This lesson plan assumes background knowledge of the colonial period, which students will likely have already studied in this class or in years prior. The main part of this lesson explores reasons people move, beginning with a personal connection for students and using that as a comparison for why Europeans crossed the Atlantic to establish homes in North America. This lesson also introduces or reviews some basic immigration vocabulary and includes an optional activity using the Immigrant Stories project, with short videos of modern-day immigrants’ individual stories.

• Students will compare and contrast reasons for migration to the North American colonies with present-day immigration to the United States.

• How does migration to the North American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries compare to immigration to the modern United States?

Grades 6-8

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.6-8.3: Identify key steps in a text’s description of a process related to history/social studies (e.g., how a bill becomes law, how interest rates are raised or lowered).

• Map Shows How Humans Have Migrated Across the Globe (Insider Science) 
• A classroom resource covering European colonists’ decisions to cross the Atlantic, such as Immigration in the 1600s and 1700s (Ancestry) or Why Did Colonists Come to America? (Have Fun With History) 
• Immigrant Stories handout
• Internet-connected devices (one per group)  
• Immigrant Stories (University of Minnesota Immigration History Research Center) and/or Immigrant Stories from the Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD Metro Areas and Beyond (George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research) 

Think-Pair-Share

Give students a chance either to think silently or respond in writing to the prompt: “Think about [or describe] a time when you, your family or other relatives undertook a major move.” This can be a move to a new house, city, state or country. Give students time to share their story with a partner or small group.

Explain to students that all of these stories from their families are stories of migration. Everyone, at some point in their ancestry, has a story of migration.

If this is new content for students, this is a good opportunity to show them a video like this one: Map Shows How Humans Have Migrated Across the Globe.

Start a list on the board called “Reasons people move,” and have students keep a similar list on a piece of blank paper. Ask students to think about the stories they told or heard, and to identify the reason for the move. As a class, brainstorm as many reasons as you can. If needed, expand students’ thinking by asking them why people might want to immigrate to the United States from many countries around the world.

Introduce vocabulary (if students are not already familiar)

• Migrant: a person who moves from one place to another
• Immigrant: a person who migrates into another country (for any reason)
• Emigrate: to leave one’s home country to settle in another
• Immigrate: to come live permanently in another country

Share with students that people have moved across both short and long distances for the entire history of the human race. Most of the reasons we listed are similar to reasons people choose to emigrate from their home countries, although the decision may be more complex if it involves traveling to a different country. Some of these reasons were also in the minds of the Europeans who first left their homes to cross the Atlantic Ocean to settle in an unfamiliar continent.

Reading

Explain to students that they’ll be comparing this list to the reasons Europeans had for sailing to the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries. Ask students to keep a second list based on a text they will read or re-read.

The resource assigned to students here may be part of a textbook already used in the classroom, or copies of Immigration in the 1600s and 1700s or Why Did Colonists Come to America?

Come back together as a class and discuss: how many reasons are the same in both lists? Were people immigrating to what is now the United States for some of the same reasons people do so today?

It’s important to note here for students one major reason that people came to the colonies that is not comparable to modern U.S. immigration: forced migration for the purposes of enslavement. By the beginning of the 18th century, tens of thousands of human beings had been taken from their homes and brought to the colonies for a life in which they were denied basic freedoms and the opportunities for betterment that drove the white settlers.

Additional Activity: Immigrant Stories

This activity uses the Immigrant Stories collection, a series of short videos about some of the people who have immigrated to Minnesota and/or Immigrant Stories from the Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD Metro Areas and Beyond.

Divide the class into pairs or small groups (each will need an internet-connected device). Have students choose one story to view from the website or from a pre-selected list. Give each student a handout and have them complete it for their video. Compare and discuss as a class.

1. Name of immigrant:
2. Country of origin:
3. Year they came to the United States:
4. Summarize their story:
5. Identify the reasons why the person or family decided to immigrate:
6. Was their reason to immigrate similar to a reason that Europeans settled in the Americas?

• Students will evaluate whether the first European settlers in the Americas could be considered immigrants by modern standards.

Common Core Standards

Materials

Copies of political cartoons. Political cartoons about early European settlers, pilgrims and Native Americans can be found online and often may be legally used for educational purposes. We have provided a collection of political cartoons, or feel free to use others that more closely align with your curriculum and goals. Be sure to follow fair use guidelines.

• Pilgrim-Native American Relations Cartoons and Comics (Cartoonstock)
• Analyzing Political Cartoons handout

Activities

Analyzing Political Cartoons

Divide students into groups and give each group copies of one political cartoon and a handout. Let students know that all of these cartoons are connecting the early European settlers’ arrival in North America to immigration (often unauthorized immigration) today.

1. Describe what is happening in the cartoon with as much detail as possible. Pay attention to the choices the artist makes in depicting the cartoon elements (characters, setting, etc.).
2. What message is the cartoonist trying to send? What is the cartoonist’s point of view?
3. Is there any room for different interpretations?

Have groups share out, giving students a chance to become familiar with all the cartoons and identify similarities.

Discussion

Big question: Can the early European settlers in North America be considered “immigrants?” Points to push students’ thinking or add nuance:

• What defines an “immigrant?”
• What are the similarities and differences between early settlers coming to live in what was for them the “New World” and modern immigrants coming to live in the United States? (Think about the Native American nations already here and the settlers’ relationships with them.)
• Do the political cartoons make an accurate or fair use of history to shed light on current events, or is it an oversimplification?

This could lend itself to a group discussion, a think-pair-share or even a short writing assignment.

This lesson features two handouts. The first goes along with the Immigrant Stories activity and provides questions students can answer about the videos in the Immigrant Stories Collection. The second, Analyzing Political Cartoons, is tied to the extension and features three questions for students analyzing political cartoons.

You can download them below.