The cost of 15 social studies videos, including titles such as America's Great Indian Leaders, The Gold Rush, and Ellis Island, all from Social Studies School Service is $580, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
I am a 5th grade teacher at Charles Pinckney Elementary in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. I teach social studies, reading and writing to 60 students. I have an inclusion class, which means that I have to teach the same information in many different ways using differentiated instruction. With inclusion students, it is very important to use a variety of tools to stimulate and spark the love of history. The use of movie clips as a primary document is an essential element to a lesson because it can be used to introduce a topic such as immigration. I plan to use excerpts from the movie "Ellis Island" to hook the students into my immigration unit. In the movie students will see the physical and verbal tests that all immigrants had to take when coming to America. After watching the clips I plan to have the students participate in reenactments of these tests within the classroom. They will also take the written test given to people wanting to become an American citizen. All these activities tie back to the first movie called "Ellis Island." Now the students can see (using the movie), feel (using the reenactments) and participate (taking the written citizenship test) in the immigration process. Movies can also be used to end or culminate a unit of study. I am excited about using the movie "4 Little Girls" as a wrap-up for a large civil rights unit that I teach. In reading, the students read a historical fiction book called The Watson's Go to Birmingham which ends with one of the main characters barely surviving the bombing of a church in Birmingham. The author of that book pulls you into actual events from 1963, when "4 Little Girls" were killed while at Sunday school. After reading the book and studying these events in social studies class, I plan to show the movie "4 Little Girls," so that the students can actually see the events that led up to this horrible event in our American history. It is so important for the students to be exposed to a variety of events in history: tough battles, inspirational speakers, heart-wrenching Vietnam War survivor stories and destructive bombings. If the students are taught using primary documents such as movies, they will be able to mimic the positive powerful leaders and never again allow the terrible atrocities of hatred and murder reoccur in America or across the world.
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