The oral history-based curriculum showcases the experiences of resettled refugees in the US in their own words drawn from our archive. This curriculum includes information about refugees and the US refugee resettlement system, stories about refugees’ religious, ethnic, and cultural identities, and many more themes common across the oral history interviews we have conducted with 170+ refugees over the past two years. We intend for these lesson plans to be used by secondary schools, places of worship, non-profits, senior centers, and other audiences who wish to better understand the experiences of resettled refugees in the US in their own words. We pair these oral history excerpts with curated readings to provide historical context and exercises to demonstrate learning goals.

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For World Refugee Day on June 20th, 2020, we prepared a lesson plan that educators used after interfaith prayer services to extend the intention to welcome refugees with information about them. This lesson included an explanation of who refugees are and how they arrive in the US, an interactive role-playing exercise, and first-person excerpts from our oral history project about refugees’ religious identities.

 

We are working with over 20 educators from Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, and secular public and private schools schools across the US to develop lesson plans ranging from one day to two weeks for classes pertaining to history, literature, religion, civics, and ethnic studies. The versatile curriculum is in its developmental phase. We continue to look for partners who are interested in using and co-developing curriculum with us for their educational institutions.

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Check out some of our lessons plans below. If you would like to use these or co-create others, please fill out this form or contact Matthew Weiner at mcweiner@princeton.edu. 

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