At the end of Lesson One, students were asked to keep an eye and ear out for information in the media and in their community about immigration and to ask others about the issue. What has the class found? Post questions, opinions, articles and record in notebooks. Referring to the list of commonly held assumptions from Lesson One, how do our findings compare to the assumptions?
Add any new words to our vocabulary list; keep visible both in class and in notebooks.
Class Discussion:
Students will look at immigration from a historical perspective to increase understanding of current immigration issues.
Question: What is the root word of the word “immigration?”
The word “migrate” means: 1) To move from one country or region and settle in another 2) To change location periodically, especially by moving seasonally from one region to another. (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000, Houghton Mifflin)
However, the term “migration” often describes the seasonal patterns of travel of birds and other animals. For the human population, though, migration patterns are much more complex.
Questions:
- When do you think that humans first began to migrate?
- From which areas of the world did they leave? Why? Where did they go?
- What effects did the development of agriculture have on migration patterns?
- Do you think that a greater percentage of the world’s population is migrating today than in previous periods? If so, what are some of the reasons for this?
- How have reasons for migration changed over the years?
- Estimate the percentage of today’s global migration to the United States.