Book title: "I'm New Here"
Author/Illustrator: Ann Sibley O'Brien
Publisher: Charlesbridge, Copyright 2015
Number of pages: 32
Genre: Fiction
Young immigrants from Guatemala, Somalia, and Korea are struggling to adjust in their new elementary school in the United States of America. There is a huge language barrier between these immigrant students, their peers, and their teachers. However, the school community makes sure that these students are well supported and encouraged. This treatment allows for these young students to build confidence and persevere through this new school year in a new place. They still hold their home language and culture close to their hearts as they become accustomed to their new home.The illustrations in this story do an excellent job at showing the diversity that comes about within the school. It realistically shows the difference in skin tones that children may see while at school. They are also able to see different dress required by other cultures other than our own. These would be great teachable moments.
Grade Level: 3
Content Area: ELA (Literature)
Standard: 2) Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.
This book would be great for a read aloud, especially if you are expecting a new student that may not be from America. I always like discussing the book in whole group to see the reactions about the story and their own perspectives. I believe that breaking them into groups for further discussion and to create something to show that they know the moral of the story using key details from the text would be beneficial. They could create a book blog online and respond to a given prompt. Their book blogs could be on a safe website on which all of their classmates, teachers, and parents could see. They could comment back and forth with each other, debating and discussing what they think the central message is.
I love the idea of reading this book aloud as a class when expecting a new student from another culture. This is a great way to teach our students that it is a good thing to be different and that everyone is different from each other.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of asking your students to respond on the book blog. I think that activity is a fun and engaging way for the students to respond to the book.
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