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Participants Rochelle Ferriell and Vicki Whisler of Maple Street Magnet School for the Arts, in Kalamazoo Michigan, created a unique curriculum that explored the intersection of diversity and democracy from the point of view of local-area immigrants. Kalamazoo: A Journey of Promise was a yearlong, multimedia, oral history project conducted by their middle school students. Students recorded the stories of Kalamazoo-area first or second-generation immigrants, and then wrote dramatic theatrical presentations based on their interviews. The results were presented in a DVD documentary made available to all area libraries.
"I truly believe that publication is key to student 'buy-in' of an assignment," said Vicki Whisler. "The knowledge that they are representing a human story in a historical document really changed the effort they were willing to give to the project. Students were asking if they could stay after school and made arrangements on their own to meet in their groups on the weekends."
"The intensity at which the students created these profiles was amazing," added Ferriell. "Somewhere inside of them the project was more that just a 'school activity,' and you could tell that they connected to it in an astounding way."
"The project was a wake up call to a lot people who don't consider our area a place of immigrants. I feel that I learned a lot, the students learned a lot and our community is a better place for it," Ferriell said.
Click below to view this curriculum:
Lesson Plan: "Kalamazoo: A Journey of Promise" (PDF) |
