Student Blogging: Travel, Tourism, Migration

Finally, I feel like getting down to blogging again. In this post, I'd like to continue sharing some ideas about a blogging project I did with my students. There have been several posts about it, so this time I'll write about the task my students particularly enjoyed.

The topic we were working on was related to travel, tourism and migration. In order to practice vocabulary in different ways, I offered them to do role play situations on travel and tourism and to do the blog task on migration issues. Prior to desinging this course, I managed to find some great resources to help my students learn more about this topic and explore the usage of vocabulary related to it. One of such resources is the interactive activity developed by the Tenement Museum. By doing this activity, students can learn more about immigrants to the USA in the early XX century and their everyday lives. They can take on a personality of an immigrant and explore the harsh realities of their journey and daily struggles. In this quest, they are accompanied by video stories of Victoria, an immigrant girl, who shows them all ins and outs of immigrant life in New York a century ago.

As my students were completing this quest, they had to accomplish the following task:

In this activity, you will get acquainted with the realities faced by immigrants in the USA around a century ago. As you enter the site, press "i" for instructions.

You will have to choose an immigrant character for yourself and follow further steps.  A girl called Victoria will be your guide in this adventure. After you have completed all the stages of this game you will be offered to send Victoria a postcard. This is the base for your blogpost (you don't have to do the task on the game site; you should write a letter in your blog):

Write a letter (200-250 words, 20-25 active words and expressions) to Victoria describing your imagined experience based on the choices you made throughout the game (mention as many details as possible) and your imagination. Make sure you include some facts from Victoria's stories too. Also, paste an image of your immigrant passport and any other pictures you  consider relevant. 

Some works by my students:

Alina
Maria
Alexander