Community Portfolio: Family, Community and World
NHPRC QIH Assignment Title:
Community Portfolio: Family, Community and World
This assignment was created by the participant educator named below as part of the Queens Immigration History curriculum development project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission division of the National Archives (grant #DH-50022-16). For more information on this grant project, please visit the Queens Immigration History website at https://queensimmigrationhistory.wordpress.com
NHPRC QIH Assignment Creator
Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator Lucas Rule (C1, July 2017 – June 2018). Lucas has over 15 years of experience as a social studies teacher in NYC. He is currently teacher at Pathways College Preparatory School in St. Albans. Prior to Pathways, Lucas taught at Jamaica High School. He has taught multiple history courses in each of these schools. Lucas also worked to develop and implement a geography course as well as a successful law program at Jamaica High School. Since joining Pathways HS, Lucas has worked to expand the advanced placement and college course offerings that are taught in it social studies department.
Summary/ Description Overview:
Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator Lucas Rule for Global 9/10 Course. Adaptable to other grades. A series of 8 assignments that connect the significance of objects, story telling, place, tradition and community research both to family history to world history. Student choose 4 completed assignments for a portfolio to represent their work for the course,
Purpose/Learning Goal
- To apply historical thinking (complexity, causality, change over time, contingency, context).
- To create a project that connects world history to personal family history.
Task/Assignment/Activity
Task 1: Object or Personal Story
For this task , select either assignment A or B. Both options require both a visual and written piece.
A - Object/Idea Think about an object that is related to you or your family. This object may be a real object or it may be an idea/concept that relates to your family/background. For example, a real/tangible object would be the timer that your grandmother uses to keep track of when meals are ready. A concept or idea could be stars in the night time sky that are part of bedtime stories that were told to you as a child. For the object, concept, or idea:
- What is it?
- Describe the circumstances/story related to the object. What if any events are related to the object or idea? When possible include names, dates, meanings, etc.
- Explain how this object, concept, idea has affected you and your family
- Create a sketch of the object or take a picture. Include this below/behind your writing.
- In a short paragraph after the picture/sketch; Describe how the look/appearance of the object relates/connects to the story that it tells?
B - Personal Familiar Story How would you describe your family? What is your family story? Think about where your family came from. Think about the country your family has cultural connections to? Are you a first generation American? Are your parents? Grandparents? Great grandparents? How does your family and its background affect your life today? Think about food, languages spoken, people you live with, holidays, and special events. Your family can consist of anything familiar. You can write about your biological family, your school family, your adopted family, your friend family, etc. What is your Familiar Story?
After your writing, have a picture or sketch of your family or something related to your familiar story. In a short paragraph after the picture/sketch; Describe how the look/appearance of the picture and how it relates to your personal familiar story?
Task 2: The Community
It is often said that it takes a village to raise a person. This adage means that we are all affected about the community where we live, work, play, hang out, go to school, etc. In short, the world around us shapes the people that we are. A community is a place where people are connected. Think about your community. It can be any place where you are connected to others. Select a specific place, object, event that is part of that community. It can be anything relate/connected to that community; except a person. (It can not be a person because this was part of Task 1 and will be part of future assignments as well.) For the place/object/event complete the following in a narrative:
- Describe the place/object/event
- Identify and explain your connection to this place/object/event
- Why is this place/object/event a meaningful part of your community?
- How has this place/object/event impacted you? (How would you be different without this place/object/event?)
- Take a picture/draw a sketch of the person/place/object/event. Attach it to your write up.
Task 3: Delving into the Community
This task goes further into the definition of the community; once again, choose either Assignment A or Assignment B
A --Tradition in the Community - Think about the community that you identified in Task 2. Select a part of the culture or tradition that is expressed in that community. This may include a house of worship, a school, a playground, a library, a restaurant. Remember that culture incorporates all the ways in which a group of people live. What is a way that your community expresses itself? Describe, in detail (using the 5WH – who, what, where, when, why, how) the culture expressed in your community. Is this related to other groups/areas? How is the culture/tradition/way of life similar to other areas? How is it different? Include a visual. This could be a menu, a program, a sketch, or a photograph. At the end of your write up, identify and explain the connection and significance of the visual you selected.
B - Community Problems - Communities face struggles as well as success. Think about the community that you reported on in Task 2. Within that community, what is one challenge that the community faces? This may be a current challenge, a past challenge, or even a potential challenge of the future. Describe the challenge. Identify how the challenge affects the community? Does this impact a particular group within the community? Or is it something that affects the overall community? What are possible solutions to this problem? If the problem is being addressed, how successful or unsuccessful is the solution? At the end of the write up, include a visual of the problem/or its solution. The visual can be sketch or a photograph of something that is related. If necessary, provide a caption that describes the connection of the visual.
Task 4 Interviews
We are all influenced by others in our family and our community. Think of one person who has influenced your story. This could be a friend, family member, teacher, minister, co-worker, etc. Think about questions that you can ask them to find more information about their story. The purpose of this assignment is to get information about an individual. The individual is connected to your story; however -they will not tell your story. Only you can tell your story! The subject of the interview you have will tell their story. In this interview, you will try to get as much information as your subject feels comfortable sharing. Remember, not everyone is comfortable sharing the same amount of information. Please be respectful of this. This person may be someone who has lived in your community for a very long time. This person may be someone new who you would like to learn more from. This person may be someone you admire and respect. This person may be a close friend of family member. Create a T chart interview set up. Your interview should have 8 questions beyond basic biographical information (Name, Place, Date of Birth). See your teacher before you have the interview to make sure your questions are approved. See the Queens Memory guide for sample questions and Oral History Tips and Tricks.
Task 5 Storyboard
We have investigated our stories. Now, we are going to create a four frame storyboard that describes who we are by synthesizing/putting together all of the information. Include the following:
- Box 1 – Family or Object Story
- Box 2 – Community (this includes the community and its tradition or problem)
- Box 3 – Interview
- Box 4 – YOU
The information in boxes one, two, and three come from our earlier assignments. Box four asks you to think about you as you are today. How has the information that you discovered added to your own story? Create a short write up where you explain the answer to this prompt.
Task 6 Personal Flag/Shield
Create a small shield/crest/flag that incorporates your definition of who you are. This can be displayed like a medieval shield or it can be displayed like a small flag. All images must take up an 8.5 x 11” paper. Select one part of the flag or shield and explain its significance. For the description include: What is it? Why is part of the larger shield/flag? Why is this an important part of your story?
Assignment 7 Our Story Location
Students will be asked to complete a mini-family tree. This will have a place where students can identify and note their own place of birth, their parents place of birth, and their grandparents. Note: During our International Celebration, students will map out their family location on a school map. For more concentrated areas, we will have expanded detailed maps.
Task 8 Places and Stories
Students will create the following on standard piece of oaktag/presentation paper:
- Students will create a flag from a country. Students will sign up to create a flag for a particular nation. At most two flags will be created from a country.
- Students will also create a fact sheet that will be turned in with the oaktag flag. The fact sheet will include the following information:
- Name of Country
- Capital city
- Languages spoken
- Leader
- Top three belief systems practiced
- Three interesting facts about the country
Resources from the NHPRCQIH LibGuide:
Queens Memory Project Tab – assistance with conducting open ended Interviews, and local NYC interviews
Genealogy Tab – assistance with family tree and Genealogy resources
National and Global Resources Tab -- to assist you in looking at historical push-pull factors, newspapers and primary resources from country of origin
NYC Resources Tab – for demographic data, NYC historical newspapers
This NHPRC Teacher Participant assignment was created by Lucas Rule
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States