Student Resources:

• Reasons for Migration Essay

Teacher Resources:

• Butcher paper or drawing paper
• Donner Party Memorial Image
• Modes of Reading Teacher Support Resource

Engage

• Display the image of the Donner Party Memorial and ask students the following questions:
  • What do you see?
  • What does body language tell us?
  • What story do you think this memorial is telling?
  • Look at the words on the plaque. Do they match the tone or the message of the statue? Why or why not?

Explore

• Read the essay, utilizing an option from the Modes of Reading Teacher Support Resource.
• Assign or let students pick an emigrant to the west (such as a member of the Donner party, cowboy, gold prospector, wife accompanying her husband, single young man looking for work, farmer looking for land, Mormon, Native American)
• Each student, in their role, creates a “Voice of the West” mini-museum exhibit
  • Each student creates an exhibit panel for their assigned character-this should include a short bio, quote (written in character), and one symbolic item or image.
  • Students may need to complete additional research.

Assess & Reflect

• Class Discussion:
  • Prompt students to reflect on their learning with some questions:
    • If you were able to choose between moving west or not, would you have gone? What opportunities might you have gone after? Explain.
    • Imagine, because of your age, what emotions might you have experienced?

AND/OR

• Display and Gallery Walk:
  • Post the museum exhibit posters around the room. Other students walk through and complete a gallery walk sheet that asks them to identify common motivations, hardships, or contrasting experiences.