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Review
| The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Teaching Guide [Lesson Plans], by National Park Service. New York: The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, 2003, 39 pages. $ no cost for classroom teachers, paper.
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| In the his bestselling book A Call to Heroism: Renewing America's Vision of Greatness, Peter Gibbon provides one of the best definitions of monuments and memorials—which comes from the Latin word memoria, meaning remembrance. Professor Gibbon defines the role of these "primary sources in stone and metal" as "one way of reaching out to those who lived before us, of remembering those who built America, one way of honoring heroes and greatness." Perhaps the most treasured of these national monuments and an endearing symbol of the American spirit is the Statue of Liberty. For millions of Americans, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi's sculpture serves as a symbol of liberty, opportunity, and hope. Just as the Statue of Liberty is an image that is forever a part of our collective memory, so too are the photographs of the countless haunting and nameless faces that were funneled through Ellis Island during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, faces of people in search of the same dream and promise that seems to radiate from the Statue of Liberty. As a nation of immigrants, both of these images are indelibly ingrained in our memories from kindergarten through adulthood. |
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Through a generous grant made nearly a decade ago, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation has made possible the publication of The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Teaching Guide. The teaching guide, which actually consists of two curriculum guides, one focusing on the Statue of Liberty and the other on the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, is designed for elementary and middle school social studies teachers—in particular third grade through eighth grade. The intent or purpose of both teaching guides, in the words of their curriculum designers, is to enhance or heighten students' knowledge and understanding of immigration and the role the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island have played in American history. Both teaching guides introduce background information on the history of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island as well as on the history of nineteenth and twentieth century immigration. After providing this informative foundation for students, the teaching guides then introduce a series of classroom activities that examine the major concepts and themes in more depth. The teaching activities include a writing exercise in which students examine the contribution of publisher Joseph Pulitzer in raising funds to construct the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty, a storyboard activity in which students assess the role of other key individuals (i.e., Edouard de Laboulaye, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel) in the building of the Statue of Liberty, role play activities on the immigrant experience, and activities in which students are asked to analyze immigration statistics and excerpts from oral interview transcripts. For each of these classroom activities, teachers are provided with a set of reproducible materials that include student activity forms and worksheets as well as the primary document prompts. Teachers that plan on taking their students on a field trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Immigration Museum will find the on-site teaching activities included at the end of the guide to be an invaluable resource as well. |
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In addition to the print version teaching guides there are also other curriculum resources available online at the Statue of Liberty Web site, www.nps.gov/stli/index.htm, and Ellis Island Immigration Museum Web site, www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm. Among the many items available at both of these sites, teachers will find the "Park in a Pack" education kits of particular interest. The "Park in a Pack" traveling education kits, which are loaned out to teachers for only the cost of return postage, include teaching videos, posters, materials for classroom simulations and role play activities, and a variety of other classroom teaching prompts. In addition to "Park in a Pack" kits, teachers may also download the "Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Pre-Visit Activities" curriculum packet. The twelve-page packet includes a number of activities relating to the immigrant experience, which address such topics and issues as medical examinations, legal inspections, and citizenship requirements. Whether teachers are planning on visiting these national monuments or not, they will appreciate the convergent and divergent thinking activities included in this PDF-formatted curriculum packet. |
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The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Teaching Guide is indeed a valuable resource for elementary and middle school teachers. Unlike many other teaching guides on historical topics, however, this one does not sacrifice history at the altar of pedagogical innovation. Instead, it offers teachers and students an engaging and challenging set of classroom activities that make historical research and primary documents the central focus. Students are asked to conduct investigations in the same manner as professional historians and they are also required to view the immigrant experience through a historically empathetic approach that helps them to better understand and appreciate the value of historical perspective. The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Teaching Guide appears to be perfectly aligned with the National Standards for History Era 6: "The Development of the Industrial United States—Standard 2: Massive immigration after 1870." The only shortcoming of The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Teaching Guide, which is currently being addressed by the National Park Service, is that some of the information included in the teaching guide is nearly a decade old. The guide, however, is being updated and will hopefully take even more advantage of the digital environment in which we teach by offering more online resources and reproducible worksheets and primary document sets, similar to the format used to showcase the historical documents available at the "Our Documents" Web site, available at www.ourdocuments.gov. In the interim, teachers will still find The Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Teaching Guide to be an ideal resource for teaching this critical period in history and for building an understanding and appreciation for the role these two national treasures played in American history and continue to play in our collective national memory. |
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| Ball State University |
D. Antonio Cantu |
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