Trump advisor Stephen Miller gave a speech last night proclaiming “America is for Americans and Americans only.”
It seems to me this kind of xenophobic commentary could offer an opportunity for us to help our students explore the question, “Who is an American?”
Language creates some challenges for my ELL Newcomer class, but I have in the past done a simple lesson on Langston Hughes poem, “I, Too,” and have a guest post with downloadable handouts for it.
If I was teaching more advanced ELLs, or English-proficient students, here are some other resources I might use:
The Writing Project has lots of resources on an activity they did titled What Does It Mean To Be An American?
What Is An American? is from The Cato Institute.
What Is an American? is a student-written column.
What does it mean to be an American? is from Brookings.
The history of being ‘American’ is from Stump and Associates.
What Does It Mean To Be An American? is an interactive site for students developed by Stanford.
How are We Defined as Americans?: Lesson Plan | And Then They Came for Us is from PBS.
This is a video I would pair with the discussion and we would make a list on the board of “What is an American? and compare it to other explorations of national identity, ie, “What does it mean to be French in France?”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeSf…
— Nick Covington (@covingtonedu.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 8:41 AM
Trump advisor Stephen Miller gave a speech last night proclaiming “America is for Americans and Americans only.” It seems to me this kind of xenophobic commentary could offer an opportunity for us to help our students explore the question, “Who is an American?” Language creates some challenges for my ELL Newcomer class, but I best of the year, ESL Web Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
