About This Lesson
This activity is a good way to kick off the school year and start your social studies class. It will walk you through discussing a set of essential questions related to the movement of people. It'll help your students participate in the discussion, help you get to know your students, and prime the pump so that your students think about these themes throughout the year.
The attached Powerpoint includes three essential questions. Each slide has starts with one key essential question, and then it has some probing questions and some picture prompts. A good activity to start with is to have the students do a Think Pair Share or a quick write so that students can get some thoughts out.
For suggestions on how to use this activity and present it to your class, read this. The key questions are - why do people move and migrate, can people move freely, and how does movement change people.
The activity closes ends with a writing assignment to wrap up. You could assign this as homework, or you could collect an exit ticket on the way out.
While this activity works fine as a stand alone discussion, it's best when you combine it with a thematic approach to your course. You can combine the essential questions about movement with those about other themes: economics, civics, equality, and conflict. This way, your students will be better able to make connections between different units and time periods, and they'll have a deeper understanding of the content.
