Coming to America: A Nation of Immigrants (1820-Present)

This unit is comprised of 5 modules, each approximately 5-8 days in length. The unit asks students to read and think critically about the impact of immigration on the makeup of the United States’ cultural geography. 

The materials were adapted by the curriculum team from Stamford Public Schools in Stamford, CT during the Adapting Instructional Materials Project. Many districts and schools are waiting until curriculum aligned to the Common Core State Standards comes to the market before buying new materials. Teachers are left to find ways to adapt their current curriculum to meet the new Standards. The Adapting Instructional Materials Project evolved to fill this need. 

In order to meet the demands of the CCSS and significantly increase the level of academically demanding literacy experiences for students, the team developed a plan to adapt the curricular materials in the following ways:

• Organize new units of study that focus on topical reading and writing based on science and social studies topics, rather than skills- and strategy-focused units.
• Select texts that are appropriately complex for the grade and that offer specific knowledge about science and social studies.
• Incorporate text-dependent questions as well as writing tasks and speaking and listening tasks to engage all student with the texts and knowledge.

To learn more about this work and access all of the resources from the project, read the complete case study.