Exploring Culture Through an English Learner’s Lens

Lynn Gallo

This unit is designed for middle school students, but could be modified for upper elementary grades and high school students. Students will study their immigrant experience and focus on how cultures are enacted through ritual and daily activities. Students will record their answers to questions that explore their understanding of cultural codes and societal roles, and will share their thoughts with the teacher through a recording platform like Google’s Video Recorder. They will then transcribe their questions and use the answers to identify themes in a wordless graphic novel. Students will also read excerpts from two nonfiction books about immigrant experiences. The goal of this unit is for students to understand their origins and articulate their feelings about culture, and their place and membership in their communities. In doing so, it is my hope that they will learn to find their voices and talk about, write and visually express themselves and their backgrounds, and perhaps even enjoy the writing process and their own creativity. Learning objectives include RI.8.3, SL.8.1, RA.W.6, and WIDA’s standards for oral literacy, as well as National Common Core Arts Standards VA:Cr1.2.8a, VA:Cr2.3.8a, and VA:Cn10.1.8a.