Migrant+Farmworkers+Unit

Migrant Farmworkers' Unit:

 * Learning Targets:**
 * I can list the things that are difficult about some farmworkers' lives.
 * I can explain what it means to be a migrant farmworker.
 * I can describe 1 way farmworkers fight for their rights (strikes, boycotts, marches, unions).
 * I can describe the differences between some farmworkers' and farm owners' lives.
 * I can explain similarities and differences between Dr. King and Cesar Chavez.

Week One
Day 1: Make a list as a class: "What do you think you know about who picks your produce?" Write down anything they say. We will refer back to this list and add to it and cross things off as we go.

Day 2: Read __[|Apple Picking Time]__. Students do a reader response sheet during Readers' Workshop: "What did you learn about farmworkers?" At the end of the read aloud, go back to the list we made on Day 1 and add to it / cross things off.

Day 3: Read [|Working Cotton] and add to list again. Talk about what is a "farmworker." Talk about cotton and show a stalk of real cotton if possible; point out children wearing cotton clothes.

Day 4: Read [|Radio Man] and introduce the idea of "migrant" farmworkers. Children continue work on reader response and/or begin a new one about more things they are learning about farmworkers.

Week Two
Read excerpts from [|Lights on a River] and talk about differences between farm owners' house and farmworkers' house

Watch parts of [|The Fight in the Fields] and talk about Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers. Vocab: strike, boycott, freedom fighter, march, union

Read books about Cesar Chavez. Whole-class dramatic play of strikes/boycotts.

Make puppets of farm workers. Build homes and do dramatic play of farmworker lives / activism / boycotts and strikes.

Throughout, continue list of what we know about farmworkers and doing reader response

Read bilingual poems about farmworkers from [|Gathering the Sun].

Final Presentation Suggestions
Sharing at Dr. King assembly (early March)
 * Recite bilingual poems from __Gathering the Sun__ in Spanish and English
 * Choral recitation of quotes by Dr. King and Cesar Chavez
 * Choral recitation of statements comparing the lives of Dr. King and Cesar Chavez