Lesson 6: Connections to Today

Materials:

  1. Slideshow: Connections to Today

  2. Worksheet: Connections to Today

Opening (10 min)

As a group, have students list out words they can think of attached to immigration. Create a word cloud with Mentimeter. Examples of words include:

●      ‘Migrant crisis’

●      Border control

●      Alien

●      Invasion

Individually, students reflect on each word and what feelings and thoughts they generate when they hear them in another word cloud.  If time, share back as a class the one word and one feeling.

Main Content (40 min)

1.     20 minutes

Hand out articles about ‘migrant wave’ (from NYTimes) and language used to describe refugees (from Amnesty)

●      Read and annotate articles by underlining language used to describe refugees.  Students share back after reading.

●      What do these articles tell you about the rhetoric around immigration?

●      Why does the media focus on specific incidents that highlight migrant danger?

●      What do words like ‘migrant crisis’ and the language of invasion evoke?

○      What contexts have you seen them in?

2.     20 minutes

As a group students watch 60 Minutes | Tania’s Story (26:26-38:53). Instructor prompts students to think about how her story is presented differently from the Path Home interviews. Thinking about oral histories, it is important to pay attention to the process of conducting and presenting them:

●      Ways that the 60 Minutes differs from the Path Home interviews:

○      The Path Home has subtitles for interviewees who do not speak English vs. 60 Minutes overlaps audio with English dub

○      The Path Home conceals the oral history practitioner from view vs. viewers can see the reactions and questions from the interviewer in the 60 Minutes.

○      The 60 Minutes video cuts between the interview, other footage and narration about the border crossings

●      What can we infer about the intentionality behind a video like 60 Minutes versus The Path Home interviews?

Closing Dialogue (5 minutes)

●      Why is it important to pay attention to the way that immigrant stories are framed? (Thinking about the video analysis in relation to the rhetoric described in both articles above)

●      Do students feel that The Path Home frames the immigrant story in a particular way?