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Date: 6/16/2016
EAST LONGMEADOW – Fourth graders at Mapleshade Elementary School experienced what it was like to be an immigrant coming to the United States in 1910 through an immersion experience project on June 9.
Students and teachers dressed up in period clothing during the project, which replicated the experience of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. A cardboard cutout of the Statue of Liberty was placed near the entrance of the auditorium, which served as the Ellis Island registration area. Students went on to other areas such as health and legal inspections as well a currency exchange room, where teachers played the role of Ellis Island officials.
Students made their way through the school halls with prop passports in hand, in which black and white photographs of themselves were featured inside. One student said his immigrant’s name was Seamus O’Reilly and he was originally from Ireland. Another said he hailed from Portugal.
Mapleshade Principal Michael Fredette explained to Reminder Publications the project is the culmination of what students have been learning about during the past two months, which was tied in through various subjects including history and mathematics.
He added the project was collaboration between fourth grade teachers and included activities such as finding out the distance each immigrant traveled from their country of origin, learning about the history of each immigrant’s country and the possible reasons for coming to America, as well as understanding the exchange rates between currencies.
“If you’re a teacher that works in isolation, you don’t get the abundance of ideas and the connections in multiples across curricula areas,” Fredette said. “So when they all work together like this, the six teachers together really brainstorming exactly how they want this unit to unfold, it becomes very robust and all these ideas becomes better and better for the student learning opportunity.”
Fourth grade teacher Christianne McCandlish said students created their own personas for the project, which was started the year prior.
“They learn a little bit about history at the time, in 1910,” she explained. “They have to take a citizenship test and know all about the president of the time, how many states were at the time, learn about different countries where they’re coming from, [and] why they’re leaving that country.”
She said students also wrote journals from the perspective of their immigrant persona while traveling to Ellis Island, which chronicled their hopes for the future life in America.
Fourth grade teacher John Wiedersheim said part of the project also entailed the use of green screen technology. Students created videos that featured background scenes of their countries of origin.
Fredette said students worked on the project for more than a month, but will “retain this forever.”
He added, “They’ll never forget what it’s like to be an immigrant coming to the United States. They are all in role and in character. They all represent different immigrants from different countries. They’ve studied and poured over primary research. They’ve learned about what immigrants have done to earn money for fare to get over the Atlantic [Ocean] to get to Ellis Island, what skills and jobs that they currently have that they could do here in America.”
Fredette said students learned about what regions of the country they would settle based on their immigrant’s skills and where they would find work.
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