Your task…….It is the late 1800s. You are an immigrant family coming to the United States. Your family will consist of a father, mother, daughter, and son (4 group members). Similar to many families of this time period, you and your family will enter via Ellis Island in New York. Through a series of tasks, questions, writing, and storytelling, you will come to know what it was like to be an immigrant of this time. Specifically, you will describe in detail what it was like entering the United States through Ellis Island and your overall experience as an immigrant.
During this lesson, you will not only collect information, but you will also collect digital pictures related to the immigrant experience. Your group task list will be as follows:
- Define the following terms:
- immigration
- steerage
- benevolent societies
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Restriction League
- Immigrant Act of 1924
- Emergency Quota Act
- National Origins Act
- Identify why immigrants came to the United States and what countries they emigrated from during the late 1800s through the early 1950s.
- Provide a brief description of what a journey to the United States was like for these groups during this period. (You may choose a specific group to focus upon.)
- Describe Ellis Island.
- How many people passed through Ellis Island from the years 1892-1954? Were all allowed to enter? What happened to those who were not permitted to stay in The United States?
- Explain what happened when immigrants arrived there. Describe the environment with as much detail as possible (i.e. treatment, food, processing time period, health conditions, etc.)
- Explain how some Americans tried to limit immigration.
- Describe some of the adjustments immigrants needed to go through in their new country.
- Choose what time period and country you and your ”family” want to be from and what role each group member will take on (i.e. dad, mom, son, or daughter).
- Based on your country of choice and all of the information you have compiled, create a series of journal entries telling of each members experience from start to finish. For example, if you are “mom” you must write a series of journal entries telling of your experience not only as an immigrant woman of the time, but also a mother.
- READ BELOW!
After you have compiled all of your terms, facts and digital pictures, you and your group will need to create a digital story telling of the family’s experience as immigrants coming to The United States. You will also need to submit a list of the completed task list (1 per group) and each member’s journal entries telling of his or her experience.
Last but not least, you will evaluate your work on this Web Quest journey. To do so, complete the rubric that follows in the “Evaluation” section. Each group member will complete an evaluation form.
REMEMBER: Record all facts that you think will be helpful throughout your immigration journey. Also, make sure to save any digital images that may be helpful in your digital story.
