Chronological Overview

I have broken this up into three different parts, the first part- traveling to America, the second part- life at Ellis Island, and the third and final part- life after leaving Ellis Island. Each part contains a non-fiction book, fiction book, and a non-print source.

First Part- Traveling to America:

The first book we would read is "Coming To America: The Story of Immigration". Since this book starts at the very beginning of immigration in the New World this is the perfect book to start off with. This book would be read aloud to the whole class, since the book is big and illustrations are rather large as well.

We would then read the fiction story, "At Ellis Island- A History in Many Voices" by, Louise Peacock. Since the students would have learned about what immigration is and some of what how it was while immigrating from the previous book, this book helps delve into experiences that would have happened while traveling to America and time spent at Ellis Island. After this story the students will do an emotional reflection where they fill in their responses to statements, such as, This book made me feel..., This quote was strong because...., I felt scared because..., and so on.

After reading these two stories the students will take an adventure with a virtual tour of Ellis Island where they visit all the different parts of the port.

Second Part- Life at Ellis Island

The previous books and virtual tour would have also taught about life at Ellis Island but we will delve deeper into experiences by first reading, "...If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island", by Ellen Levine. This book explains many aspects of what the experiences were of an immigrant every step of the way throught their time at Ellis Island and all the hardships of traveling to America and starting their new life.

We would then read "When Jesie Came Across the Sea" outloud as a class. This will help show an immigrants experience in whole. It shows why she left her home country, how travel was, life at Ellis Island, and life afterwards. Students would then write a response to the prompt, What would you do once leaving Ellis Island.

After writing the prompt, the students will play an Ellis Island game, where they make decisions based on them being an immigrant and following the same experiences as an immigrant would have and see if those decisions that they made are realistic onces.

Final Part- Life after Ellis Island

The students will then examine the book "Immigrants" by, Martin W. Sandler and learn detailed information on what life was like after the immigrants had left Ellis Island and were out in the city.

They will also read "The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung" and learn of his fictional life after immigrating to the United States. The students will then have to write journal responses based off of their previous essay of what they did with their life after leaving Ellis Island and their experinces based on those decisions.

After finishing that assignment the students will watch and listen to a music video of "This Land Is Your Land". The students will listen to the words and type of music and we will discuss when they think this song was written and then they will research information about the song, such as, the author, when it was written, why it was written, and the historical context of the time period it was written in.

The final resource used is the book, "If America Were a Village" where we will read it as a whole class adn then discuss afterwards their thoughts on the book and relate to what we have learned about immigration thus far.