Children’s Literacy:
Home of the Brave by Katherine A. Applegate
This book is a wonderful and well written story from the perspective of a young boy named Kek. Kek is a boy from Sudan who is placed in the home of his aunt after his father and brother are killed and he is separated from his mother. The readers follow Kek as grows accustomed to his new home. The challenges he faces are similar or even familiar to those of other refugees and immigrants.
Over A Thousand Hills I Walk With You by Hanna Jansen
The author of this book is the adoptive mother of the main character, Jeanne. Jeanne is a girl from Rawanda who witnessed the political struggles that killed her family and millions of others. What makes this book so powerful is that it is based on the true story that reflects the 1994 genocide in Rawanda. It tells the story from the perspective of one who lived through those horrors, and yet also healed from them, which is also an important message to send to the students.
Adult Literacy:
Mapping Global Issues: Immigrants and Refugees by Cath Senker
This is an excellent resource for educators who are interested in learning more about refugees and immigrants. This resource discusses factors leading up to these situations, which was helpful for the lesson on reasons refugees exist and to help answer questions students have about that topic. In addition, the book includes information on these people’s history and experiences as well as how people treated them in the past and if others’ attitudes toward them have since changed. What was useful about this resource was that it provided me with information I could provide my students with without relying on stereotypes or assumptions my previous knowledge was based on. In addition, there was information in here that I could use to help increase the knowledge I had on the subject of refugees so that if students asked questions outside the context of the lesson, I could either confidently tell them the answer, or know of a tool I could go to and say “I’ll get back to you on that,” while I look up the answer and provide them with accurate facts.
Tools:
UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home
This resource provides a working definition for what is a refugee as well as a tool that provides teachers with multiple resources to use for lessons or lesson planning. The UNHCR will be a program defined for the students in one of the lessons and so this website also is a good site to use for information about how UNHCR helps refugees.
http://www.unrefugees.org/atf/cf/%7Bd2f991c5-a4fb-4767-921f-a9452b12d742%7D/TC_ELEM_LP_12OCT11.PDF
This PDF is filled with lessons that teachers can use, adapt, or even find other resources from to teach about the topic of refugees to their students. From here teachers can find multiple activities and video clips to help them with their units and answer guiding and essential questions.
Home of the Brave by Katherine A. Applegate
This book is a wonderful and well written story from the perspective of a young boy named Kek. Kek is a boy from Sudan who is placed in the home of his aunt after his father and brother are killed and he is separated from his mother. The readers follow Kek as grows accustomed to his new home. The challenges he faces are similar or even familiar to those of other refugees and immigrants.
Over A Thousand Hills I Walk With You by Hanna Jansen
The author of this book is the adoptive mother of the main character, Jeanne. Jeanne is a girl from Rawanda who witnessed the political struggles that killed her family and millions of others. What makes this book so powerful is that it is based on the true story that reflects the 1994 genocide in Rawanda. It tells the story from the perspective of one who lived through those horrors, and yet also healed from them, which is also an important message to send to the students.
Adult Literacy:
Mapping Global Issues: Immigrants and Refugees by Cath Senker
This is an excellent resource for educators who are interested in learning more about refugees and immigrants. This resource discusses factors leading up to these situations, which was helpful for the lesson on reasons refugees exist and to help answer questions students have about that topic. In addition, the book includes information on these people’s history and experiences as well as how people treated them in the past and if others’ attitudes toward them have since changed. What was useful about this resource was that it provided me with information I could provide my students with without relying on stereotypes or assumptions my previous knowledge was based on. In addition, there was information in here that I could use to help increase the knowledge I had on the subject of refugees so that if students asked questions outside the context of the lesson, I could either confidently tell them the answer, or know of a tool I could go to and say “I’ll get back to you on that,” while I look up the answer and provide them with accurate facts.
Tools:
UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home
This resource provides a working definition for what is a refugee as well as a tool that provides teachers with multiple resources to use for lessons or lesson planning. The UNHCR will be a program defined for the students in one of the lessons and so this website also is a good site to use for information about how UNHCR helps refugees.
http://www.unrefugees.org/atf/cf/%7Bd2f991c5-a4fb-4767-921f-a9452b12d742%7D/TC_ELEM_LP_12OCT11.PDF
This PDF is filled with lessons that teachers can use, adapt, or even find other resources from to teach about the topic of refugees to their students. From here teachers can find multiple activities and video clips to help them with their units and answer guiding and essential questions.