Discover the “Celebrate America” Effect

The American Immigration Council’s “Celebrate America” fifth grade Creative Writing Contest began 19 years ago with just a couple dozen entries. Today, it has grown to over 5,000 entries annually! Since 1997, close to 75,000 students, from nearly 750 schools across the nation have participated. Each year, students write around the theme “Why I’m Glad America is a Nation of Immigrants.”

What continues to surprise us about the contest are the multiple and unforeseen ways the contest affects communities, schools, and individuals.

Click here to read about the evolution of the contest and its impact.

Lasting Relationships

From this contest, we have been able to forge lasting relationships focused on a shared commitment to raising awareness and understanding about immigration and the important role of youth voices. Two immediate examples with extensions for the classroom include:

1) Last year, we had the privilege of meeting the local winner of the Washington, D.C. metro area contest, Marlyse Ngouabe. She read her winning entry at a naturalization oath ceremony along with the national winner, Anya Frazer. Since then, Marlyse, now a sixth-grader continues to write young adult literature reviews on immigration-themed books that her peers might also find appealing to read. To read her latest book review on The Color of My Words, please click here.

“Celebrate America” fifth grade student winners read their entries at a naturalization oath ceremony at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Field Office in Fairfax, VA on June 18, 2015. Pictured Left to Right: 2015 National Winner Anya Frazer, Washington, D.C. winner Marlyse Ngouabe, and Senior Manager of Education at the American Immigration Council, Claire Tesh.

2) Another perk of the contest is that we are extremely fortunate to have an accomplished list of celebrity judges who donate their time to read student entries. This year our judges are: Gerda Weissman-Klein, Founder of Citizenship Counts, Edwidge Danticat, award-winning author, Valentino Achak-Deng, Minister of Education in South Sudan, Arun Toke, founder of Skipping Stones Multicultural Magazine, and Anya Frazer, the 2015 Grand Prize Winner.

Many of our judges volunteer for subsequent years. Author Edwidge Danticat is a returning judge and her novels continue to engage a wide audience on immigration issues. To read our latest book review of her recently released novel, Untwine, please click here. 

Want to Get Involved?

There are many ways to get involved in our work to teach about immigration.

• Celebrate America Creative Writing Contest - If you want to participate in next year’s contest, please click here. If you’ve previously participated in the contest and would like to be included in our 20^th anniversary celebration by offering testimonials, please email us.

• Book Reviews – Do you know an avid young writer or reader interested in the topic of immigration? Or have you read an immigration-themed book you’d like to review? We accept unsolicited reviews. Please email us for more information. 

•  Lesson Plans – If you’ve used our lesson plans, we’d love to know how it went so we can continue to improve it or let us know about a resource or lesson plan you would like us to develop on immigration. Please use this feedback form or email us.  

• Community Grants – We offer community grants to teach about immigration. Click here to learn more and apply.

•  Social Media – Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter @ThnkImmigration 

If you like what we do, please forward this email to a friend or colleague, tell them about us, and share with them this link http://bit.ly/1KdE5Zz to sign up for updates and resources to teach immigration at no cost. Follow us on twitter @ThnkImmigration #teachimmigration.

The First Thanksgiving and the First Immigrants

There are at least as many interpretations of the Thanksgiving story as there are recipes for gravy, but many include disingenuous representations of the meal shared between Native Americans and our nation’s first immigrants.

Teaching about Thanksgiving – comparing its myths and likely realities – is an opportunity to examine multiple perspectives about the dominant Thanksgiving narratives. For example, when the first immigrants arrived in America, what was life like for them? What hardships did they endure? How did the Wampanoag Indians, who had long been holding ceremonies to give thanks for plentiful harvests, respond to these newcomers? 

As Sarah Shear, assistant professor of social studies education at Pennsylvania State University in Altoona and former social studies teacher said in a Huffington Post article, “I think especially in the telling of U.S. history, there is a specific narrative that really does not lend itself to incorporating the voices of people who are not considered members of the dominant cultural group.” 

 

The First Thanksgiving 1621, Piligrims and Natives Gather to Share a Meal, oil painting by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris, 1032 http://loc.gov/pictures/item/2001699850

Moreover, she said that her undergraduate students are "frustrated that they learned a very specific narrative of Thanksgiving and never learned the greater complex narrative of not only the relationship between the indigenous people of New England and the settlers, [but] how those relationships changed over time."

This day has symbolically been marked with unity, gratitude, and welcoming others to sit at the table and eat -- and in this sense too, we can incorporate the less often told versions of the Thanksgiving story to better understand America’s history as a nation of immigrants.

In our lesson plan, The First Americans and the First Thanksgiving, elementary students learn and discuss myths and more probable realities surrounding the first Thanksgiving and the first immigrants in a thought-provoking and humorous read-aloud that challenges them to analyze dominant and resistant readings of this national holiday.

We wish you all a happy holiday with friends and family!

Additional Resources:

•  Celebrate America Creative Writing Contest: Thanksgiving is an opportunity for all to reflect upon what it means to be American and the 19^th annual Creative Writing Contest with the theme “Why I’m Glad America is a Nation of Immigrants” is a perfect vehicle for discussing American immigrant past and present with fifth grade students.  

• Crossing Borders with Digital Storytelling Lesson Plan: Our most popular lesson plan adaptable for K-12 is a powerful way to talk about the diversity of immigration experiences, teach 21^st century skills, and connect with students and their families. Read our tips on “Encouraging Talk at Home” for ways to have roundtable discussions on immigrant heritage this Thanksgiving.

• What Really Happened? Comparing Stories of the First Thanksgiving by The Learning Network: Teaching and Learning with The New York Times - a lesson where middle and high school analyze several different versions of the first Thanksgiving to better understand not only the event itself, but how and why different groups of people interpret the event in radically different ways.

Stay Connected!

We offers free lesson plans, resources, book/film reviews, and grants to teach immigration. We also welcome teacher and student book reviews and contributions to our blog. Email us at teacher@immcouncil.org and follow us on twitter @ThnkImmigration #teachimmigration