Lesson Plans and Other Resources on Immigration and Displaced People
General Resources:
1. Teaching Tolerance addresses various social justice topics and specifically focuses on immigration and displaced people. Some good examples of lesson plans with resources include:
- Displaced people lesson plan
- Exploring Young Immigrants experience lesson plan
- Who is an immigrant? lesson plan
2. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) website includes important facts and infographics to help put these stories into perspective. The site has age appropriate materials for elementary through secondary students.
3. The Choices Program at Brown University looks more generally at the Global Refugee Crisis
4. Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources – Immigration
- Immigration Lesson plans and activities using Library of Congress Primary Sources
- Immigration Challenges for New Americans – Library of Congress – includes lesson plan
Immigration and Displaced People:
Graphic novels about the experiences of Syrian refugees
- This website, created to educate the world on the experiences of Syrians, includes a wealth of resources to use with secondary learners. I am Syria
- Teach Mideast is an educational initiative designed by the Middle East Policy Council to support educators with resources on issues in the Middle East including the Syrian Civil War and resulting refugee crisis.
- This lesson plan specifically uses comics to study the experiences of Syrian refugees.
- This lesson plan was created by The New York Times and the Global Nomads Group about young Syrians’ experiences during their civil war.
- This lesson plan compares the experiences of refugees today with those from WWII, which would be another great connection with graphic novels because there are graphic novels about the Holocaust from Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation to the first Pulitzer-Prize winning graphic novel, Maus.
Resources for Graphic Novels about Immigration and Displaced People:
1. They Called us Enemy
- Japanese American Internment and lesson plan from the Library of Congress
- Resources from The Remembrance Project through the Japanese American National Museum
- Teaching Tolerance Lesson Plan for middle school students
- Primary Sources lesson plan from The New York Times
- Lesson Plans from the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Smithsonian Resources
- Teacher’s Guide from Random House Publishing
2. When Stars Are Scattered
- Penguin Lesson Plan
- Unit Plan on the author, Victoria Jamieson’s Website
Lesson Plans and Other Resources on Racism
University of South Carolina Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Civil Rights Project Website (Funded by the Library of Congress UofSC TPS Grant)
Using Graphic Novels in Education: Kindred (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Using Graphic Novels in Education: King (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Using Graphic Novels in Education: March: Book One (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Using Graphic Novels in Education: March: Book Two (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Using Graphic Novels in Education: March: Book Three (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Using Graphic Novels in Education: Nat Turner (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund)
Using Graphic Novels in Education: The Silence of Our Friends (Comic Book Legal Defense
Websites That Contain Civil Rights Pictures
Photos from the PBS Special, John Lewis – Get in the Way – six photos available at the bottom of the web page
A Day Like No Other – Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington – online resources from the exhibition,
*Several photographs of John Lewis are available on the “Day of the March” web page
African American Odyssey – The Civil Rights Era – Library of Congress
Jim Crow and Segregation – Library of Congress Primary Sources Set
The NCAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom – Library of Congress Primary Sources Set
Civil Rights in America – National Park Service
