+
High School ELA Archives - Green Card Voices
w
Recommended articles
Akili
Nour
Hamidah
Josephine

Tag: High School ELA

Unit 1: Identity and Language – Roots of Oromo

Time Frame 

  • 1–2 class periods

Materials

  • Green Card Youth Voices: Immigration Stories from a Minneapolis High School – Ikrem Nuru’s video
  • Appendix: Student Handouts
  • Oromo images (see pictures here)

Connections to the 7 Cs of Ethnic Studies

  • Cultivate: learning about the Oromo history, people, and language to provide opportunity for identity affirmation and healing
  • Center: centering Oromo youth and their lived experiences navigating institutional structures as new immigrants 

Instruction (ICCR)

Ignite

  • Have students Turn and Talk and complete the KWL chart (see attachment/appendix 1) by answering the question below:
    • What do you know about the Oromo people and language?

Chunk 1

  • Provide a short reading and analyze the text of “Oromo People, Culture, and Language” (see attachment/appendix 2) with students to help students understand the history, culture and language of the Oromo people.
  • Use “5-4-3-2-1 Close Reading Strategy” (see attachment/appendix 3), an activity where students identify five key words, four interesting facts, three new words, two connections, and one question. 

Chunk 2

  • Have students watch Ikrem Nuru’s video.
  • After watching the video, have students create a timeline of events they saw and heard; you can provide them scrambled event cards and have them sort them in chronological order.

Chew

  • Assemble students in groups of two to four. Have them Turn and Talk and answer the following questions below: 
    • Ikrem was born in ___________ in the country of ___________.
    • She came to the USA in ___________.
    • Her goal is to become ___________.
  • Then, have students complete the comprehension questions about Ikrem Nuru’s story (see attachment/appendix 4).

Review

  • Have students pair-share the following questions. 
    • How many languages do you speak? 
    • What are those languages? 
    • How do those languages impact your identity?
  • Then, have students share their identity life events with a table partner (see attachment/appendix 5). 
  • When sharing is done, ask students:
    • What new information did you learn about your classmate? 
    • What connections were you able to make with them?
    • What is one question you have for them?
  • Lastly, have students complete the “What I Learned” column on the KWL chart. 

Multilingual and ELL Support

  • Provide visuals (see slides/attachments).
  • Provide graphic organizers as student handouts.
  • Provide sentence stems for written work and verbal share-outs / small group discussions. 
  • Annotate text using different colors for 5-4-3-2-1 close reading strategy.

Vocabulary and Definitions

  • Boorana (Buh-RAH-nuh): one of the largest Oromo ethnic groups
  • Barentu (Bah-REHN-too): branch of Oromo people
  • Cushitic (Kuh-SHIT-ik): group of languages and peoples of the Horn of Africa 
  • Afaan: language
  • Afaan oromo (AH-faan oh-ROH-moh): Oromo language 

Resource List