Immigration & Ellis Island

Lesson #3
Why did people leave their home countries? The desire to leave
60 Minutes
Carol Pietrzyk

Unit Plan Goal Statement: Throughout the two-week unit plan titled “Immigration and Ellis
Island,” students will develop an understanding of the topic within the fourth grade curriculum
supported by the Pennsylvania CCSS and the NCSS themes. Students will gain an understanding
of the history of immigration through Ellis Island, how it impacted American history, and how
immigrants were impacted by different policies and perceived by native born citizens. Lastly,
students will be able to relate past immigration to current immigration. Because the issue of
immigration is globally occurring and changing the development of our world, it is extremely
beneficial for students to have knowledge of the histories and issues of immigration in order to
best understand the role and impact of immigration on America's current events.

Lesson Plan Goal Statement: This lesson contributes to the overall goal of the unit plan by
having the students examine and understand the different reasons why immigrants wanted to
come to America. Different ethnic groups had different reasoning behind their travels, and the
children will examine the different ethnic groups and then compare all of the ethnic groups
together.

How will this lesson support the learning goal?

(1c: Setting Instructional Outcomes)
The students will work in groups to research a specific ethnic group. The groups will then work
with students from the other groups and will discuss their findings on the ethnic group that they
researched and will create a visual representation of the information.

Lesson Preparation
I.   Learning Objectives
a.   The students will be able to identify at least 2 pull factors as to why an ethnic
group decided to migrate to America.
b.   The students will be able to define and use the terms:
Immigrate Ethnic group Pull Factor Ellis Island

II.   Standards by Discipline & Content Themes

a.   PA Standards
i.   Standard 6.1.C.B Evaluate the economic reasoning behind a choice.
ii.   Standard 7.3.U.A Analyze the human characteristics of places and
regions using the following criteria: Population, Culture,
Settlement, Economic activities, Political activities
iii.   Standard 8.3.4.A Differentiate common characteristics of the social,
political, cultural and economic groups in United States history.
b.   NCSS
i.   Individual Development & Identity
 1.   NCSS.1.4.c ...assist learners to describe the ways family, religion,
gender, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, and other
group and cultural influences contribute to the development of a
sense of self
ii.   Global Connections
1.   NCSS.1.9.b ...help learners to explain conditions and motivations
that contribute to conflict, cooperation, and interdependence
among groups, societies, and nations

III.   Academic Language

a.   Academic Vocabulary
The students will be expected to utilize the terms:
Immigrate: come to live permanently in a foreign country
Ethnic Group: a community or population made up of people who share a
common cultural background or descent.
Pull Factor: something that attracts people to go and live in a particular
place
Ellis Island: Island in the harbor of New York City, southwest of
Manhattan. From 1892 to 1954, it served as the prime
immigration station of the country.

As the students create their presentations, they will use these terms to describe their
findings and explain their research to others.
b.   Concepts
Immigrants and their cultures
Reasoning behind deciding to emigrate

c.   Skills
Group Discussion
Analyzing Information
Presenting Information
Text Comprehension

IV.   Technology, Materials, Resources

a.   The students will use computers to research different ethnic groups.
b.   The students will be given the websites http://www.emmigration.info and
http://www.emigration.link to conduct their research.
c.   Groups to research: Irish, Italian, German and Russian
d.   The groups will be able to use additional websites and research tools if they feel
that will be helpful in strengthening their research.
e.   The students will use pen and paper to write out their notes.
f.   The students will use a computer to create a presentation to present their research
to other groups.
Instructional Delivery
I.   Anticipatory Set
10-15 Minutes
I will ask the students to do a quick write in their Social Studies notebooks about if they
could live anywhere in the world where they would want to live and why. If a student
does not know much about other countries, they will have the option to write about what
country they would be interested to know more about and why. I will give the students 5
minutes to write and then have several students share out what they wrote.
This will set the tone for the lesson of the day about why immigrants came here and all of
the different reasons there are to want to live somewhere else. This activity will not take
much previous knowledge, but will allow the students to think about different places
around the world and what they would want to do.

