Instructional Cycle
Introduction-Day 1
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To introduce the study of migrant workers, the teacher will read the book Migrant Worker: A Boy from the Rio Grande Valley, by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith aloud to students. Discuss and make a list of new vocabulary words found in the book. |
Instruction - Day 1 & 2
Show the students the glossary in the book Migrant Worker: A Boy from the Rio Grande Valley that was read aloud. Add these words to the ones students identified. Get a list of 20-25 words. Have students create smaller lists of words from the large list and give each group a label. Post these labeled lists on the wall during the unit of study. (Some of the words that should be discussed are: bilingual, green card, labor camps, manual labor, migrant worker, migration, undocumented person, union, strike, farm owner, and sharecropper.)
Show students the PowerPoint presentation about the migrant experience in California in the 1930's. Distribute a copy of the slides so students can take notes as they view the presentation. Refer to the final "Sources" slide and the web sites listed to introduce students to the American Memory Collection of the Library of Congress. Then show students the Inspiration Map and explain the overall organization of the unit about migrant workers. Some of the information in the Inspiration map is also included in the PowerPoint, so questioning students about the common elements will help in informal assessment.
Practice (large group and independent) - Day 3 & 4
Students will use the survey technique to read the article on Photographer: Dorothea Lange, Migrant Workers in the Imperial Valley, California, 1937, especially noticing the many pictures. This is a challenging article for middle school students and various pre-reading strategies of the Scaffolding Reading Experience will also be used. The teacher can re-format the typing of the article so that it is only on one column of the page, with the opposite column left blank. This allows students to make notes as they read and underline sentences that are important. They will then write a two-minute news report for the 6:30 evening news as if they were living during the 1930's, drawing attention to the injustices suffered by the people in Dorothea Lange's article. A rubric will be provided to guide their work. Students can peer edit their news reports on day 4 before they are turned in.
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For students who would find the above reading assignment particularly challenging, select just one page of the article for them to read. Or have them read the biography of Dorothea Lange by Mike Venezia, and do the two-minute news report from what they learn from this short but informative picture book. |
Practice (independent) - Day 5
Students will complete a graphic organizer about the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp established in 1937 in Arvin, in the cotton-growing region of the San Joaquin Valley. The first section of the article will be read.
Checking for understanding - Hot Potatoes Quiz - Day 5
Students will take the Hot Potatoes quiz as a self-assessment to determine if they have enough knowledge of the period to go on to the next step, the WebQuest. If they do not score 80% or higher they should conference with the teacher and determine what review is necessary before they proceed. Reading Mike Venezia's biography of Dorothea Lange or reviewing the PowerPoint presentation on their own would both be good choices.
Practice & Checking
for Understanding (small group and independent) - Day 6 & 7
The WebQuest,
entitled
Pictures of Our
Great-Grandparents:
California Migrant Workers,
combines both practice for the student, and checking for understanding for the
teacher.
Closure - Day 8
Read the 32 page Dorothea Lange biography by Mike Venezia to the class and show them the several poignant pictures of migrant workers in the book that were not included in this unit. If time permits, continue the discussion of what has been learned about migrant workers and immigrants in the 1930's to our relationships with immigrants in our own community. Introduce the novel Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan and connect the time period, setting, and plot of the book to this unit on migrant workers in California in the 1930's.
