tlp_09_iascher

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Ilana Ascher, Chelsea High School


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Essential Question:
How did immigration affect American conceptions of "WE THE PEOPLE"?

Guiding Question:
How is life different in America than the life immigrants left behind in Ireland?

Introduction:
Between 1845 and 1850, more than a million Irish people starved to death while massive quantities of food were being exported from their country. A half million Irish were evicted from their homes during the potato blight, and a million and a half emigrated to America. Imagine you are an immigrant who arrived in America. Irish immigrants were attracted to the large northeastern cities like Boston and were desperate intending to send money back home to their loved ones. Many of these immigrants lost track of other loved ones that also took the journey to America and used the Boston Pilot newspaper to find this person. This newspaper was based in Boston but distributed around the world. As a newly armed immigrant what will happen to you in the New World?

Task: What factors would entice you as an immigrant to settle in Boston or Chelsea?
The year is 1848 and you live on a small farm in western Ireland. A blight has attacked your families crop of potatoes and you fear that there will not be enough food for the entire family to make it through the winter. You are offered the chance to go to America where you are told that you will find work, food and, most importantly, money that you can send home to your family. Though it is difficult to leave your family for the unknown in the New World, you accept the offer and head for Boston. What can you expect of the trip? What will happen to you when you arrive? How will you make it alone in America?

In this lesson, you will explore these questions using letters that were drawn from the experience of an Irish immigrant of Boston and other northeastern cities in the 1800’s and learn about their experiences as an immigrant and the struggles they faced coming to America by looking at a variety of printed materials. These documents will help you understand the experience of an Irish immigrant and the attitudes they were faced with once they got here. Using the primary source documents provided you will create a letter to a family member about joining you in Boston. You will write this letter either from the perspective that America is the promise land where streets are paved in gold or from a harsher perspective explaining the difficulties of life for an immigrant in America. You will describe the voyage, and what it is like living in Boston after being there for one year including any struggles you may have faced here in the new country. Has your experience matched the expectations you had when leaving Ireland?

Lesson Process: 2- 3 Days.
__Do Now for day one__ - Why do people leave their country to start a new life somewhere else? What obstacles do you think immigrants face once they get here?These questions will then be discussed with the class. People emigrating from another country is a difficult decision to make and it is usually done for economic, social, political or religious reasons.

__Do Now for day two__ - You will be given an original want ad and write down three things that you learned from reading this advertisement. You will also write down one question that you have from looking at this want ad. You will then share this information with the class. ==

@http://infowanted.bc.edu/history/famine/

__Do Now for day three__ - How are immigrants today treated similar and different to the Irish immigrant experience of the mid 1800's?

__Activity 1-__ Day 1 Your teacher will assign you to one of two groups. Group one will be asked to look at the materials with the perspective that America is the promise land and that the streets are paved in gold. Group two will look at the materials from the perspective that life in America is hard for an immigrant.

Create a sub-groups of three to five people and analyze some primary sources which describe jobs in Ireland and the jobs that were available in Boston/Chelsea. You will share your findings with the class.

__Activity 2__- You will be able to describe the potato blight/famine, and the impact it had on the people through a power point lecture and answer information about the lecture provided to you through an outline.
 * For Homework**: you will write a journal about your thoughts about the potato blight/famine and the Irish immigrant experience from what you learned in the discussion/power point. You will then discuss your thoughts with the entire class the next day.

__Activity 3 -__ Using the S.I.G.H.T. worksheet, you will analyze primary source documents that show the Irish emigrating to Boston and other places in the United States.

__Activity 4-__ Using the document analysis sheet, you will analyze a want ad from the Boston Pilot from Chelsea Irish immigrants and an exchange of letters between the Pendergast family.

__Activity 5-__ Imagine that you are an immigrant from the 1850's and that you have recently moved to Chelsea. Create a persuasive letter convincing a family member to come to the United States. In this activity, the class will be broken into two groups with one group writing from the perspective that America is the promise land where streets are paved in gold and the other group writing from a harsher perspective explaining the difficulties of life for an immigrant in America.
 * 1) Why did you leave Ireland?
 * 2) Do you miss anything from your homeland?
 * 3) Who did you leave behind?
 * 4) What was the trip across the Atlantic like for you?
 * 5) What type of work are you or your family members doing and why?
 * 6) How do you feel being away from Ireland and your family?
 * 7) What is the living conditions like in your new home?

