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Natalie Forbes Teacher Lesson Page
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// ** American History Lesson Template ** // 

Natalie Forbes - Braintree
Grade Level: 3rd grade

Standard: __ 3.6 Identify the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights as key __ __American documents__

Guiding Question: __ How did immigrants imagine freedom as they interpreted the founding __ __documents? What "pulled" and "pushed" Mary Antin, and others like her, to immigrate to the United States?__

// ** Title ** // Should I Stay or Should I Go?

// ** Introduction ** //

We are going to pretend that you are the great-great grand-daughter or grandson of Mary Antin. Mary moved from Russia to the United States many years ago with her family. When people leave one country for another, it is called immigration. Mary Antin was an immigrant to the United States. We are going to figure out h ow Mary and other immigrants imagined freedom in the United States. We are also going to see if they knew what the Bill of Rights was and if that made them want to come here. The Bill of Rights is a piece of paper, like a law, that tells Americans about all the rights they have because they are citizens. Your job is going to be to try to figure out why Mary left Russia and why she came here, to the United States. It’s a mystery!

// ** Task ** // You are going to learn about why Mary Antin and others wanted to leave Russia and also why they wanted to specifically come here to the United States. You will learn about life in Russia at the time and life here in the US. You will also learn about the Bill of Rights, which informs all American citizens about their rights and freedoms. As you learn about what made Mary’s family want to leave Russia and come here, you will design a poster to advertise how great it is to immigrate to the United States. Steamships used to carry thousands of people from countries around the world to the US. The ship companies advertised to encourage people to make the journey. You are going to use your knowledge of life in Russia and life in the US to make a poster ad that a shipping company would use in Russia to entice people to immigrate to the US.

// **Lesson Process** //

** Day One ** We will first start to think about why people immigrate. We are going to fill out a KWL chart about immigration. Think about what you **know** about WHY people immigrate and what you **want to know** about WHY people immigrate. Later we will write down **what we learned** about WHY people immigrate. First, go to [] to read about three children who recently immigrated to the United States. These stories will help you get some ideas. Next fill in the K and W in the chart. Now we are going to organize our ideas into two categories called PUSH factors and PULL factors. PUSH factors are the things immigrants don’t like about their home country that make them want to move. PULL factors are good things they know, or believe, about the new country that makes them want to move there. Let’s put our ideas in the K section into PUSH and PULL categories. Let’s add what we learned from [] to our K chart for PUSH and PULL factors.

** Day Two ** So now we know WHY people might immigrate to a new place and we’ve learned about WHY some people immigrate today. We still don’t know why Mary Antin, and other Russians, immigrated when they did in 1894. Today we are going to read some parts of Mary’s writing to see what life was like in Russia at the time.

Look at these selections from Mary Antin's //The Promised Land://

p. 1 When I was a little girl, the world was divided into two parts; namely, Polotzk, the place where I lived, and a strange land called Russia. All the little girls I knew lived in Polotzk, with their fathers and mothers and friends. Russia was the place where one's father went on business. It was so far off, and so many bad things happened there, that one's mother and grandmother and grown-up aunts cried at the railroad station, and one was expected to be sad and quiet for the rest of the day, when the father departed for Russia.

p. 3 The mystery of this transmutation led to much fruitful thinking. The boundary between Polotzk and the rest of the world was not, as I had supposed, a physical barrier, like the fence which divided our garden from the street. The world went like this now: Polotzk— more Polotzk — more Polotzk — Vitebsk! And Vitebsk was not so different, only bigger and brighter and more crowded. And Vitebsk was not the end. The Dvina, and the railroad, went on beyond Vitebsk, — went on to Russia. Then was Russia more Polotzk? Was here also no dividing fence? How I wanted to see Russia! But very few people went there. When people went to Russia it was a sign of trouble; either they could not make a living at home, or they were drafted for the army, or they had a lawsuit. No, nobody went to Russia for pleasure. Why, in Russia lived the Czar, and a great many cruel people; and in Russia were the dreadful prisons from which people never came back.

Polotzk and Vitebsk were now bound together by the continuity of the earth, but between them and Russia a formidable barrier still interposed. I learned, as I grew older, that much as Polotzk disliked to go to Russia, even more did Russia object to letting Polotzk come. People from Polotzk were sometimes turned back before they had finished their business, and often they were cruelly treated on the way. It seemed there were certain places in Russia — St. Petersburg, and Moscow, and Kiev — where my father or my uncle or my neighbor must never come at all, no matter what important things invited them. The police would seize them and send them back to Polotzk, like wicked criminals, although they had never done any wrong. It was strange enough that my relatives should be treated like this, but at least there was this excuse for sending them back to Polotzk, that they belonged there. For what reason were people driven out of St. Petersburg and Moscow who had their homes in those cities, and had no other place to go to? Ever so many people, men and women and even children, came to Polotzk, where they had no friends, with stories of cruel treatment in Russia; and although they were nobody's relatives, they were taken in, and helped, and set up in business, like unfortunates after a fire.

It was very strange that the Czar and the police should want all Russia for themselves. It was a very big country; it took many days for a letter to reach one's father in Russia. Why might not everybody be there who wanted to?

p. 4 to p. 5 I do not know when I became old enough to understand. The truth was borne in on me a dozen times a day, from the time I began to distinguish words from empty noises. My grandmother told me about it, when she put me to bed at night. My parents told me about it, when they gave me presents on holidays. My playmates told me, when they drew me back into a corner of the gateway, to let a policeman pass. Vanka, the little white-haired boy, told me all about it, when he ran out of his mother's laundry on purpose to throw mud after me when I happened to pass. I heard about it during prayers, and when women quarrelled in the market place; and sometimes, waking in the night, I heard my parents whisper it in the dark. There was no time in my life when I did not hear and see and feel the truth — the reason why Polotzk was cut off from the rest of Russia. It was the first lesson a little girl in Polotzk had to learn. But for a long while I did not understand. Then there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and Vitebsk and Vilna and some other places were grouped together as the "Pale of Settlement," and within this area the Czar commanded me to stay, with my father and mother and friends, and all other people like us. We must not be found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.

