“Welcome to the New World Curriculum and Learning Guide” teaches crucial and timely issues through the story of the Aldabaans, a real family of Syrian refugees who arrived in America on Election Day 2016. Journalist Jake Halpern shadowed them for four years and partnered with illustrator Michael Sloan to turn the family’s experiences first into a Pulitzer-winning comic in The New York Times, then into the full length graphic novel Welcome to the New World.
In partnership with Halpern, The Immigrant Learning Center has created a curriculum based on his graphic novel. The series of nine lessons, written for grades seven to 11, teach students about refugees, the migrant experience, the Syrian Civil War, and other topical issues. It also helps students learn how to interpret and analyze a graphic text. The lessons can be used collectively as a curriculum or as individual lesson plans. They can also be adapted for other grades. Worksheets, graphic organizers, resources and rubrics are included. Watch our webinar, “Teaching the Refugee Experience: Welcome to the New World,” featuring author Jake Halpern and other experts, to learn more about the graphic novel, the Aldabaan family and teaching the curriculum to diverse classrooms.
For more tools to teach immigration, explore our Teaching Immigration Lesson Plans and Resources page. For more guidance on immigrant stories and storytelling, check out our Immigrant and Immigration Stories resource page.
