Chinatowns: Stories of Resilience

Meredith O'Brien Moseley

Tier 1

Lesson Plan

Chinatowns: Stories of Resilience Lesson Plan

Students will explore diverse narratives within America's Chinatowns via the Google Arts & Culture platform, identifying examples of Chinese American agency, resilience, and cultural preservation, and reflecting on their significance.

Understanding the history of Chinatowns offers crucial insights into the Chinese American experience, highlighting struggles, triumphs, and the enduring power of cultural identity. This lesson promotes empathy and a deeper appreciation for diverse historical contributions.

Audience

10th Grade US History Students

Time

55 minutes

Approach

Students will engage in guided digital exploration, followed by small group discussion and individual reflection.

Materials

Google Arts & Culture link: https://artsandculture.google.com/project/americas-chinatowns, Chinatowns: Warm-Up, Chinatowns: Project Guide, Chinatowns: Discussion Questions, and Chinatowns: Cool-Down

Prep

Review Materials and Online Resource

15 minutes

Review the Google Arts & Culture Project: Familiarize yourself with the content available at the provided link: https://artsandculture.google.com/project/americas-chinatowns. While students will choose their own focus, having a general understanding will help facilitate discussions.
Print/Prepare Materials: Make copies or prepare for digital distribution of the Chinatowns: Warm-Up, Chinatowns: Project Guide, Chinatowns: Discussion Questions, and Chinatowns: Cool-Down.
Technology Setup: Ensure computers/tablets with internet access are available for each student or pair of students, and that the link is easily accessible.

Step 1

Warm-Up: Connecting to Community

5 minutes

Distribute the Chinatowns: Warm-Up.
Instruct students to complete the warm-up individually.
After 3-4 minutes, briefly discuss responses as a whole class, focusing on the idea of community and cultural identity. (e.g., "What makes a community feel unique? How do people preserve their culture within a larger society?")

Step 2

Introduction & Guided Exploration

25 minutes

Introduce the Google Arts & Culture project, "America's Chinatowns," explaining that today's lesson will focus on exploring the agency, resilience, and culture of Chinese Americans.
Distribute the Chinatowns: Project Guide.
Explain that students will have 20 minutes to explore the website, choosing an area that interests them. Emphasize that they are not expected to see everything, but rather to delve deeply into one or two chosen aspects.
Guide students to use the project guide to help them focus their exploration and take notes on examples of agency, resilience, and culture they discover.
Circulate the room, offering assistance and prompting students to consider the guiding questions on their project guide.

Step 3

Small Group Discussion

15 minutes

Divide students into small groups (3-4 students per group).
Distribute the Chinatowns: Discussion Questions.
Instruct groups to share what they found most interesting from their exploration and discuss the questions on the sheet, encouraging them to cite specific examples from the website.
Circulate among groups, listening to discussions, and posing follow-up questions to deepen their analysis (e.g., "How did this particular example demonstrate resilience? What challenges did the community face?")

Step 4

Cool-Down: Personal Reflection

10 minutes

Bring the class back together.
Distribute the Chinatowns: Cool-Down.
Ask students to individually reflect on what they learned and how their chosen aspect of the Chinatowns project connects to broader themes of US History or their own understanding of culture and community.
Collect the cool-downs as an exit ticket.

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Warm Up

Chinatowns: Warm-Up

Instructions: Take a few minutes to respond to the prompts below.

Think about a community or neighborhood you know that has a strong cultural identity (it could be your own, or one you've visited or learned about). What makes that community unique?
Why do you think it's important for communities to maintain their culture and traditions, especially when they are part of a larger, different culture?