Safety+in+Migrant+Camps


 * Bethany Doorlag **
 * bethany.l.doorlag@wmich.edu **

= Safety in Migrant Camps =

This Literary practices event is designed for a classroom of 9th grade students who are the children of migrant workers in Michigan. Most of them are from Mexico or the southern states and are bilingual or trilingual, speaking Spanish or an indigenous language at home. Because they are the children of migrant workers, they are usually from low income level families and have inconsistency in their education from the frequent movement of their families due to their work. media type="youtube" key="6pZcQCqKCZ0" width="420" height="315" A brief video about migrant workers in Michigan
 * Event participants **

This event focuses on changing the level of safety in the migrant camps. Many times migrant camps are unsanitary, crowded, and run down. There will often be problems with electricity, pests, fire, water, sexual assault, and disease. Because my students often live in these camps, they will be very concerned about changing these norms and excited to work toward a safer environment in the camps. In order to change the current situation of many migrant camps, we will plan a meeting with the owner/employer of one of the camps and bring forward the concerns of the migrant families. The students will prepare for this by researching the statistics of safety problems in migrant camps caused by the camp environment and then making a “Did you know” youtube video about their findings, having a group debate, including pre-debates on a class web forum (i.e. http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/What_should_be_the_standards_for_a_safe_migrant_camp_environment), writing letters to government officials asking for changes in state laws, and writing speeches to present to the owner/employer of the camp.
 * Event description and relevance **

media type="youtube" key="tZKpLODGBOI" width="420" height="315" //A brief video about conditions for migrant workers in camps and at work.//

**Identities**


 * · Migrant workers (parents)
 * · Owner/Employer of a migrant camp
 * · Students (from a migrant family)
 * · Neighbors of the Owner/Employer
 * · State Representative
 * · Lawyer (for Migrant Workers and for Owner/Employer)
 * · Migrant camp leader

The students will be able to understand the activities through their own personal experiences living in migrant camps, stories from people they know, and the research that they will do about safety conditions in migrant camps. This understanding can be guided by class discussion and journaling assignments. Collaboration in the Classroom The online debate forum (as shown linked under // Event description and relevance //) will help students to relate to the perspectives of each other and other members of the community. This will be a place where they can explore different possible positions on the issue which they have discovered in their research. In order to create the “Did you know” youtube video, students will need to work in groups to create a script and film or make a slideshow. Also, the final debate will also require the classroom to collaborate as two different groups. Students will need to work together in order to decide which speeches should actually be presented to the Owner/Employer. Assigned Reading and connecting to the event Students will read narratives, scholarly articles, and government documents about the conditions in migrant camps. This reading can include: Students can use the statistics from the government documents and scholarly documents to help them with their debates and with their youtube videos. The narratives can serve to foster classroom discussions and journal entries.
 * Framing the event **
 * · http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19894164
 * · http://www.michigan.gov/mdard/0,4610,7-125-1569_45168---,00.html
 * · // The Circuit: Stories from the life of a migrant child //, Francisco Jimenez
 * · // Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza //, Gloria Anzaldúa
 * · // Harvest of Memories: A migrant worker’s collection of short stories //, Richard H. Perez
 * · // Under the Feet of Jesus //, Helena Maria Viramontes
 * · // And the Earth did not devour Him/Y no se lo trago la tierra //, Tomas Rivera



Through this event, students will write journal entries, official letters, speeches, scripts, online arguments, and debates. In the example of the debate and the script, the writing can be multimodal because students will be able to use different forms for both of these: one for online debating forums and a more formal class debate, and one script for teacher viewing and a final live script on youtube. Through this event, students will be able not only to learn about their classmates’ perspectives on the safety conditions in migrant camps, but also the potential perspectives of government representatives, migrant employers, and the community. Through this knowledge, they will be able to look at their own previous perspectives and either maintain them or change them according to the new knowledge which they will obtain. They will also learn about the history of migrant workers in the U.S. and how the government has dealt with migrant workers from Mexico in the past. By the end of the unit, students will have the opportunity to attempt social change through a community meeting with a migrant camp owner/employer. Students will engage in metacognition through the online forum debates and through creating a letter to send to the state government. Both of these assignments provide students with the necessity to analyze why they believe what they do about the conditions of migrant camps and how to present their beliefs in a convincing manner. This unit will meet the CCSS for 9th grade students in reading informational texts, and writing arguments and explanatory texts.
 * Kinds of Writing Utilized **
 * Critical Thinking and Social Change **
 * Metacognition **
 * Common Core Standards **