Why do people migrate, and how does the process of migrating effect people and countries?
Lesson Overview
Grade Level: 2
Duration: 3-4 lessons, 45 minutes each
Supporting Questions: How does it feel like to move to a new country? What do people bring with them when they migrate? What are some things things that people have to adapt to when then migrate?
What Students Will Produce : By the end of the lesson, each students will have completed a collage and written narrative (in first person, from the perspective of the person that they interviewed) of their interview with an immigrant.
What Students Will Learn: Students will continue to build knowledge of why people migrate, and what the process of migration feels like in these lessons. The focus of these lessons will be on representing what they have learned so far using visual and language arts. Specifically, students will learn how to create a collage that represents another person’s experience, and how to write a narrative about an event using a primary source.
Procedures
Before Lessons: Check to make sure students have usable recordings. Also, identify understanding of essential vocabulary for the lessons, including collage and composition.
Opening: Show students where they are in the project. Shift their focus from absorbing information to processing it.
Collage Introduction: Introduce students to Romare Bearden’s work and life using this resource packet from the National Gallery of Arts. Demonstrate the process of making a collage as well as how to pay attention to or evaluate the final product (by focusing on composition and color in Romare Bearden’s work).
Collage Workshop: Place students in groups of 3-5 students to work independently with access to support and feedback form other students. Walk students through the process of thinking about what they want to communicate about their interview, selecting material, composing the artwork, and engaging in the creative process. Remind students that creating involves trial and error, and the point is to learn from this experience. If time permits, provide opportunities for students to ask others about what they notice, and how that makes them feel.
Writing Workshop: Have students work in the same groups as the collage workshop to create a 4-8 page story written from the perspective of the person that they interviewed. Scaffold with an exemplar, and have students use process writing with peer feedback.
Closing: end the lesson by reminding students how their content will be assembled to create a final product that students will share with their community, and connect the project to what they learned in the past few lessons.
Related Curriculum Standards
Massachusetts Social Studies: MA 2.T3 “History: Migration and Cultures”
C3 Social Studies: D3.1.K-2 “Compare their own point of view with others’ perspectives”
Massachusetts Visual Arts: 1-2.V.Co.10 “Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art”
Massachusetts Language Arts: W2.3 “Write narratives in prose…that recount a well-elaborated event or experience…”
List of Resources
- Recorded interview
- Construction paper, paint, glue, magazines, other art supplies for collage
- Printer and electronic images relevant for interviews and/or printed material
- Notebooks to create narrative
- Romare Bearden resource packet from the National Gallery of Arts