Discovering your Heritage

Chris Gniadek
Amy Rupp

Lesson Overview/Summary
Students will be asked to interview
their families about their cultural
heritage, create a family tree, and
map their journeys to America

Grade Level
This particular lesson plan will be
used in the fourth grade

Content Areas Integrated

Visual Art (Inspiration Artist- Alighiero
Boetti)
Literacy- When Jessie Came Across
the Sea by Amy Hest
Social Studies/Relationships- Map
journey to America

Key Concepts for Each Area

Visual Art: How their families came over to
America and what does their family tree have
in common with their classmates?
Literacy: After interviewing their family
members, the students should know what their
heritage is, was the journey difficult or easy,
and what are the common themes of the
journey to America.
Social Studies/Relationships: What are the
common topics of why people left their
homeland to come to America?

Essential Questions
What does your culture mean to you
and how does that make you into the
person you are today?
Compare and contrast cultural
traditions among the classroom?

Lesson Objectives/Goals
Visual Art: The students will be able to use a
map to show the path of immigration of their
families from their homeland to America.
Literacy: The students will be able to write at
least five interview questions that help them
gain information about their family heritage.
Social Studies/Relationships: The students will
be able to compare and contrast cultural
traditions among their classmates.

Opening
I will show my students where my
family is from using the map that
shows their journey to America. I will
also share information on my family
using my family tree and just talking
about my families history.

Summative Assessment
I will use a rubric to grade each
childs presentation and to see if
they did everything correctly.
The children will have this rubric
with them at the beginning of the
lesson.
Another assessment is that they will
present what they found about how
their family came to America and
why.