Multicultural Lesson Plan

Cynthia Gubler
U.S. History- Modern Immigration to the United States Grade 11

1. Standards
a. Nevada Core Curriculum Standard: H4. [9-12].7 Describe the United States’
policy concerning strategic, political, and economic interests on the Middle East,
Latin America, Mexico, immigration, trade, and the environment.
i. Observable Objective- Students will be able to explain the struggles of
immigrants and their families when immigrating to the United States.
b. Multicultural Goal- Develop an educational environment that promotes respect
for differences.
i. Observable Objective- Students will be able to analyze why it is
important to respect other cultures and to gain an appreciation of
immigrants (especially their fellow classmates).
c. Learning Styles
i. Auditory-Students will listen to their classmates describe the different
experiences that groups of immigrants went through from the passages
that were provided to them. Students will also present their findings from
their classmates’ surveys during the presentation. At the end of the
presentations the teacher will have the students discuss what they learned
about immigrating. The teacher will then also discuss the point that this
lesson is important because they go to school with students that are
immigrants or children of immigrants and may have experienced similar
situations. The teacher will also make sure students have become more
aware of other cultures and the process and struggles of immigrating to the
United States.
ii. Visual- Students will read a short passage about an immigrant’s
experiences in immigrating to the United States. Students will also use the
survey results from the kinesthetic aspect to create a bar graph that
displays their classmates’ responses and then display the bar graph to the
class during their presentation.
iii. Kinesthetic- Students will have at least 10 of their classmates
anonymously complete a short survey that asks questions about their
immigration status and how they feel the school and their peers treat them
based upon their culture.
d. Gardner’s Intelligences
i. Interpersonal Intelligence- Students will be required to think about the
experiences of other cultures, especially those of an immigrant. They will
also empathize with their experiences and struggles that they have
undergone. Hopefully they will also ultimately use this intelligence to
 interact more effectively in the future with these classmates and other
immigrants and cultures that they encounter in the future.
2. Materials
a. Warm-Up video clip “The Life of a Refugee Chef Living in Oakland”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM4ZukjeMH0
b. PowerPoint on Immigration (see attached)
c. Reading Material on Immigrant Stories
d. Survey on Immigrants and School Culture
3. Instruction
a. Warm-Up
i. Students will view the video clip “The Life of a Refugee Chef Living in
Oakland” to give them an understanding of what life is like for people
immigrating to the United States.
b. Mini-Lesson
i. The teacher will use the PowerPoint presentation on immigration to teach
and show students the struggles immigrants face when immigrating to the
United States. This PowerPoint and mini-lesson will also help them learn
why it is important to respect other cultures and to appreciate immigrants.
c. Guided Practice
i. The teacher will now read a first-hand account of an immigrant to the
United States. The teacher will then ask students several questions based
upon what they heard. What hardships did they face? How old was the
author when they immigrated? Do you think that the author felt welcomed
when they immigrated? The teacher will add additional comments to
ensure that the students fully understood what the author was conveying in
the account.
d. Independent Practice
i. The teacher will then hand each student reading material that documents
the first-hand account of an immigrant’s experiences in immigrating to the
United States. The students will then pair up and read their partner the
story that they received aloud. Once the students have read both of their
stories, they will compare and contrast the differences in the stories and
evaluate the hardships that the authors experienced. They will also answer
the same questions that were discussed in the guided practice.
ii. As the students are completing the reading activity, the teacher will pass
out the survey handout to the groups. Once the students have completed
the reading activity, they will proceed to anonymously survey 10 of their
classmates.
iii. The students will take the information from the reading activity and the
surveys and use it to make a short presentation to their classmates. They
will simply get in front of the classroom and explain their findings from
the reading activity and each person will choose one thing that they found
interesting about the author’s experience. They will also discuss their
 results from the survey and whether or not their fellow classmates feel that
their peers treat them based on their cultures and immigration status.
e. Exit Slip
i. After the groups have all finished presenting their findings from the
survey and the reading activity, the teacher will get up and assess what the
class learned from this lesson. The teacher will ask several questions
including “Were you surprised by the responses of your classmates during
the survey?”, “What was surprising?”, “How did you feel when watching
the videoclip during the warm-up?”, “How did you feel when reading the
personal accounts of the immigrants?”, “Has your opinion about other
cultures and immigrants been changed in any way?” The students will
raise their hands to answer and the teacher may also call on students to
have them answer. This will help the teacher to see if they truly grasped
the objectives of this lesson.
4. Resources
a. Munchies. (2015, November 13). The Life of a Refugee Chef Living in Chicago.
In Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM4ZukjeMH0
b. Ramos Y Sanchez, R. (2015). My Immigration Story. Retrieved May 7, 2017,
from https://myimmigrationstory.com/
5. Reflection
a. What specific subject concepts, skills, applications etc. does the student achieve
for the identified grade level?
i. The student will be able to see what immigration is like in the modern
world. This is aimed at a U.S. History class and in this class, they would
have learned quite a lot about immigration in the United States, especially
during the 1800s and the early to mid-1900s. One of the main goals of
U.S. History is to help students learn from the past. This will help them to
compare their previous knowledge to what they learned in this lesson to
determine whether things for immigrants are getting better or worse.
b. What specific multicultural knowledge, skills, etc. Has the student achieved?
i. The students will see and listen to several first-hand accounts of
immigrants coming to the United States. The goal is that they can gain a
better understanding of the struggles that they face and to ultimately
appreciate other cultures more. I hope that the students will gain a lot
from surveying their classmates because hearing struggles from their peers
can often be a great learning tool.
c. Assess the level of student engagement and active learning for the lesson
strategies selected for the “Instruction-learning process?
i. This particular lesson requires quite a substantial amount of active
learning from the students. They are constantly answering questions and
being forced to analyze the information that they are hearing and seeing.
They are using all three of the learning styles in this lesson plan which
helps to ensure that all students’ needs are being met in one way or
 another to help get the message of the lesson across. I feel that the survey
helps to bring alive the topics that were touched on in the video clip,
lesson, and reading material.
d. Lastly, list the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson plan.
i. Since this lesson uses all three learning styles, I feel like it will effectively
teach the objectives that it is designed to. Students will see and hear
personal accounts that will help them to see the struggles that immigrants
from other cultures face. They will also survey their peers to see if they
have experienced similar things in their own school which will help to put
it into perspective that these things happen at their own school. This
lesson also constantly checks for understanding so that the teacher has
several opportunities to ensure that the students are getting what they are
supposed to out of it.
ii. I feel that the biggest weakness for this lesson is that they are cramming in
a lot of material in a short amount of time; this might cause them to miss
out on some of the important points or to not accurately grasp all of the
things that they are intended to. I think another weakness could be that the
students don’t feel comfortable being truthful during the survey. Although
the students wouldn’t reveal who said something during the presentation
portion of the lesson, they would still know themselves who had said it.
This might discourage students from being completely honest which
would negate the purpose of this activity.