Who We Are and Where We’re From

About This Lesson

In this three-day lesson, students engage in a deep exploration of Adi Alsaid’s short story “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving.” Spanning four generations, the story provides a detailed examination of the emotional and familial aspects of a young person’s migration experiences. The story involves jumps in time and place, and students will have opportunities for close reading and interactive learning experiences, such as creating a family tree and developing an identity chart for the protagonist, to help them comprehend characterization and plot before exploring the larger themes. 

Alsaid’s story encourages students to reflect on how our identities can be shaped not only by our own experiences but also by the journeys that our ancestors may have taken and the stories that survived them fleeing, leaving, or moving from one place to another. This exploration builds on the previous lessons by helping students understand the deep and lasting impact of migration on personal and familial identities across time and place.

Essential Questions

• Why do people move? 
• How can our migration experiences and those of our ancestors shape our sense of who we are and where we belong?
• How can literature and storytelling broaden our perspective and build empathy for the human experience of migration?

Guiding Questions

• What is the difference between fleeing, leaving, and moving? Why does it matter? 
• How can “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving” help us understand how the migration experiences of past generations can shape our sense of who we are and where we belong today?

Facing History Learning Outcomes

• Examine the many factors that can shape an individual’s identity.
• Engage with real and imagined stories that help them understand their own experiences and how others experience the world.
• Critically and ethically analyze thematic development and literary craft in order to draw connections between the text and their lives.

Lesson Plan

Day 1 

Activity 1: Discuss the Difference Between Fleeing, Leaving, and Moving

Write the words Fleeing, Leaving, and Moving across the top of the board and explain to students that they will be reflecting on these three concepts for the next three class periods. 

Project the following questions one at a time for a short journal reflection. Let students know that they will be sharing their ideas. 

• What is the difference between fleeing, leaving, and moving? What makes you say that?
• Can you think of an example of each one?

Following the steps of the Concentric Circles teaching strategy, arrange the class in two concentric circles so that students are paired. Project and read aloud the Round 1 question. Give students two minutes to discuss the question, and then rotate one of the circles to discuss the next question with different partners. Repeat for Round 3. 

• Round 1: What is the difference between fleeing, leaving, and moving? What makes you say that?
• Round 2: Can you think of an example of when a person or group of people might flee? Leave? Move? Consider the stories you’ve read and viewed in recent lessons, as well as other examples. 
• Round 3: How do you think a person might feel if they are forced to or choose to flee? Leave? Move? 

Have students return to their seats and spend two minutes responding to the following question in their journals. They can do this under their earlier reflection. 

What new, different, or deeper understanding about fleeing, leaving, and moving do you have after your concentric circle discussions? 

If time allows, invite some student volunteers to share any new, different, or deeper understanding or highlights from their concentric circle discussions. 

Activity 2: Activities Read the First Part of the Short Story in Class

Let students know that they will be reading the first part of a short story—"Fleeing, Leaving, Moving" by Adi Alsaid. Pass out the story and explain the Reading Stations approach if you are using this strategy (see Teaching Note 1). You might let students know that this is not a linear story; it jumps around in time and place, and it’s okay to feel confused. They will be spending three class periods with the story and will have many opportunities to piece it all together. 

Instruct students to jot down the following annotations as they read/listen to the first part of the story. These should be quick notes that don’t disrupt the flow of their reading. Instruct them to stop at page 3 after the sentence “The world seemed to have very different reactions to each, somehow hating people more the less choice they had.” 

• Place a heart (♡) by moments in the story that resonate with you, perhaps because of how that part is written or because it makes you think in a new way.
• Place a question mark (?) in places where you feel confused, perhaps because you don’t understand a vocabulary term or the author assumes you know something that you don’t know.
• Place an emoji (smiling, frowning, angry, etc.) by moments where you have an emotional response.
• Underline places where you see yourself and/or your experiences in what the narrator is describing, perhaps because of a relationship, a setting, or something that happens in the story. 

When everyone has finished reading and annotating the first part of the story, invite student volunteers to share annotations with the class. You can start by sharing your own heart and question-mark annotations to set the expectation that it’s okay to not understand everything that’s going on in the story. 

Activity 3: Start to Create an Identity Chart for Shmuli’s Character

Point students to the place on page 1 where the narrator describes Shmuli as “a specific human being, unmatched by any other human being who was living during his time, or, indeed, any who had come before.” Explain to students that they will be thinking about Shmuli’s identity and what makes him the unique individual that he is. Remind students that they have only read the first few pages of the story, so this is an opportunity to record what they know so far.

Follow the instructions for the Identity Charts teaching strategy. First, generate a list of some of the factors that make up an individual’s identity and write them on the board. Then start to create an identity chart for Shmuli on the board or a piece of chart paper while students record ideas in their notes. If you use chart paper, you can keep adding to it over the next two class periods.

Working in their reading groups or in new groups of three, have students continue to add to Shmuli’s identity chart, referring to the text for ideas. Circulate to get a sense of how they are understanding the story. When it looks like they have completed their identity charts, invite each triad to share one or more ideas with the class, adding them to the identity chart on the board. 

Then discuss the following questions as a class, using the identity charts, their annotations, and evidence from the story to support students’ thinking: 

• What parts of his identity does Shmuli choose for himself ? How do you know?
• What aspects of his identity are influenced by his ancestors’ migration experiences? Can you say more?
• What questions or thoughts about fleeing, leaving, and/or moving does the story raise for you so far?

Activity 4: Assign Homework

Instruct students to finish reading and annotating “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving” (see the “Day 1 Homework” section below). You may have taught specific annotation strategies that you want your students to use, or they can use the ones suggested in the assignment.

