Immigration Then Vs. Now (CE)

       There are many different ways to teach current events in the classroom. I wanted to make my current events lesson as engaging and authentic as I could. I brought social media into the lesson. Students were to read the article, Issue Overview: Immigration and Reform and be prepared to have a class discussion. However, before I went over the article I wanted to see if students knew what the term immigration was. I had a word wall of immigration terms and had students pick a word they recognized it and define it. Then I went over the definition of an immigrant. I also wanted to students to understand what immigrants feel like going through the process to get to the United States. I showed a virtual tour of Ellis Island and had students put themselves in their shoes. Once I saw that students got the idea of what immigrants are I went over key points in the article.
     Newsela is a great website to get articles from. It has so many features that is great for teaching. For example, you can change the reading level to make it more complex or easier depending on the grade level. There is also a a translator that translates the article to different languages if there are ESL students in your classroom. Another great feature that is great is being able to highlight in different colors and pose questions in the notes. This allows students to think while reading. You can also take the quiz that is given about the article to see if you understood it. It is very easy to navigate and a very useful tool to use while teaching current events. Below is a picture of the different options of Newsela.

     Once I went over key terms in the article and showed students how to navigate Newsela it was time for students to reflect on their learning. Students were to make their own twitter and follow my page, @immigration_123. On this twitter there was four questions students had to answer sharing their thoughts about immigration and the article. Students really enjoyed using twitter in the classroom because they are so used to using social media in their everyday lives. I followed several immigration pages and Newsela so they could see our tweets. I also had students hashtag our class code and Newsela so it is easy to find other tweets based on our topic. 

Here is a link to the many other ways teachers can use twitter in a classroom.

Below is  a picture of the twitter page with some of student's responses. 

Here is a link to my PowerPoint Presentation. 

      This lesson follows my unit plan as well as the social studies standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.3

Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.5

Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.

Social Studies Standards

4.1 GEOGRAPHY OF NEW YORK STATE: New York State has a diverse geography. Various maps can be used to represent and examine the geography of New York State. (Standard 3).

My classmates used different methods to teach current events in the classroom. I would use their methods in my future classrooms. For example, one group used a debate on women's equal rights. They divided the class up, provided articles and a graphic organizer to be filled out as well as explain the components of a debate. I would definitely use this authentic activity for older grades. I think teachers splitting up the class themselves is a good idea so that students would not pick the side they are most comfortable with. Another group used the 5 w's which are: who, what, why, when, and where. They had students fill out the graphic organizer based on their current events article. I would use this method for the younger grades because it is simple.

Here is link of many other authentic ways to teach current events in the classroom.