Overview
In this activity, students will work together to create a list of texts, media and other sources that positively and accurately represent what it means to be multilingual, immigrants and/or refugees. Students will rate or review texts or other sources and explain how the narrative fosters positivity toward multilingual people, immigrants and/or refugees. The purpose of this list is not only to have students practice critical thinking and English language skills, but to be able to produce something valuable for the school community. Once the list is complete it can be shared with teachers, students, and families.
Procedure
To begin, it would be important to have examples of different types of reviews presented to the students so they have an example they can model their work off of. As a class, or in small groups, highlight different parts of a review. For example, most reviews provide a short summary, an opinion or critique about whatever is being reviewed, positive/negative thoughts, and explanations to accompany those thoughts. These can be used as the parts of a graphic organizer to help students form their reviews. English writing skills can be taught explicitly during the drafting, editing and revising process.
Next, the class should have a discussion about the intentions behind creating this list and how they hope other teachers can use it in their classrooms. From there, students can work together to decide what narratives they want to curate to ensure that multilingual, immigrant and refugee students are portrayed in a way that affirms their identity and helps others know who they are. When it is completed, it would be great to have a physical copy that could be housed in the school library. This list could be used by the school librarian to help order books and create a display so students have access to these peer recommended texts. It would also be beneficial to have the list available online to send to families and community members.
Content and Language Objectives:
Beginning
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Intermediate
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Advanced
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After watching selected videos or looking through picture books and images in textbooks, students will be able to rate, using a number scale, how culturally responsive and representative the book is of immigrant, refugee, and multilingual students.
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After reading picture books and short prose chapter books, students will be able to use a graphic organizer to create a book review that details how culturally responsive and representative the book is of immigrant, refugee, and multilingual students.
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After reading informational texts, like news articles, and fiction texts, like chapter books, students will be able to write a book review paragraph about how culturally responsive and representative the book is of immigrant, refugee, and multilingual students.
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Key Vocabulary:
Beginning: rate, scale, describe, accurate
Intermediate: represent, (book) review
Advanced: culturally relevant, paragraph, draft, edit, revise