Chinatown Resource Guide

Teaching Tools

Building a Community: San Francisco's Chinatown

This lesson relates to the following topic from the California History-Social Science Framework for grade eight:

Linking Past to Present

GOAL

Students will understand the value of community in the support and development of its members' lives.

TIME REQUIRED

1 CLASS PERIOD - discussion and video
1 CLASS PERIOD - project outline
1 CLASS PERIOD - poster presentation

PLUS STUDENT TIME FOR RESEARCH

VOCABULARY

PROCEDURE

1. Give students a brief amount of time to write a list of words or phrases describing a community. Have each share his/her list with one other student.

2. Before screening the video, instruct students to add to their list of Chinatown community traits as they are discussed. (Stopping the video after a community characteristic has been mentioned is a useful technique to reinforce learning.)

3. After viewing the video, have each student again meet with another classmate to discuss their lists.

4. Have students look at their lists and circle the items they feel are characteristics of their own community.

5. After selecting specific attributes, students design and create a poster visually representing their community.

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES

Have students interview a community hero. Why is this person a hero in their lives, or the community? Have students prepare speeches honoring these heroes.

Using the list that has been developed while viewing CHINATOWN as a foundation, write a series of letters home from a Chinese person expressing his/her frustration with laws and discriminatory treatment. Because the writer did not want to worry his/her family in China, she/he actually did not send these letters but tied them up and put them away in a trunk. An archaeologist discovers this dust-covered bundle 100 years later (1996). What do these letters say

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