APPRECIATING AMERICA'S HERITAGE
TEACHING CHILDREN ABOUT IMMIGRATION
2006 SYMPOSIA
The American Immigration Law Foundation's Curriculum Center held five successful teachers' symposia in 2006. Teachers attended free day long professional development workshops in Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
The symposia focused on current immigration policies, presenting immigration in the classroom, sharing stories through oral history, learning with literature and media and using artifacts, primary sources and dramatic arts to teach immigration.
Each symposium featured presentations by an immigration attorney, children's book authors, teaching experts, and partner organizations. The symposia also offered a manual filled with ready-to-use lesson plans, teaching materials/resources and ancillary presentation materials.
Please take a moment to look through some of the highlights from the 2006 Teachers' Symposia. Many of the lesson plans featured at these symposia can found on our Teachers Resource page under lesson plans.
HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
Kashmira Sheth
Author Kashmira Sheth moved to the United States when she was seventeen to attend ISU in Ames, Iowa. The food, customs, language and weather of her new home shocked her, but she was determined to pursue her studies. After receiving a degree in microbiology she moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and worked in her field for many years. Her writing career began eight years ago. After five years of writing and reading, revising, attending writing conferences and collecting rejection letters, her first manuscript, Blue Jasmine, was accepted for publication by Hyperion Books for Children and was published in 2004. Her second novel, Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet, will be published in April 2006.
Blue Jasmine won the Paul Zindel First Novel Award and the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award, 2005. It has been selected for Cooperative Children's Book Centers' (CCBC) Choices 2005 list. The book received favorable reviews in various trade journals and magazines, including a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Kashmira lives with her family in Madison, Wisconsin. Sheth spoke at the 2006 Teachers' Symposium in Chicago. For more information please visit her at www.kashmirasheth.com and also www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com
Ana Veciana-Suarez
Ana Veciana-Suarez is a syndicated columnist for The Miami Herald and author of several books, including the young adult novel, Flight to Freedom. She has also written a collection of essays, Birthday Parties in Heaven: Thoughts on Life, Love, Grief, and Other Matters of the Heart. A previous book, The Chin Kiss King, translated into Spanish, Dutch, and German, was nominated for the prestigious IMPAC Award, an international competition in Dublin. Her commentary has been included in several anthologies, and it has appeared in Readers Digest, Oprah, Woman's Day, The Washington Post Magazine, Parenting, and Latina magazine.
For her latest work, Kirkus Review says this about Flight to Freedom: It "is credible, absorbing, and uplifting. The dignity of the Garcia family shines through as they attempt to make their way in their new society…" Ana Veciana-Suarez spoke at the 2006 Teachers' Symposium in Miami, where she lives with her family.
Frances and Ginger Parks
Frances and her sister Ginger Park are the co-authors of Where on Earth is My Bagel, published by LEE & LOW BOOKS, and Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong. Frances is also the author of several books for adults. The Park sisters also co-authored My Freedom Trip, winner of the IRA Children's Book Award, and The Royal Bee, a Parents' Choice Commended Book. The idea for this story originated when the authors would drive to work and see a Korean family setting up an outdoor food cart each morning. Frances and Ginger live in the Washington, D.C. area, where they are co-owners of a popular boutique, Chocolate Chocolate. They spoke at the 2006 Teachers' Symposium in Washington, D.C. To find out more about the Frances and Ginger Parks, visit her Web site: www.parksisters.com or read a Q & A on Lee & Low's helpful website: http://www.leeandlow.com/booktalk/park.html.
Classroom Projects
Heritage Boxes - Claire Tesh, manager of AILF's Curriculum Center and former teacher, introduced her class to the study of family heritage and culture through the research of ancestors. Each student listened to stories about immigration and then interviewed relatives about their ancestry and family heritage. With the assistance of family members, each student then created shadowboxes representative of the ancestor which they selected to research. These shadow boxes show the diversity of Ms. Tesh's classroom, with student ancestry ranging from Austria to Peru and first generation students from China. For instructions on how to construct heritage boxes in your own classroom, please take a look at the lesson plans. The finished product can be seen here.
