Immigration Project

After teaching my fifth graders about colonial life, I realized that my students did not understand what immigration truly is and that people continue to come to America for a new life.  I decided to have my students interview immigrants to get a better idea of why people come to America and what experiences they had during their move.  As a class we brainstormed a list of good questions to ask our immigrants.  We had lots of discussion about what makes a question a good question.  After being assigned an immigrant, they then did some research about the country they came from and finalized their list of questions.  Students interviewed their immigrants face to face, over the phone, over Facetime and over Skype. We recorded each interview so that they could go back and listen to the interview if they needed to.  After conducting their interview, they created a documentary of their immigrant with Audacity and Movie Maker.  I was extremely impressed with my students abilities to take the answers from their interview and create a story about their immigrant.