MODEL LESSONS
Emerging America offers a variety of inquiry-based, teacher-designed lessons that demonstrate strategies to enliven historical content through engaging learning activities–and incorporating a rich mix of primary sources. In particular, the resources section features the following lesson plans and primary source sets that align Immigrant History with common U.S. History topics. Here are a few sample source sets and lesson plans:
- Immigration: The Making of America (3-5 unit)
- In or Out: Race and Disability as Legal Barriers to Immigration (3-5)
- Immigration During the Progressive Era: Intro to Primary Sources (3-5)
- Child Immigrant Experiences of Early 1900s and Today (3-5)
- Historical Fiction: Setting Study through Primary Sources of the Novel Esperanza Rising (3-5, 6-8)
- Worlds Collide: First Contact Between Columbus and the Taino (6-8 unit)
- Injuries and Disability in 19th Century Industry (6-8)
- Restricting Immigration to the U.S. (9-12)
- Immigration versus Nativism (9-12)
Primary Source Sets:
- Immigration (6-8, 9-12)
- Modern America: Radical Labor Movement: Radical Labor in the Age of Reform (1877-1920) (6-8, 9-12)
- Immigration and WWI (6-8, 9-12)
- Modern America: Urban America: The American City in the 20th Century (6-8, 9-12)
- Japanese Internment: U.S. Reacts to Attack on Pearl Harbor (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12)
- Puerto Rican Identity (6-8, 9-12)
- Incarceration (9-12)
Find more lessons through the library of Teaching Resources search tool.
Global Boston: Global Boston is a digital project chronicling the history of immigration to the Boston region since the early nineteenth century. Examining different time periods and ethnic groups, the site features capsule histories, photographs, maps, documents, and oral histories documenting the history of a city where immigrants have long been a vital force in shaping economic, social and political life. An excellent class project would be to develop a comparable set of resources for their own region or city.