Strategies
Making meaning through pictures, maps and graphs
One of the strategies that the students will be using is observing and reading into the pictures. They will be looking at pictures to interpret the meaning of what an immigrant is and telling a story from their inferences. They will use their prior knowledge to seek clues and picture sequence to get a better understanding of what immigration is and what some immigrants have gone through to migrate to another country. They will need to be able to comprehend that the man in the story is packing his bags and leaving his home and moving to a far away place. It is important that the student's look for details that will help them broaden their understanding of what it is to be an immigrant.
The students will be using map skills to read the legend and be able to find different geographical points on the graph. The students will need to be aware of where Central America is to find Mexico and El Salvador. The students will also need to be able to identify the location of the state they live in. This is an important strategy to be able to read a map and locate themselves on it. They will use the legend to identify what the different colors on the map represent.
Like the maps the students will also be reading graphs and interpreting what the graphs mean. The students will have to refer to the legend and find what the lines and points on the graph represent. The students will need to be able to interpret the graph and see the growth of the Mexican and Salvadorian immigration in the United States. They will use the graph to also see that the number of Mexican immigrants was much larger the number of Salvadorian immigrants.
All these are important strategies the students will need to have for a better understanding of what immigration is and the growth of immigrants throughout the centuries. The students will also have the ability to see the diverse demographics in the surrounding neighborhoods and how close these populations of people live to my students.
Understanding cultural differences
The students will be making connections among the Latin American countries, in particular Mexico and El Salvador. The students will be able to identify that although these are Spanish-speaking countries they do have unique characteristics that can be seen in the different cuisines. The students will be able to list different foods that are both common and different among these countries. I will use the food books they create to monitor their understanding of foods they record for each country. The students will need to label and later use the food book for the group project to make restaurant menus. This will demonstrate that the students are using the cultural foods being learned in their work.
This is a key strategy because the students need to be able to realize the importance of diverse cultural foods. They should appreciate how it has influenced many of the dishes we see today in restaurants, at school and at home. They will have an appreciation for the different cultures and be able to identify foods that can be associated as "Latino foods".
Comparing and contrasting
Another strategy that will be used is comparing and contrasting. The students will need to know how to use a Venn diagram and be able to use key concepts learned in previous lessons. They will need to use reading skills to look at the three different local restaurants menus. The students will need to be able to distinguish the similarities and differences among the menus and identify some of the authentic foods. The students will need to use the Venn diagram to see the similar and different foods among the restaurants.
This is an important strategy to use because the students should be able to look at these menus and target key concept that I am trying to get the students to understand. The students will have a graphic organizer that will list the foods but also that show how these countries can have similar but yet different cuisines. The students will be able to make connections to different foods we have discussed throughout the unit. This strategy will help the students highlight the main idea of the unit.
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