Right Now: Refugee Awareness
Supplemental Enrichment
Lesson 3Refugee Stories: Direct from the Source
Annotating a narrative will make the process of understanding the stories and situations of displaced persons much simpler and interactive for students. The UNHCR has a
stories page that is a great source for providing students with examples of refugees’ journeys and experiences in their home countries as well as leaving for and arriving in a new place. Once you have browsed the site, select a narrative for your students to focus on as a class.
- Instruct students to search for the following elements and make notations:
- Vocabulary from the list of terms
- Reasons behind displacement
- Process of displacement
- Changes in status
- First, place a copy of the narrative on the board, or distribute copies of your selected narrative and encourage students to circle any parts that stand out, confuse them, or seem important. Inquire why certain pieces were circled by each student. Instruct the class to collaborate to determine the narrative’s theme and draw arrows to the lines that support the theme. Remind students that an analysis consists of facts and commentaries. It is not a summary, a listing of facts, or random conclusion without support.
- Encourage students to continue sharing or writing anything that comes to mind as the lesson moves on and acknowledge all efforts with appreciation. Clarify that analyses should specifically explain how their evidence supports the theme.
- If possible, book computer lab time, or instruct students to select a narrative from the UNHCR stories page they find interesting. They can prepare a brief one minute summary about their selected story for the next class.
Rock Your World is a program of Creative Visions
Rock Your World is a Program of Creative Visions, a 501(c) (3) organization that supports creative activists - individuals who use the power of media and arts to create positive change in the world.
