Globalization: Immigration as a Manifestation

Unit 2: Activities

Activity 3: “Moving Towards Social Action: Creating counterstories and providing a voice for the voiceless” (Text consulted- The Line Between Us by Bill Bigelow and Girls, Social Class, and Literacy by Stephanie Jones)

OUTCOMES:

1. Students will tie concepts, examinations, and vocabulary from activity one and activity two together
2. Students will use practice with text deconstruction and reconstruction to create a questions for a critical inquiry project
3. Students will create a project for the public around their critical inquiry question

TERMS: Power, privilege, marginalized

ARTIFACTS: None

MATERIALS: Internet access

PROCEDURES:

1. Students will address the following in journals or in groups:
1. Create a list of concepts, questions or words you’d like to explore further based on our learning over the last few days.
2. Remember the text deconstruction/reconstruction questions.
3. Create your own questions that you would like to research.
4. Think about creating open-ended questions that open the door for more questions. How can you get other classmate, the school community, our city, etc. to think more deeply about your question/questions?
2. Teachers can do any activity that encourages students to create questions about the concepts, examinations, and vocabulary from the first two activities. The most important thing for educators to remember is that students need to create their own questions regarding the “why” of immigration.
3. Students will collect research from the Internet and other sources (if available) about their question for research. It would be ideal if students could engage in dialogue about the “American Dream,” immigration, and their ties to globalization and neoliberalism with immigrant students or students in Senegal. However, these resources are not always readily available, which is why the Internet can play an important role in this project.
4. Students will create a counterstorytelling project that includes any of the following:
1. A personal narrative, writing from the point of view of a person from their research, dialogue, or themselves
2. A story, taking research and dialogue and fictionalizing it. This can take many forms including children’s books or a collection of short stories.
3. A profile, writing a character sketch of a person from their research of dialogue. The students may also decide to create their own profile based on the personal and/or family experiences.
5. Besides writing new texts, students will locate, read, collect, and suggest new texts that examine the lives of the marginalized. Students may also choose to rewrite mainstream texts from the point of view of the marginalized.
6. Students will decide how they would like to share their work. This could include any of the following:
1. An exhibit at school or a centralized place in the community (i.e. the public library)
2. A publication (blog, zine, anthology) distributed to the public
3. A video project

EXTENTION:
As educators addressing the issue of immigration, we need to keep ourselves informed about issues that arise in our state. We also need to examine what is being proposed in our states and think about how to share our students’ counterstories with the public. Look for events in your community addressing immigration and keep your students informed. Furthermore, see how your students can find a more public forum to share their knowledge and writing.