Mary E. Jones
The purpose of this unit is to use immigration data to teach graphing skills, Since this unit is being written to be taught to an inner-city class of minority students, I have chosen immigration data that represents their minority groups plus some other minority groups. My school's population is made up of approximately 50% Black and 50% Hispanic (45%+ Puerto Rican).
I have chosen to use these minority groups in the unit: African, Caribbean, Puerto Rican, Chinese and Japanese. The narrative includes a brief history of each group's sojourn to America. The Caribbean section will only include countries that have a predominately Black population.
In addition to the narrative, the unit contains a large amount of data that can be used for graphing. Step by step methods for completing bar, circle and line graphs are included.
Even though this unit was written primarily to teach graphing techniques, the unit is also designed to encourage students to use the Internet for research. Computers can also be used to construct graphs.
Since more than one discipline is included in this unit, it can easily be adapted to be taught as an integrated unit. (i.e. Social Studies, Math and a self-contained Special Education class; or a team of Bilingual self-contained classes).
(Recommended for Math, grades 6-8)