So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all. The world was divided into Jews and Gentiles. This knowledge came so gradually that it could not shock me. It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop. By the time I fully understood that I was a prisoner, the shackles had grown familiar to my flesh.

The first time Vanka threw mud at me, I ran home and complained to my mother, who brushed off my dress and said, quite resignedly, "How can I help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as they like with us Jews." The next time Vanka abused me, I did not cry, but ran for shelter, saying to myself, ''Vanka is a Gentile." The third time, when Vanka spat on me, I wiped my face and thought nothing at all. I accepted ill-usage from the Gentiles as one accepts the weather. The world was made in a certain way, and I had to live in it.

p. 142 I know the day when "America" as a world entirely unlike Polotzk lodged in my brain, to become the centre of all my dreams and speculations. Well I know the day. I was in bed, sharing the measles with some of the other children. Mother brought us a thick letter from father, written just before boarding the ship. The letter was full of excitement. There was something in it besides the description of travel, something besides the pictures of crowds of people, of foreign cities, of a ship ready to put out to sea. My father was travelling at the expense of a charitable organization, without means of his own, without plans, to a strange world where he had no friends; and yet he wrote with the confidence of a well equipped soldier going into battle. The rhetoric is mine. Father simply wrote that the emigration committee was taking good care of everybody, that the weather was fine, and the ship comfortable. But I heard something, as we read the letter together in the darkened room, that was more than the words seemed to say. There was an elation, a hint of triumph, such as had never been in my father's letters before. I cannot tell how I knew it. I felt a stirring, a straining in my father's letter. It was there, even though my mother stumbled over strange words, even though she cried, as women will when somebody is going away. My father was inspired by a vision. He saw something — he promised us something. It was this "America." And "America" became my dream.

p. 148 I am sure I made as serious efforts as anybody to prepare myself for life in America on the lines indicated in my father's letters. In America, he wrote, it was no disgrace to work at a trade. Workmen and capitalists were equal. The employer addressed the employee as //you,// not, familiarly, as //thou.// The cobbler and the teacher had the same title, "Mister." And all the children, boys and girls, Jews and Gentiles, went to school! Education would be ours for the asking, and economic independence also, as soon as we were prepared. He wanted Fetchke and me to be taught some trade; so my sister was apprenticed to a dressmaker and I to a milliner.

Then read some additional selections from Mary Antin and from other Russian immigrants.

Now we’re going to look at some of the ads shipping companies used to entice people to leave Russia for the United States. When Mary Antin and her family left her hometown, they traveled to the port city of Hamburg in Germany to take a steamship and sail to Boston in America. They traveled on the ship //Polynesia// on the Hamburg-America Line. Look at this description of the accommodations offered by the steamship company (look at the words and the pictures). Would this have been appealing to Mary and her family?

Here are some posters, postcards , one brochure and additional brochures of steamships. How do these words and pictures convince people to immigrate on the companies' steamships?

** Day Three ** Now we’re going to look more closely at what “pulled” people in to America. The Bill of Rights is a special document that not all countries have. Russia certainly didn’t have Bill of Rights at the time. Let’s visit Ben’s Guide to Government to learn more! [|http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/citizenship/rights.html] What did the Bill of Rights and the government of the United States offer to people immigrating to the country?

Now you know why people were pulled to the US and why they felt pushed out of their home country. I think we now know why Mary and her family left! Let’s go back to our KWL chart and think about what we learned!

** Day Four ** It’s time to get started on your poster ad for a Russian shipping company! Use everything you have learned to help you create the best ad! How will you convince people to use your shipping company when they want to immigrate to the United States?

//** Conclusion **// We’ve learned much about the push and pull factors that affected Russian immigrants’ decision to move to the United States. Freedom and equality are rights that we find in our Bill of Rights. They are special and do not exist in all countries around the world. People who live in the US are fortunate to have the rights and opportunities they have as citizens. Do you think that people still want to leave their homes now to become American citizens? It’s not easy to leave your home. Would you be able to do it? Is there anywhere you think you would want to immigrate to?

** // Assessment // **

and demonstrates few main ideas of push/pull factors based on primary and secondary sources. Ad has several grammatical errors and is not neatly done. || Ad is organized, well written, colorful, and includes main ideas of push/pull factors and is based on primary and secondary sources. Ad has only minor grammatical errors. || Ad is organized, well written, colorful, and demonstrates some higher order thinking skills along with knowledge of the push/pull factors and is based on primary and secondary sources. Ad has few grammatical errors. || Ad is organized, well written, colorful, and demonstrates strong higher order thinking skills related to push/pull factors and based on primary and secondary sources. Ad has little to no grammatical errors. ||
 * STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO… || INADEQUATE || ADEQUATE || GOOD || <span style="color: #141414; display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">STRONG ||
 * <span style="color: #141414; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Create an ad for a shipping company based on the time period's political atmosphere and the push/pull factors affecting Russian immigrants. || <span style="color: #141414; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Ad is unorganized

// ** Resources ** //

<span style="color: #141414; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS','sans-serif'; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">

Mary Antin, //The Promised Land// (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1912) (Google Books).

Additional Resources on Primary Source Page for Natalie Forbes: http://becomingamerica.wikispaces.com/PS10NForbes

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