Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Lower East Side Walking Tour

Published on November 17, 2009 in Field Trip and Immigration. 0 Comments

Your walking tour of the Lower East Side takes place on Tuesday, December 1st. We will leave after math class and take a bus to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.  After our program there you will meet the parents who are coming along at the museum’s visitor’s center and head off checking out places for our online guide book.

You have received two assignments as a group: a lunch stop  and a dessert stop. While at both be sure to take notes, collect information (menus, business cards, etc), and get a good sense of the place so you will be able to write it up back in school for the guidebook.  Otherwise, have fun checking out the neighborhood — and look for other signs of immigration — try to find one new place for us to add to the guidebook.  We need places of worship, shops, and other places like that.

Last year Pauline Frommer told us about her research for the guide books she writes. She pointed out that it is important for you to see what you can learn about these  for others.  (Don’t just say the food is  “yummy.” Give us a sense of what the place looks and feels like as well as what the food is like for others — even those whose taste may be different from yours.). You are the second class to do this map and so we are counting on you to make it really worthwhile for others to use!

Here are the assignments. Please go in the order given (as there is no way you can all be at Economy Candy at the same time).

Ellis Island Simulation

Published on November 12, 2009 in Special. 0 Comments

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Today we are introducing the Ellis Island Simulation, a grade-wide event that will take place on Tuesday, November 24th.  We did this for the first time last year and it was a blast. This year because Mr. Andre and Ms. Gordon worked very hard on the materials, it will be even better!

So here are the basics you need to know:

  • Each of you will be receiving a description of a made-up immigrant to play during the simulation (which we are calling “an identity”).  These are based on real people who came through Ellis Island. ( You can download a document with all these here.)
  • Next Tuesday you will go to a special lab to learn more about the country your immigrant is from.
  • After this lab you will be (hopefully!) ready to consider your costume (to be put together at home with whatever you can find — please do not go out and buy things for this) and to write your autobiography.
  • This autobiography is something you will write in class next Wednesday morning (with Mr. Andre’s help).  You MUST have this with you on the day of the simulation.
  • You will  also need to have a passport, an immigrant check-list, money (in most cases as some of you are so poor you will have none) — all of which we will give you.

Model Identity, How to Read it,  and What to Do With It

Pierre Escargot (France) – 24 m

Living in the countryside of France, he works in his uncle’s bakery helping to make bread and manage the store; he has always dreamed of pursuing his love of painting and has saved enough money to join his brother in America where he hopes to attend art school; literate with several years of schooling; he is healthy but walks with a limp after an unfortunate bicycle accident involving a cow – Catholic, Republican

Consider the following for the autobiography

  • The role of the autobiography is to develop the story you are given.
  • Here, in the first paragraph, he works in his uncle’s shop.  Does he live with him?  Are his parents alive?  Where are they?
  • Where, in America, is his brother?  What’s his name?
  • Where in France does he live?  Name of village or region?
  • Tell more about the bike accident, details about injury
  • Consider the vocabulary words —  “republican” is not the same in France as it is in the US, for example.

Here’s Cindy!

Published on November 4, 2009 in Cinderella. 0 Comments
Today we are going to begin a new Language Arts unit on Cinderella. I have been teaching this unit for a long time and still love it. (I’ve written about it in a book, in articles, and, with Ms. Feldman, have taught a graduate course on fairy tales featuring Cindy!).

We will begin by telling the story we knew as a class. It may well turn out that we all have slightly different ideas of what it is, understandable because there are so many different versions floating around out there.  After this I will ask you to read five tales in common.  Some may seem very familiar to you, but some may surprise you.  For the first time this year, I’m going to ask you to read three of these online (using your eepcs).  Here they are:

Then read two picture books (we have plenty in the classroom):

Once you finished these, go ahead and read as many of the others in the classroom as you like. Just be sure to record every one that you read in the data sheets.

Who is a REAL American?

Published on November 3, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

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As some of you probably already know, the winner of Sunday’s New York Marathon was Mebrahtom Keflezighi who immigrated to America from Eritrea (in East Africa) when he was twelve years old.  While many are celebrating the first American to win the race in a very long time, others are saying Meb was not a real American because he was not born here. What do you think?  Must you be born in the United States to be an American?