This unit was created by Keith Calix, a ninth grade teacher in Washington, D.C., as part of the spring 2021 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship program on Stories of Migration. It is designed for facilitation across approximately three 75–90 minute live or virtual class periods.
For more units created by Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellows in this cohort, click here.
Unit Objectives:
Students will be able to…
- Explore single stories and counternarratives related to Iranian/Iraqi relations, and their respective implications
- Creatively explore the intersections of armed conflict, forced migration, identity and health/wellness
- Identify main ideas, cite textual evidence, and explore author intent/bias through analysis of news stories presented in various media
- Incorporate personal narrative/experiences to produce clear and coherent writing
Unit Overview:
As part of this three-lesson unit, students engage with several news articles about migration from the Middle East to evaluate how migration, and media representation of migration, influences how the identities of migrants and their children. Through close reading, analysis, and discussion, students engage with the following themes and skills.
Themes:
- How do you define home? What has shaped/influenced your definition of home?
- How might migration impact your sense of identity? Our relationship with “home”?
- How might single stories/stereotypes impact how we view ourselves? Our relationship with “home”?
- How might underreported stories be used to address the negative impacts of single stories?
Skills:
- Identifying and analyzing claim and counterclaim
- Using current events and underreported stories to identify and interrogate single stories
- Exploring author intent
- Incorporating personal narrative to creatively explore core course themes
Performance task:
In her piece “The Journey Home: The Welcome Home Committee,” which students explore as part of the unit, journalist Zahra Ahmad’s aunt observes: "There's something deep inside your [Zahra’s] eyes. You seem lost, like you're not fulfilled. That something is missing, like you're caging yourself in. It shows that you've been through a lot and it's trapped you. There is something weighing you down."
At the conclusion of the unit, students compose a personal essay that responds to this observation and asks students to reflect on their own relationships with “home”. Essays should engage with the following questions:
- How do you define home?
- Have you ever felt disconnected from your home? Why (e.g., perhaps you felt disconnected to an aspect of your culture, perhaps your community was misrepresented on the news, etc.)?
- How did you respond/What have you learned from that experience?
The pedagogical vision for this unit is to…
- Foster global citizenship
- Empower students to seek out underreported stories to combat single stories
- Utilize formative and summative assessments to provide regular, individualized and targeted feedback
- Cultivate a learning experience where students…
- Encourage one another to consider counter-narratives
- Identify and interrogate their own biases and single stories
- Consider the role of personal narrative, storytelling, and identity
Three-day unit plan, including warm-ups, texts and video resources, discussion questions, activities, a student work packet for each day of instruction, and performance tasks for the unit.
This packet is used to capture student work throughout the unit.
“Under-reported new stories are important because they can open the eyes of many people who have a view on a community of people based on single stories or stereotypes. Plus, it can give the chance for younger people [to] feel more connected to their culture or people.”
- 9th grade student at EL Haynes High School in Washington, D.C.
This unit is assessed through the following formative and summative assessments below.
- Click here and here to view examples of student work packets produced by students from E.L. Haynes High School who engaged with this unit in spring 2021.
- Click here to see feedback from the 43 students from E.L. Haynes High School who engaged with this unit in 2021
Formative Assessments:
- Reflection quizzes related to Pulitzer Center-supported articles, which are outlined in the unit plan
- Evaluation of discussions about Pulitzer Center-supported articles
Summative Assessments:
- Personal Narrative/Essay - In her piece The Journey Home: The Welcome Home Committee journalist Zahra Ahmad’s aunt observes: "There's something deep inside your [Zahra’s] eyes. You seem lost, like you're not fulfilled. That something is missing, like you're caging yourself in. It shows that you've been through a lot and it's trapped you. There is something weighing you down." In a personal essay, respond to this observation by reflecting on your own relationship with your “home”. Essays should engage with the following questions:
- How do you define home?
- Have you ever felt disconnected from your home? Why (e.g., perhaps you felt disconnected to an aspect of your culture, perhaps your community was misrepresented on the news, etc.)?
- How did you respond/What have you learned from that experience?
- At the conclusion of the unit, students share their feedback on the unit using this google form (please make a copy before sharing with students).