Students having an “authentic audience” for their work – in other words, someone other than their teacher – can have a major positive effect on motivation (you can see the research behind this claim at The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience”).
Here are the best places that students can share their own immigration stories, and/or those of their families, so that an authentic audience can read or see them. Their stories can also remain anonymous at these sites by using a pseudonym:
Clearly, the best one is from the University of Minnesota – Immigrant Stories. Their announcement today that they are expanding their local program internationally (see the NBC News article, Immigrant Story Archiving Project to Expand Internationally) is what prompted me to post this list. It’s a video archive, and it includes a step-by-step interactive on planning a video, including offering specific suggestions of topics (for example, focusing on an object).
“My Immigration Story” is designed for immigrants to share their story in 200 words or less. It’s specifically designed to:
Let other Americans know how the current generation of immigrants is helping enrich this land of opportunity.
The famous New York City Tenement Museum, located near where my father was raised, has just expanded its facility and website. You can read more about it at NBC News, NYC’s Tenement Museum Will Now Showcase a Puerto Rican Migrant Family . They’ve added some additional nice resources. One is Your Story, Our Story is a digital archive where students can upload images of family objects and their stories. It has lots of decent free lesson plans to use with it.
Thanks to the National Writing Project, I learned about Define American.Immigrants are invited to share “what you think makes a person a part of this country” by recording a short video or uploading an image and providing voice narration.
Let me know if you know of other similar sites!