America’s History of Immigration Cartoon Analysis Lesson Plan

This engaging, interactive activity has students analyzing American political cartoons from between 1869 and 1941 that have either positive or negative views of America’s immigration policies. 

For each of the 11 cartoons, students must determine who the target is (Chinese, Irish, Italian, etc), whether it is pro or anti-immigration, and provide an analysis of the cartoon’s message. I have the students work on these in groups in class so they can discuss what they feel each cartoon’s message is. An answer key for the chart is included for your convenience.

Six short answer questions serve as a debriefing and reflection activity for students to think about how attitudes toward immigrants have changed and their feelings on immigration policies.

This is a great cooperative learning or individual activity that will show your students how little has changed over 150 years regarding feelings toward immigrants and has led to wonderful discussions in my classes about immigration. I hope you find this as powerful as it has been in my classes!

You can download this awesome and timely lesson plan here! 

Thanks for looking!