Miss Bouck's English Class

This article from the English Journal discusses what some refugee children endured when coming to the U.S. I would use this article in my classroom to discuss the challenges that some Latin American countries face. The main focus of this article is Hispanic children, and for the most part, many classes incorporate Hispanic children. This could be a chance for students to learn about other countries, their classmates, and refugee crises all across the world.

In this article from the English Journal, the main topic is Vietnamese refugees. For most secondary education students, when they think of Vietnam, they think of the Vietnam war and fighting communism. However, they usually just think of it from the American perspective. There is the Vietnamese perspective as well. Although this article is not focused around the time of the Vietnam war, it would be helpful in a classroom to give students a global perspective on the world as well as to help them understand other cultures.

The third article from the English Journal discusses how one school shared the stories of two teenage girls in their school. The girls were refugees. It goes through to discuss how a teacher can implement the idea of "hear a story, tell a story, teach a story" in their class. The topic would have to be changed to fit what refugees were in a school district at that time, but the idea is great. It helps ELL students with muliteracies, as well as students whose first language is English.

This lesson plan focuses on Anne Frank. It is easy to forget that the Jewish population of WWII were also refugees. The idea of the lesson is to demonstrate how eye-witness accounts shape events for us that we cannot see first-hand. Anne Frank's personal diary is a great tool for that, as well as The Night and The Pianist for younger and older readers. For this lesson, I would probably change the end-of-the-year research project, but only if I was teaching an English class. For a history class, studying WWII is fascinating for many students. However, as an English teacher, I would probably connect the idea of refugees to the Syrian refugee crisis or the idea of racial injustice to events such as Charlottesville for the students to research.

For a history lesson plan, this one focuses on refugees in Afghanistan. It is for a social studies class, so it focuses on maps and geography mostly. However, this is not a bad thing because when reading about refugees it is hard to imagine the struggles they face without some physical maps. I would probably add to this assignment that the students research their own country in turmoil. That way the lesson is under the gradual release of responsibility.

The Dear Character lesson plan is one that I find fascinating. As a class, you discuss the main character and their personality, then you discuss a minor character and their personality. Then you have those two characters write a letter to each other. When dealing with a refugee situation, like the ones above, it would be interesting to see what the students come up with. I also believe that this gets students more invested in the book because they can pretend or imagine being one of the characters and having a voice.

Below is a link to a word document in which I outline why teaching hunger to our students is so important. Please check it out.