Shared Learning Objective Project Information
Antonio’s Excellent American Adventure
District: East Greenbush CSD
School/District Representative:Christie Shields
SLO Project Name:Antonio’s Excellent American Adventure
Authored by: Mary Ann Morgan
E-mail:
Homepage address:
Grade Level(s): Four
Subject Area(s):Social Studies and English Language Arts
Learning context:
Actual Learning Standards Referenced:
ELA 1Language for Information and Understanding
Students will listen, speak, read, and write for information and understanding. As listeners and readers, students will collect data, facts, and ideas; discover relationships, concepts, and generalizations; and use knowledge generated from oral, written, and electronically produced texts. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language to acquire, interpret, apply, and transmit information.
ELA 2: Language for Literary Response and Expression
Students will read and listen to oral, written, and electronically produced texts and performances from American and world literature; relate texts and performances to their own lives; and develop an understanding of the diverse social, historical, and cultural dimensions the texts and performances represent. As speakers and writers, students will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language for self-expression and artistic creation.
ELA3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation
Students will listen, speak, read, and write for critical analysis and evaluation. As listeners and readers, students will analyze experiences, ideas, information, and issues presented by others using a variety of established criteria. As speakers and writers, they will use oral and written language that follows the accepted conventions of the English language to present, from a variety of perspectives, their opinions and judgments on experiences, ideas, information and issues.
Social Studies 1: History of the United States and New York
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in the history of the United States and New York.
Standard 3: Geography
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—local, national, and global—including the distribution of people, places, and environments over the Earth’s surface.
Standard 4: Economics
Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major decision-making units function in the United States and other national economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and nonmarket mechanisms.
Assessments:Students will keep a journal, printed from course documents.
This journal will include objective questions as well as
Open ended responses and creative writing.
Student Outcomes(Exemplars):
Procedure:
- Teacher/student prints Student Journal from course documents
- Students log on to blackboard course
- Using Student Journal directions, students complete course
activities, which include:
-writtten responses to photographs, authentic documents
Websites
-creative writing
- final assessment (objective and subjective)
Specific inquiry/activity:
Instructional Modifications:This project can be done independently, with a small group or as a whole class (in a computer lab setting)
Time Required: three to five 30 minute sessions on the computer
A few hours of journal writing (in class, homework, etc.)
Resources (materials): computer with internet access
printed Student Journal
Web sites referenced:
The Brown Quarterly
Italy World Club
Ellis Island
Think Quest
Digital History
Reflections:
This project was born out of my desire to teach immigration as a personal journey
rather than historical fact. Using my own family history, including photos an authentic documents, I allow the students to follow my own fathers footsteps as a young child
leaving his hometown of Roccasicura, Italy and immigrating to Troy, New York.
Students are able to experience the emotions, reasons and excitement of
this immigration adventure.
Student responses so far have been very positive. They seem to understand immigration in a more meaningful way. Using actual photos and documents also help students prepare for the Document-Based Responses required on the NYS Fifth Grade Social Studies Assessment.
Antonio’s
Excellent Immigration
Adventure
Name ______
Date ______
My name is Antonio. I am six years old I live in Roccasicura, Italy. It is 1926. I would like to take you on an adventure. I just found out that I am going to move to New York state. First, I would like you to know about my hometown here in Italy.
Click on Roccasicura and answer these questions.
- Look at the map. What part of Italy is Roccasicura
located? ______
- My surname (last nameis D’Evoli? How many families today have that name in the phone book? ______
- Name three things you could see if you visited Roccasicura?
______
______
______
- What event could you go to in August?
______
- Tell why you think it would be good to live here?
______
Many people were coming to America for a better life. My father had already gone to Troy, New York to find a job and a place for us to live. My mother, my little brother, Angelo and I would soon be leaving on a ship to join my father. Before you could travel to another country, a person must have a passport. A passport is a document that allows you to enter a country. My mother got a passport.
Click on Passport, Page 1
What should a person do if they lose a passport?
______
Click on Passport, Page 2
What is my mother’s full name?
______
On what date did my mother get the passport?
______
Click on Passport, Page 3
How old is my mother when she received her passport?
______
What kind of personal information is on a passport?
______
We had to take a ship to America. It was a very long voyage. My brother and I were bored sometimes. But we did meet many other people who were starting a new life in America.
Click on Ellis Island. Then find where it says
Read Immigrant Stories. Choose one of the stories.
Read it and answer the following questions.
Name of Immigrant ______
Year of Arrival in America ______
Country of Origin ______
Tell at least three interesting things about this story.
______
When we arrived in America, the first thing I saw from the ship was The Statue of Liberty. It is a symbol of freedom in America. All of the passengers on the ship ran to the railing to look at the Statue of the Beautiful Lady.
Imagine that you are looking at the statue for the first time.
You are about to start a new life in a new country. Are you afraid? Are you excited? What will your future hold?
Write a poem about your feelings a new immigrant to America looking at the Statue of Liberty!
Here is a sample:
Then try your own!
The ship approaches the harbor….
I see the lady,
I see the brown dirty wet shoes of the immigrants.
I see the red, yellow, and orange color of the bright pretty sun
where way back home it was never so pretty.
I hear a thundering sound of the motor about to stop
when it has been going for a long time.
I feel so much safer than I ever felt before.
I feel the rumbling boat about to stop at beautiful Ellis Island
I see the lady.
The beautiful lady welcomes us to America.
The ship approaches the harbor….
I see the lady,
I see …
I see …
I hear …
I feel …
I feel …
I see the lady.
The beautiful lady welcomes us to America.