Day 1 Homework: Finish Reading and Annotating “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving”

Instruct students to finish reading and annotating “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving” in preparation for the next class period. As they read, students should jot down the following annotations in the margin:

• Place a heart (♡) by moments in the story that resonate with you, perhaps because of who you are or your experiences in the world.
• Place a question mark (?) in places where you feel confused, perhaps because you don’t understand a vocabulary term or the author assumes you know something that you don’t know.
• Place an emoji (smiling, frowning, angry, etc.) by moments where you have an emotional response.

Underline places where you see yourself in what Shmuli is describing, perhaps because of a relationship, a setting, or something that he experiences in the story.

Day 2 

Activity 1: Warm Up with Annotations and Identity Charts

Start the class with students in groups of three. Instruct students to choose two annotations from the second part of “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving” to share with their group. Invite them to notice places where they had similar reactions to the text and places where they marked different things. Students can also use this time to discuss and clarify the places they annotated with question marks, perhaps because they felt confused, they didn’t understand a word, or the author assumed they knew something that they didn’t know.

Then ask students to take out the identity charts for Shmuli that they started in the previous class and, still working in triads, add new information from the remainder of the story. Alternatively, you can do this activity together on the board or the identity chart that you started on chart paper while students add to their own charts in their notebooks. Encourage students to point to specific places in the text as they provide examples.

Activity 2: Create a Family Tree for Shmuli

Explain to students that because this story jumps around in time and place, it can be hard to understand the relationships between the characters. For this activity, students will use evidence from the story to create Shmuli’s family tree. 

So that students have a chance to move around a bit, have them count off to form new groups of four. Pass out the Shmuli’s Family Tree handout and explain to students that they should review their copies of the story and fill in the bold rectangles with the names of Shmuli’s family members. Remind them that we don’t learn the names or stories of many of his ancestors. These characters are indicated with question marks on the handout, and students can leave them blank. But as they work on the Shmuli’s family tree, students should think about why so many family members’ names and stories might be missing.

As students work, circulate to offer help as needed, prompting them to go to the text for evidence. When they have finished, project a blank copy of the handout on the board and invite students up to the front to help fill it in with what they have learned about each family member and ancestor whose name and story we know from the text.

Activity 3: Facilitate a Class Discussion

Facilitate a class discussion that draws from the following questions. If time allows, you might have students spend a few minutes discussing each question in their groups and then facilitate a short class discussion before moving on to the next question. The purpose of this activity is to clear up any comprehension questions so that students are ready to explore the bigger ideas in the story in the next class. 

• What, if any, new discoveries did you make about Shmuli or his family as a result of completing his family tree?
• Where did each character you named on the family tree and Shmuli’s paternal grandmother immigrate to? How do you know? Add the country/countries they immigrated to alongside their boxes on the handout.

Activity 4: Complete an Exit Ticket

To assess students’ understanding of “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving” and determine what, if any, concepts you need to revisit in the next lesson, have them complete and then submit a “How Many Bars?” Exit Ticket handout.

Day 3 Activities

Activity 1: Warm Up with Exit Tickets and a Journal Reflection

Start class by reviewing parts of the story where students expressed confusion on the “How Many Bars” Exit Ticket from the previous class. Alternatively, you might incorporate this review into this lesson’s activities. 

Then have students turn to page 3-4 of “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving.” Read aloud the three paragraphs that start with “What a difference the verbs made” and end with “They’d made him who he was.” 

Project the following questions one at a time for a journal reflection. Let students know that they will be sharing their ideas with a partner, but they can choose what ideas to share and what to keep private.

• What factors might account for people having different reactions when they perceive a person as fleeing, leaving, or moving? 
• How can these reactions impact people trying to migrate to a new place? How does this story help you think about this question?

Have students spend a few minutes choosing ideas from their journals to share with a partner. If time allows, you might invite volunteers to share with the class.

Activity 2: What Makes Shmuli Who He Is?

Remind students that throughout the story, the narrator reminds readers that Shmuli is a unique person, unmatched in the world, not because of any special skills or talents but because of the ancestors who came before him, the choices they made, and the borders they crossed. 

Explain that in this lesson, students will work in groups to do a close reading of one of Shmuli’s family members to deepen their understanding of how Shmuli’s sense of who he is and where he belongs is, in part, shaped by his family members’ migration experiences and the stories that survived. 

Move students into groups of four and pass out the ”Fleeing, Leaving, Moving” Character Study handout. Read the instructions to the class. Assign groups to a character on the list or allow them to choose the character that most interests them. You might have multiple groups working with the same character. Let students know that they will be focusing on one or two pages of the story for this activity.

Circulate as students work, prompting them to go to the text as needed. When they have finished, have one or two students report out to the class for each character.

Activity 3: Facilitate a Class Discussion

Project and discuss the following questions as a class:

In an earlier lesson, we watched a video with the poet Richard Blanco in which he points out:

[Migrating or moving] is part of human nature. All of us, in some ways, are always migrating, or we’re always, in some sense, in exile. You move to a new city, there’s a whole renegotiation of your space, new foods, and perhaps different people on the street from other countries.

We also migrate psychologically. We change careers and we have to renegotiate our sense of self and our identity amongst a whole other group of people or whole other industry or whole other culture. So there are many ways in which we migrate.

• What aspects of Shmuli’s story seem like a universal part of the human experience of migration? 
• What aspects feel particular or unique to Shmuli and his family? 
• What might these similarities and differences suggest about the experience of migrating to a new place?
• Why do you think Alsaid wrote “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving”? What makes you say that?
• How does “Fleeing, Leaving, Moving” connect to, extend, or challenge the ideas about migration presented in one or more texts from this unit? Consider the personal migration narratives from the previous lesson, the “What Is Migration?” explainer, “All the Colors of Goodbye,” Richard Blanco’s video, and “Complaint of El Río Grande.”