II.   Instructional Activities

a.   After the anticipatory set, describe to the students that there were many different
reasons why different ethnic groups decided to migrate to America.
b.   The teacher will then do a read aloud for the story Refugees and Migrants by Ceri
Roberts.
c.   The teacher will have the students count off by fours and have the students go
with the same numbers. When the students are in those groups, the teacher will
assign them a specific ethnic group to focus on and areas of research to focus on.
The students will need to find why the ethnic group that they are researching
decided to come to America.
d.   The students will conduct research on their assigned ethnic group and create a
presentation to share their information with other groups when they are split into
jigsaw groups. The presentation can be a PowerPoint, a written chart or any other
method that the group decides to use to best represent their research and facts.
e.   The teacher will give the students a printed guide of the information they should
include in their presentation. The presentations will need to include the following:
the ethnic group they researched, why they decided to come to America
(examining the pull factors), what did they do when they got here, where did they
work, where did they live, what culture aspects did they bring with them.
f.   The teacher will give the students 30 minutes to create a presentation to share
their information and research with the other groups.
g.   The teacher will circulate the room and help the groups out as they conduct their
research, prompting questions, discoveries, and group discussion.
h.   When the groups have conducted their research, the groups will intermingle in
their new jigsaw group in order to learn about the other ethnic groups. In each
group there will be one person with each ethnic group.
i.   The new groups will be given 5-10 minutes to share out their information to the
other groups.
j.   In the new jigsaw groups, they will create a way to represent the information
about similarities and differences between the ethnic groups, their reasoning for
coming to America to use to share out with the class. This can be in the form of a
chart, notes, PowerPoint, oral presentation, or any other form they would be
 comfortable with. They will share out this information during the group
discussion in the closure of the activity.

III.   Closure
10 minutes
When all of the groups have finished presenting their research in their new small groups,
the teacher will have the class come back together for a class discussion. The teacher will
ask the students what they found interesting about their research or something they heard
from another groups’ findings. The students will be able to share information they have
learned throughout the lesson and things they found interesting to learn. It will give the
students an opportunity to reflect on the new information and think about it in a deeper
context. As the students discuss their findings and interesting facts, the teacher will pose
questions to make the student think deeper into the fact that they shared out. As the
students share what they found interesting, the teacher will restate these ideas and extend
more on the information. The teacher will pull out key points mentioned by the students’
and expand more on these ideas and relate the groups to one another. The students can
use the charts (or other form of notes/presentation) they made to help explain this
information if they feel that will be helpful for them. This will lead into the next lesson
because the next lesson is about the different nationalities and ethnic groups who came
through Ellis Island.

Meeting All Learners

I.   Differentiation
a.   The students will be given a research tool to use to conduct research to get them
started, but they will be allowed to use any research information that they would
like.
b.   The groups will be spread out throughout the classroom in order to keep the
conversations from overlapping. If a group needs to, they can sit in the hallway
outside of the door where they can be closely monitored.
c.   There will be multiple forms for the students to demonstrate their research so it
will be beneficial to all types of learners. The students can use PowerPoint, a
visual chart, an oral presentation, or any other form of presentation that they feel
will be most beneficial to their learning and understanding of ideas.

II.   Accommodations
a.   The students will be able to use different research tools that will be more
accessible to each individual student.

III.   Modifications
a.   As I circulate through groups, I will make sure to hear from all students are
participating and will hear each student’s ideas and interpretation of the
information.
b.   When we come back for whole group discussion, I will make sure to try and hear
from students who did not speak or did not speak much as I circulated through the
group discussions.
 c.   When groups are sharing out their information, I will make sure everyone
understands the new information being presented to them by asking if anyone has
any questions for the group that just discussed their research. Also, by extending
the information presented by posing more facts that may not have been touched
on.

Meeting Objectives
I.   Assessments
a.   The groups will turn in their presentations they created to show their research on
their specific ethnic group, the teacher will assess that all aspects of information
that were supposed to be included are.
b.   The teacher will also informally assess students by listening to information they
share during the new groups and during whole group to see if they can identify at
least two pull factors.
c.   The teacher will informally assess the students’ by listening and reading the
presentations to identify if the vocabulary terms are utilized by the student in their
presentation or as they have whole group and small group discussions.

Current Event
1.   Identify the nation/area(s) of the world involved
United States
six Muslim-majority countries

2.   1-3 sentences describing how the particular international current affair is connected to
your group’s instructional unit
This article talks about current immigration and immigration laws that are in play, or
being proposed today. The article looks into a few different families and gets the
perspective of children, or adults who were, illegal. Much of the article discusses the
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’ (DACA), which helps undocumented children
get a legal status, work permits and driving licenses.

3.   Reference to article (online or print source)

Reinl, J. (August 30, 2017). American dream fades for child immigrants under Trump. Al
Jazeera News. Retrieved from
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/american-dream-fades-child-immigrants-trump-
170830211326252.html