Welcome Ritual:

• Land Acknowledgement - Introduction
  • Looking at the Indigenous Land map, acknowledge the Indigenous land(s) in which your learning community is situated using this resource https://native-land.ca/. 
  • Connecting the Land Acknowledgement with the current lesson, teachers can provide a discussion on how Land is integral to culture and language. 
    • Ask questions like this: 
      • How do you think people being forced from their homeland impact people, their culture, and their language?

Teachers can access the lesson content slidedeck and entire book here:  https://ucdavis.box.com/s/d2pe7drzz9ydycxyfecvujqb20qqjcdq. 

Engage:  

• To start the lesson, open the book to the center pages (9–10) to reveal the full story cloth from Dia’s Story Cloth. 
• Let students know that they will be hearing a story about a Hmong girl who embarks on a journey to the United States.
• Ask students to share what they see in the story cloth with a classmate, and then ask them to share it with the whole class. Write down student observations on the board/chart paper. 
• Ask students to guess where this story takes place? As students share out, encourage them to offer a reason why they guessed certain locations. Write student guesses on the board as well. 
• Finally, prompt students to share any questions they have after looking at the pages depicting the entire story cloth with a partner.
• Then call on a few students to share with the whole class one or two questions their partner had. Write these down on the board as well.
• Note: This story explores scenes of war and violence. Teachers should be mindful of students’ potentially lived experiences with the subject matter that may be triggering.

Explore: 

• Frontload students with the following vocabulary words. (If time permits, go over unfamiliar terms, and have students define them/define them together as a class).

  Story Vocabulary: 

  Thatched                             Warfare                                      Loyalist

  Communist                         Refugee                                      Detained 

  Government                        Crops                                          Province

  Guerilla                                Determined                                Qualified 

  Political                                Sponsors                                     Anthropologists

• Begin reading Dia’s Story Cloth. Pause periodically to informally check for understanding.
• Have students keep in mind these questions. The questions can be answered independently on student notes, or co-constructed as a class.
  • Who is the story about?
  • What did you learn about Dia and her family?
  • Where did Dia’s journey start and end?
  • How would you describe Dia’s journey? What makes you say that? 
    • What were some of the difficult parts of Dia’s journey?
    • What were some of the positive parts of Dia’s Journey?
    • Why and how did Dia’s family move to the United States?
  • What are your thoughts/feelings on Dia’s life and journey?

Explain:  

• After reading, ask and write down students’ answers to the questions above.  Then focus on the question, ‘Where did Dia’s journey start and end?’ Have students trace Dia’s journey using names of places where they were. Write down their responses. Then, ask them to put them in chronological order.
  • Laos (tropical highlands)
  • Thailand (refugee camps)
  • United States
• Take out the globe or world map and have students identify where each of these countries are located on the globe/world map.

Elaborate:  

• Hand out the blank world map to each student. Have students label the three countries then have them draw arrows in the chronological order of Dia’s journey. Ask students to reflect on the different mapping activities (geographic and narrative). In pairs or in small groups have students discuss the following questions: 
  • What does the map tell us about Dia’s Journey?
  • What does the story cloth tell us about Dia’s Journey?
  • How are they similar or different? 
  • Which one (mapping artifact - the map or story cloth) helps you understand her journey better? Why?
  • What other questions might these artifacts help us answer OR ask?

Evaluate:  

• For the assessment, have students interview and map out their families journey to their current hometown of residence. They should be able to answer how their families got there, and why they moved there. They can turn in their assignments via video format, artwork display, written product, or oral product.
• Alternatively, students can conduct a migration story project where they watch a video about someone’s experience and then create a written, visual, or audio summary based on this conversation.