Talking About Immigration: Classroom Resources
The following multimedia resources offer classroom materials and lesson plans for all ages about the topic of immigration in the United States. We also include a list of related booklists below. Classroom materials on the topic of family separations at the border are available in this updated resource section.
Featured Articles
Related Video
Recommended Resources
In addition to the lesson plans organized by topic below, we recommend Larry Ferlazzo's series of guests posts on teaching controversial topics in the classroom from Education Week.
AdLit.org: Immigration Text Set
AdLit.org has compiled a text set for use with middle and high school students around the topic of immigration. A text set utilizes a collection of texts and other materials on a particular topic or theme that allows students to access the same standards-based curricula from varying reading levels and perspectives, while also building a shared understanding of a topic or theme.
Lesson Plans & Classroom Resources: Immigration
- Listenwise: Immigration Collection
- The New York Times Learning Network Lesson Plans (search by term "immigration")
- Coming to America (The New York Times)
- Immigration Policy and Rights (Share My Lesson)
- The Immigrant Experience (Share My Lesson)
- The New Americans (Independent Lens)
- Immigration Lesson Plans (Library of Congress)
- Tenement Museum Lesson Plans
- Energy of a Nation (Intergroup Resources)
- Global Immigration (Facing History)
- Immigrant Student Success Workshop: Educator Resources (Immigration Learning Center)
- 8 National Park Sites That Tell the Story of Immigration (National Parks Conservation Association)
KQED Resources
- Immigrant Voices
- Interactive Timeline: A History of Immigration in America
- Coming To America: Our Best Student Podcasts About Immigration
PBS NewsHour Extra and Colorín Colorado
- ICE immigration raids took this school superintendent by surprise
- How the Statue of Liberty poem provides a lesson in immigration history
- Lesson Plan: The power of photographs from Vietnam to the border crisis
- How Michigan schools welcome refugees from Syria and Yemen
Classroom resources: The 14th Amendment
- What is the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause? (PBS NewsHour)
- Birthright citizenship: A history lesson on the Fourteenth Amendment (The Washington Post)
- Fact Check: Fourteenth Amendment on Citizenship Cannot Be Overwritten by Executive Order (NPR)
- Fourteenth Amendment and Citizenship (Library of Congress)
- Lesson Plan: Exploring the Fourteenth Amendment (Judicial Learning Center)
- Overview: Fourteenth Amendment (Cornell Law School)
- 14th Amendment Text (Teaching Tolerance)
Booklists for Kids and Teens
ELL, Immigrant, and Refugee Stories: Books for Kids
- Back-to-School Stories
- ELL Stories
- Family Separation: Stories and More
- Immigration Stories: Books for Young Children
- Immigrant Stories: Angel Island
- Immigrant Stories: Ellis Island
- Immigrant Stories: Family Keepsakes
- Immigrant Stories: Home at Last
- Immigrant Stories: Life Along the Border
- Immigration Stories: Hispanic Heritage
- Irish Stories: Immigration and More
- Migrant Farmworker Families: Books for Kids
- Syrian Stories: Books for Children
- The Refugee Experience: Books for Children
ELL, Immigrant, and Refugee Stories: Books for Young Adults
- Immigration Stories: A New Life
- Immigration Stories: Crossing the Border
- Migrant Stories for Young Adults
- Refugee Stories from Africa
- Refugee Stories from Asia
- Refugee Stories from Europe
- Refugee Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan
- Refugees: Books for Middle Grades
- Undocumented: Stories of Young Immigrants