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
-
community - a group of people with common interests living in
a particular area.
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.
- What were community characteristics of Chinatown?
- Were there certain life experiences that drew the residents of Chinatown together?
- Ask each group to share a community characteristic with the class.
4. Have students look at their lists and circle
the items they feel are characteristics of their own community.
- How would they define their community (friends, family, heritage, neighborhood, common goals, interests)?
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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