Researchers in 6th and 7th grade English language arts commented on their process of selecting one refugee from the “Stories” page of the UN Refugee Agency’s web site to report on:
- I’m interested in these three refugee stories because they’re all doctors or trying to become doctors, and I want to be a doctor.
- I picked this refugee story because it’s the most recent—this is something happening right now!
- I picked this refugee story because she helped make a cookbook, and I like to cook.
I introduced the project last week as we wrapped up our study of A Long Walk to Water. I said, “We’ve learned a lot about one group of refugees, the Lost Boys of Sudan, in one country in the 1980s. Do you know about any other refugees in any place or time?”
One World War 2 enthusiast volunteered, “There were a lot of refugees in Europe in 1945.” Yes. We discussed that for a bit. Anything else? Another student knew about detention camps for the Uighur people in China—an important and related human rights issue. After that, crickets.
I realized that living in an island nation that accepts an extremely limited number of refugees, my students, as opposed to students in the US, probably don’t personally know any refugees. This, then, in a world with over 26 million refugees in mid-2020, is an important project!
When I introduced them to the “Stories” page of the UN Refugee Agency’s web site students were hooked. They spent the rest of the class period browsing, picking 3 they found interesting, discussing choices with a partner, and finally settling on one. The next day they went back to the website to take notes on their chosen article, and they were shocked to find a new article! This drove home the point that these are things that are happening right now. The third day they came up with a background question on their refugee to find an additional resource on—country, culture, problem they were fleeing, a challenge they’d faced, a solution or help they’d received. Then students had 2 days to synthesize the information in a poster.
Learning questions and conversations along the way:
Yesterday I shared with them the graphic novel about a refugee from Somalia I was in the middle of reading, When Stars Are Scattered. It was the end of the period when students had all submitted their posters and were doing independent reading. I said, “I hope to finish this over the weekend and make it available to anyone who wants to read it on Monday.” I had 2 takers on the way out of class. I finished it last night, and it is excellent. I’ll also have The Red Pencil (novel in verse, Darfur, Sudan), Inside Out and Back Again (novel in verse, Vietnam), Nowhere Boy (prose, Syria), and Refugee (prose, Germany, Cuba, and Syria) available for check out over spring break. While there might be a current struggle between schools of thought pushing reading skills and pushing background knowledge, there’s also a sweet spot where a certain amount of background knowledge opens up a world of reading that just deepens that knowledge.
On the day I introduced the project and the expectations, including closing with a memorable line, I asked, “What might be something really important about this project, something I want you to learn and something you’d want the people who see yours to walk away with?” A student who I might have ranked as one of the least likely to be paying attention at any given moment offered, “Empathy!”
My work is done. It was a new and strange year and difficult year. This week marked the one-year declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization. A year ago today, I was getting ready to return to Japan—a new school, a new job, new grade levels, and new subjects. It was a year of learning—not only by me, but also by my students. And I am thankful. Thankful for this time. This place. This work. These students. This opportunity to learn and to teach.
Arigatou.
When I introduced them to the “Stories” page of the UN Refugee Agency’s web site students were hooked. They spent the rest of the class period browsing, picking 3 they found interesting, discussing choices with a partner, and finally settling on one. The next day they went back to the website to take notes on their chosen article, and they were shocked to find a new article! This drove home the point that these are things that are happening right now. The third day they came up with a background question on their refugee to find an additional resource on—country, culture, problem they were fleeing, a challenge they’d faced, a solution or help they’d received. Then students had 2 days to synthesize the information in a poster.
Learning questions and conversations along the way:
- Hey, there’s an article on the UNHCR web page that wasn’t there yesterday? (Yes, these stories are happening right now.)
- What’s a displaced person? (Discussion of the difference among cross-border refugees, internally displaced people, and stateless people, all of whom the UNHCR has responsibility for)
- You mean there was more than one civil war in Africa? (Introductory conversation about the legacy of colonialism.)
On the day I introduced the project and the expectations, including closing with a memorable line, I asked, “What might be something really important about this project, something I want you to learn and something you’d want the people who see yours to walk away with?” A student who I might have ranked as one of the least likely to be paying attention at any given moment offered, “Empathy!”
My work is done. It was a new and strange year and difficult year. This week marked the one-year declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization. A year ago today, I was getting ready to return to Japan—a new school, a new job, new grade levels, and new subjects. It was a year of learning—not only by me, but also by my students. And I am thankful. Thankful for this time. This place. This work. These students. This opportunity to learn and to teach.
Arigatou.
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