LaShante A. James
Essential Question: How am I a product of my environment?
As a result of this unit, students will write about their own lives, and how their community (school, family or home and neighborhood) has impacted them while growing up. The focus of this unit is to teach my students how to analyze fictional and non-fictional texts in order to develop connections with immigrant and migrant children and adolescents' experiences, while developing their own testimonial documenting their perception of growing or coming of age in an urban America. I want my student to apply active reading strategies to drive their understanding of complex texts that they may find challenging linguistically. To adequately assess student learning and mastery of skills, objective are specifically listed.
In order to achieve a long-term goal that students will evaluate how their environment (home/family, school, religion and neighborhood) has molded them into the individual they are presently, here are specific objectives that will be included in the daily lesson plans:
1. Read, understand, interpret, analyze, evaluate and discuss various texts about 19
th
, 20
th
and 21
st
century immigrant and/or migrant or children of immigrants and/or migrants.
2. Analyze, discuss and write how setting or point of view (narrative perspective) reveals meaning.
3. Write a close analysis, interpretation and evaluation of written documents.
4. Discuss a close analysis, interpretation and evaluation of written documents.
5. Identify the motivation for immigration or migration.
6. Identify the values and beliefs of specific immigrant and migrant groups.
7. Compare and contrast various texts and draw the appropriate conclusions.
8. Compare and contrast immigrant or migrant experiences.
9. Compose a narrative essay.
10. Create a visual text, compose a written piece or direct and produce a digital media piece that depicts a personal story of Growing Up in Urban America.