Lesson Title: the American Dream

Lesson Title: the American Dream

Author: Caroline Cochran

Lesson Title: The American Dream

Suggested Grade Level:

8th grade

Estimated Lesson Time:

60 minutes

Student Prior Knowledge:

Students will have basic knowledge of American immigration and what their purposes were to come over to America from Europe. Students will take information from the previous lessons in the week and apply it to the activity given today.

Standards:

  1. Provide supporting details for an answer from text, interview for oral history, check validity of information from research/text, and identify strong vs. weak arguments. (SS.8.A.1.1)
  2. Compare interpretations of key events and issues throughout American History. (SS.8.A.1.6)
  3. View historic events through the eyes of those who were there as shown in their art, writings, music, and artifacts. (SS.8.A.1.7)

Goals:

Students will collaborate in groups to present a PowerPoint presentation to the class of a specific countries reasoning to immigrating to America. Students will have a better understanding of why certain countries immigrated over to America

Learning Objectives or “I can statements”:

I can work together in a group and come up with information to have a better understanding of why my group’s country came to America.

I can cooperate in a group setting in a given amount of time to come up with a PowerPoint presentation to present to the class.

I can use the knowledge I have learned in previous lessons and apply it in my presentation today.

I can use the book and information from the Internet to come up with a detailed presentation for the class.

  1. Resources:

Procedures:

1. We will review the lesson and clear up any questions from previous day’s lesson. (5 min)

2. You/Students watch a YouTube video of Ellis Island to understand what it like when the immigrants came over to America and what kind of voyage the immigrants went through to get to America. (5 min)

3. I/ teacher will split the class up into 3 groups to do today’s activity. Each group will represent one of the following countries(England, Ireland, and Germany)

4. You/ Students will be asked to work in the groups to come up with a PowerPoint presentation to show the class at the end of the period. You will be asked to:

  1. What are specific reasons for these countries to migrate to America?
  2. Describe the trip over to America
  3. What hardships were they faced with when getting to Ellis Island (what was the experience like for the immigrants when they were actually at Ellis Island)

You/Student given two laptops so some students can do research online while others can look up some of the information in the book. The presentation must be about 5 minutes long and everyone must participate in the presentation. (30 min)

5. We/ Teacher and students will all then listen to each group present for the remainder of the class. (15 min)

Assessment: A rubric will be used to assess student charts.

Reflections: N/A

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