Celebrating Immigrants -- The American Story!

ELL Teacher Pros                                                                               November 2016 Newsletter

Thanksgiving was and is my favorite holiday.  Not only did we get out of school but we got to eat turkey and cranberry sauce (two of my all-time faves)!  My mom would make pumpkin, apple and pecan pies, mashed potatoes from real potatoes (she usually used powdered), sweet potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, etc.  My mother’s side of the family was far away from their immigrant roots.  My dad’s family, however, was not.  He was first generation American and his family was from The Ukraine and very poor.  As a child, he never had some of the foods we ate every Thanksgiving.

As I was thinking of my Thanksgivings I thought of my dad’s background and stories I’ve been told by other first generation folks and adult ELLs and thought about how we could validate their experiences through an exploration of the experiences immigrants have had with their first Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving in general.

The book, Molly’s Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen, is directly about this experience and even older learners might enjoy having it read to them as a starter for discussion, project or unit on immigration or Thanksgiving.  The book is written for upper elementary school learners and is at a third grade reading level.

For elementary level learners there are a group of free lesson suggestions at:

https://www.lessonplanet.com/article/education/molly-s-pilgrim-and-thanksgiving-activities

For older learners, there are resources on the web that cover immigrants’ experiences with Thanksgiving and which could be used as reading activities.  This holiday includes culture, history, human rights, immigration and friendship – many themes to work with. These articles could be used for reading skill development as well as an introduction to personal experiences with Thanksgiving.

Some sites to review for Reading Skill work:

·       Reading Comprehension Skills for English Language Learners

http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/reading-comprehension-skills-english-language-learners

·       Increasing ELL Student Reading Comprehension with Non-fiction Text

http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/increasing-ell-student-reading-comprehension-non-fiction-text

·       Reading Comprehension Strategies for English Language Learners

http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol5/511-breiseth.aspx

A lesson plan for Thanksgiving and the Immigrant Experience

LESSON PLAN Thanksgiving 2—The Pilgrim Story and My Immigrant Story

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/files/Thanksgiving2_lesson_plan.pdf

Articles covering the immigrant experience and Thanksgiving Immigrant Experience

 http://www.ibtimes.com/newly-arrived-immigrants-navigate-their-first-american-thanksgiving-turkey-all-1728786    An article in “International Business Times” on people from France, Burkina Faso, Mali, Yemen, and Dominican Republic.

“Beyond Turkey: The Migration of Thanksgiving Tradition”

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/immigrant-thanksgiving-chefs-draft.html 

Seriouseats.com                Cooks talk about food for Thanksgiving, from Ecuador, Turkey, Greek, Middle East, France, China, & Italy

“First Thanksgiving”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/news/ct-abn-first-thanksgiving-st-1122-20151122-story.html           Story in Chicago Tribune on immigrants from Dubai, Mexico, India, Nigeria

An article on Vietnamese immigrants and their Thanksgiving experience

“Modern-day pilgrims in North Jersey mark their first Thanksgiving”

http://www.northjersey.com/news/modern-day-pilgrims-in-north-jersey-mark-their-first-thanksgiving-1.1462539   Immigrants from Syria & Cuba   “NorthJersey.com”

Immigration In and Out of the Classroom

http://teachimmigration.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-first-thanksgiving-and-first.html

“Immigrants adapt Thanksgiving feasts with tastes from home”

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/sf-ethnic-thanksgiving-food-immigrant-families-20141124-story.html   “Sun Sentinel” FL,   Immigrants from Brazil, Basque area in Spain, Egypt, Haiti & the Virgin Islands

“Thanksgiving is a story of immigrants”

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-viewpoint-thanksgiving-20151124-3-story.html

“The First Immigrant Thanksgiving”

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-11-27/the-first-immigrant-thanksgiving

As an idea to help this along, I want to share the story of a co-worker whose family emigrated from Italy and a tradition her family created for Thanksgiving.

As Molly did, Marie came home from school and told her mother she had to make a Thanksgiving dinner.  One of the foods was to be a stuffed turkey.  Her mother did not know what the stuffing could be and, of course, Marie had no idea either.  After thinking about it for a while, Marie’s mother created a rice-based stuffing which the family uses to this day.