Additionally, create a Want-Ad to be placed in the Boston Pilot in the 1850's in which you are looking for a friend or family member who left Ireland and with whom you would like to reconnect.

__For the Want Ad.__
 * 1) Who is missing?
 * 2) How old are they?
 * 3) Where are they from in Ireland?
 * 4) What is their relationship to the person who created the ad?
 * 5) When and where were they last seen?

Immigration is not exclusive to any one group. With the exception of the Native-Americans, all Americans have either been an immigrant themselves or a descendant of immigrant. As a result of the Great Famine, the years of 1846-1847 were the largest wave of migration from Ireland to the United States. The Great Famine dramatically shaped the physical and cultural landscape of Ireland and America for decades. In America, the Irish dealt with prejudices mainly due to their being Catholic. Over decades the prejudice the Irish immigrants experienced began to dwindle as opportunities and working conditions improved for this group. The Irish are no longer looked at as outsiders or as inferior people.
 * __Conclusion__**
 * What are the new groups that are struggling to fit in to the U.S. and what challenges do they face today?
 * What are the lessons that we can learn from the Irish immigrant experience?
 * How are immigrants today treated similar and different to the Irish immigrant of the mid 1800's?


 * Objectives**
 * Students will learn how to interpret primary sources.
 * Students will learn how to analyze letters.
 * Students will learn the reasons why the Irish came to America.
 * Students will learn the difficulties that the Irish immigrants faced making the trip to Boston?
 * Students will be able to compare and contrast their life in Ireland with their life in the U.S.
 * Students will learn why groups clash with each other?
 * Students will understand the experience of Irish immigration in Boston.

Assessments- Students will create an immigrant letter written by an Irish immigrant of Boston or Chelsea. Students will also create a want ad for missing Irish immigrant.
 * **Students will be able to ...** || **Inadequate** || **Adequate** || **Good** || **Strong** ||
 * Use the Document analysis Worksheets to analyze “primary source documents,” including: letters, want ads, pictures, and political cartoons. They will use the worksheets to analyze excerpts of secondary source materials. || Students are not able to demonstrate the ability to use document-based questions to analyze both “primary sources” and “secondary sources.” || Students are able to demonstrate the ability to use document-based questions to analyze both “primary sources” and “secondary sources.” However, they do not provide detailed responses that demonstrate an understanding of the documents or the ability to draw insightful conclusions. || Students are able to demonstrate the ability to use document-based questions to analyze both “primary sources” and “secondary sources.” They answer questions with detailed responses and demonstrate a good understanding of the documents and the ability to draw good conclusions in their analysis. || Students are able to demonstrate the ability to use document-based questions to analyze both “primary sources” and “secondary sources.” They answer questions with very detailed responses and demonstrate an excellent understanding of the documents and the ability to draw excellent, insightful conclusions in their analysis. ||
 * Understand how the immigrant saw themselves within the context of their times through their letters. || Students are not able to draw conclusions about how the Irish immigrants saw themselves through pictures, political cartoons, letters and want ads. || Students are able to draw conclusions about how the Irish immigrants saw themselves through pictures, political cartoons, letters and want ads. However, they do so in insufficient detail. || Students are able to draw conclusions about how the Irish immigrants saw themselves through pictures, political cartoons, letters and want ads. They provide good evidence to corroborate their conclusions || Students are able to draw conclusions about how the Irish immigrants saw themselves through pictures, political cartoons, letters and want ads. They provide excellent evidence to corroborate their conclusions. ||

Resources
@http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/written_document_analysis_worksheet.pdf
 * 1) Black Potatoes the Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 – Book by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, 1990
 * 2) Boston’s Immigrants – Book by Oscar Handlin, 1949
 * 3) The Pendergrast Letters Book Edited by Shelley Barber 2006
 * 4) [[file:SIGHTAnalysisWS_eform.pdf | S.I.G.H.T. Worksheet]] by Edward O’Donnell 2009, www.EdwardTOdonnell.com[[image:fs1_09_sightanalysis_thumb.jpg align="center" caption="Download PDF (52KB)"]]
 * 5) Occupations of Gainfully Employed Irish Immigrants in New York 1855, source Robert Ernst, Immigrant Life in New York City, 1825-1863 and NY State Census of 1855
 * 6) The Search for Missing Friends Volume I and II - Book by Ruth Ann Harris
 * 7) A database of Advertisements for Irish immigrants Published in the Boston Pilot []
 * 8) Document Analysis Form for a Letter from the National Archives -

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