What is An Immigrant?

Objectives

• Children will express their opinions about what immigrants are like (physically, mentally, etc.)
• Children will show how they visualize an immigrant through drawings
• Children will discuss their opinions and analyze why they hold those opinions
• Children will be able to compare the class description and their pictures with information gathered from guest speaker.

Materials

• Butcher block paper
• Marker
• Paper
• Art supplies
• Neepa Shah- Asian Indian Immigrant

• "I want you to close your eyes. I am going to say a word. I want you to create a picture in your head that represents what I say... the word is immigrant"
• Ask what an immigrant is. Share ideas. Def: A person who comes to a foreign country and takes up residence
• Now, remembering the picture that appeared in your head, let's make a list the characteristics of an immigrant
  • write student responses on the butcher block paper
• Discuss why people immigrate to the U.S.
  • reasons for immigration
  • how people get here
• After the children have shared their ideas, ask them to now draw the picture they had in their heads on the paper
• Explain- now we have a clear idea of what our class as a whole thinks about immigrants. Where did we get these ideas? Why do we feel this way?
• After discussion, introduce Neepa Shah- I wanted you to meet an immigrant first hand. This is Neepa. She is a Senior in Accounting at the University of Illinois... She will share with you some information about herself and her background. Feel free to ask her questions. Also, be thinking about how well she fits our description and your pictures of an immigrant.
• Go over list and compare Neepa to the characteristics. Have children share their pictures and compare it with what we have learned about Neepa.
• Make a new list from what we have learned.
• What have we learned from this?
  • do not make generalizations
  • people do not fit into a mold
  • be careful not to stereotype
  • immigrants vary quite a bit
• Introduce unit- immigration. We will be doing a great deal of research on this topic. Throughout our study, let's keep our list and pictures in mind. I want you to be constantly thinking about the truth of our statements and pictures. At the end of our study we will return to this list and compare our opinions before the study to those after.

Evaluation

Obj. #1: This is basically the expression of opinion by the students. I will not be evaluating them on the truthfulness of their statements, but rather by the thoughtfulness of their responses. The dialogue that is held with the children will be the best indicator for this evaluation.

Obj. #2: I will assess this objective by looking at the pictures and their discussions of them.

Obj. #3: I will listen to discussion between the students for this objective.

• Are the students able to state their opinions clearly?
• Are they able to give reasons and support for their opinions?
• Do the children listen to each other and respond to each other?

Obj. #4: Our discussion after making our second list will show if they children are able to see differences in the lists and make new assessments based on the new evidence they have gathered.