We hope these sites contribute to a rich discussion on immigration and different cultures and tales on how immigrant families develop their own traditions for this iconic American holiday. 

Have a great Thanksgiving Break!

Marnie, Denise, and Cheryl

ELL TEACHER PROS

Visit our blog at TEACHING SUCCESSES WITH ELLS

Follow us on Twitter @ell_teacherpros

Follow us on Pinterest User Name dmcyberteacher

Follow us on Facebook as ELL Teacher Pros

Teach American History? Check Out This Map of ALL the Historic Places in North America!

With Common Core based lessons, teachers will have many more opportunities to weave in technology to build the necessary background information needed by ELLs, as well as other students who struggle academically, to access the key content of any lesson.

If U.S. history is the focus, this site will easily supplement and enhance any lesson on U.S. history.  It offers meaning to all the historical monuments which are referred to throughout any history class.  Even more importantly, for ELLs who come to class with little to no background on American history, it not only clearly displays where key events occurred in history, but also photos and brief descriptions behind them.  Canada is also covered here as well.

Though not all sites have images, they may be accessed by satellite so that students can see them.  Thanks to GOOGLE maps, every site can be viewed via street view.  This site could easily be used in a cooperative learning activity where student teams would be assigned to specific sections of the map (all in the same time period) to research key sites of historical interest.  This map could be a start off point to promote discussion among the groups so that they would be better prepared to analyze the historical importance of the site along with event to which it is tied.

HISTORIC PLACES IN NORTH AMERICA---Here is the website.  Teachers will probably wish to model how to effectively navigate it before handing it over to students.  Once that is done, the class (with teacher guidance) could try assigned different sites in teams (practice in navigating site and then finding historical facts on it) and then share findings with the rest of the class.  Once this is completed and everyone has a good idea of how to conduct research on the site, teachers could then plan on group projects where this site would lay the background information.


CATEGORIES OF HISTORICAL SITES---Here is the breakdown of all the time periods.

Hope your students enjoy it:)

Denise

ELL TEACHER PROS

Follow us on TWITTER@ell_teacherpros

History of U.S. in 8 Minutes--Great Support Material for ELL in US History Class

As ELD/ESL supports slowly disappears in many classrooms, content teachers need to find sources of comprehensible input to scaffold the attempts of those students to fully understand the content.  The more accessible the language of the lesson, the more likely the lesson will be understood by ELLs and other struggling students.

U.S. history is quite demanding for ELLs.  Unlike American students who have been learning about the U.S. in school since they were in kindergarten, ELLs for the most part are seeing it for the first time when they encounter it in school here as middle school or high school students.  What problems does this scenario pose?  A few.  One issue is that they may see some of the historical events in the textbook from a different perspective (ex. the Vietnam War from the viewpoint of a Vietnamese is quite different from that of an American).  Another potential problem is covering Manifest Destiny where the U.S. felt that it had a right to all the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific.  Students from Mexico have a different history here.  One must wonder what goes through their minds as they read about states with Spanish names-California, New Mexico, Colorado for example.

So, what can be done to smooth the pathway to the American history in the textbook?  How can teachers provide tools to assist ELLs in learning U.S. history from the American perspective?  In this day and age, the internet offers options.  Of course, this blog has many (just SEARCH WITHIN THIS BLOG section) as does my website ELL TEACHER PROS . 

For this posting, here is one site that offers a quick overview of American history which ELLs and others could follow with ease--from dinosaurs to President Obama in 8 minutes.  Will it ever take the place of the teacher and textbook?  Of course not.  What it will do is provide some powerful visuals.  Further, the language is not complicated so that students can focus on message without drowning in vocabulary.  The clip here can provide a small insight into America's past through the eyes of Americans.

HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 8 MINUTES

Again, check out the website and this blog for many more history sites that will scaffold the attempts of ELLs to succeed in American history classes.

Denise

ELL TEACHER PROS

HP g6-1d60us Notebook PC (Google Affiliate Ad)
Acer A200 Iconia Tablet, 16 GB, Titanium Gray XE.H8QPN.001 (Google Affiliate Ad)