this position. Students will meet
a young immigrant and watch a video from Sadana, a ten-year-old
student originally from India, living in Queens, New York. Students will
then watch a short video from Asya, a 9 year old third grade student,
originally from the Ukraine and living in Atlanta. Notes will be taken during
these videos individually on a different perspectives talk bubble
sheet, to relate immigration to a childrens perspective in todays world.

2. Jigsaw

Reading

(Tierney,

1995):

To include all participants in

independent, explicit reading of real, primary source immigration

biographies, each student and group will be given an assigned role
before and during reading their chosen immigrants story, either an
evaluator, reflector, vocabulary detective and these notes will be
noted during reading on their own copies. They will discuss the stories of
Ann from Hungry, Oreste from Itlay, Katharine from Russia and Patrick
from Ireland, all taken from I was dreaming of coming to America Oral
history Project. Each statement and finding during group discussions
after reading will be linked to the characters in our anchor text,
Grandfathers Journey. Students will discuss, using the speaking object,
the difference between an immigrant today in America and in the 19 th
and 20th Century after reading.
3. Interview Question Writing: Students will then choose a character
from Grandfathers Journey, either the grandson or Grandfather and also a
character from the Oral History biographies or current immigration
scholastic videos and write 5 questions they would ask them in an
interview. As homework, students could prepare a question interview for
a member of their family who have emigrated from another country
previously. Questions may include:
a. Where were you born?
b. Tell me about your family and if you had siblings or relatives
c. Did your family live close to you when you were a child?
d. What games did you play as a child?
e. What is your best/fondest memory?
f. Did you want to immigrate?
g. How did you feel when you arrived in your new homeland?
Vocabulary
New Vocabulary
Interview
Project
Biogrpahy
Interpreter

Temperature
Environment
scenery

Closure
Exit Ticket: It Never Happened (Viestra, 2015)
To consolidate the learning of comparing and contrasting immigrants in todays world and
from the 19th and 20th centuries, students will briefly write a short Reading Response
Journal (Hopkins, 1999) on what if many Japanese immigrants did not arrive in America
and flee Japan like the grandfather in Grandfathers Journey and many other immigrants all
over the world, as mentioned in I was Dreaming of Coming to America Oral History
Biogrpahy. Students will then present these to the class in the form of our class talk show
and hotseat.

VI. Evaluation/Assessment:
Assessment of Objectives
Observation checklist of working in pairs and groups collaboratively, participating in in
thejigsaw group reading activity and talk show.
Written response and Teacher designed tasks of the graphic organizer, and interview
questions.
Reflection and Planning: While writing interview questions to family members, the
teacher needs to be mindful of students who may not know some relatives and they can
choose a friend or peer if that is the case.