Teaching Geography and Immigration through a great song....

[Andrea O'Neill]

Check this out - great geography/US History lesson. After each verse, stop the song and ask the students questions - where are they? why is the schoolmaster writing the letter? why don't they visit? what trouble is Michael in? I found that they enjoy trying to solve the "mystery" about what is going on and this gets at their emotions, especially the end. I used it with 7th graders. GREAT IMMIGRATION lesson! The link below will take you to the lyrics and part of the song, but I believe the original musician is Peter James, not Peter Jones.
http://www.chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics/kilkelly.html
I found it on itunes, but not the original musician.

[Ryan Goble]

Andrea! Thank you so much for sharing this resource!! RRG:)

[Andrea O'Neill]

NP - It truly is one of my favorites and one of the best lessons in terms of how it went over with the kids.

[Ryan Goble]

BTW - have you checked out this Ani DiFranco song "Paradigm" - great for Immigration & Citizenship...

I was born to two immigrants
Who knew why they were here
They were happy to pay taxes
For the schools and roads
Happy to be here
They took it seriously
The second job of citizenry
My mother went campaigning door to door
And holding to her hand was me

I was just a girl in a room full of women
Licking stamps and laughing
I remember the feeling of community brewing
Of democracy happening

But I suppose like anybody
I had to teach myself to see
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to church
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to school
All that stuff that got lost
On its way to the house of my family
All that stuff that was not lost on me

Teach myself to see each of us
Through the lens of forgiveness
Like we're stuck with each other (god forbid!)
Teach myself to smile and stop and talk
To a whole other color kid
Teach myself to be new in an instant
Like the truth is accessible at any time
Teach myself it's never really one or the other
There's a paradox in every paradigm

I was just a girl in a room full of women
Licking stamps and laughing
I remember the feeling of community brewing
Of democracy happening

[Michael]

Thanks Andrea & Ryan
I'm teaching 3 classes of US History to mostly immigrant students. I'll try this out

[Ryan Goble]

Hey Michalel,

Cool - hope things are going well - tell Chuck and co. I said howdy!

RRG:)