AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

from Franklin Furnace

Request for Proposals:

Curriculum Development

Founded in 1988, the Tenement Museum preserves and shares the stories of immigrants, migrants, and refugees, past and present. For thirty years, the Museum has forged emotional connections between visitors and immigrants past and present, and enhanced appreciation for the role immigrants and migrants play in shaping the American identity. The Museum’s guided tours of recreated apartments in 97 and 103 Orchard Street interpret real family stories from the 19th and 20th Centuries using primary sources, objects, and collaborative storytelling to engage visitors, and our Your Story, Our Story initiative offers an online platform for students and visitors to share a piece of their own family history with the Tenement Museum. As part of our recently implemented five-year strategic plan, we will work to expand our reach and impact, tell a broader range of stories, and to become a leading voice in the national conversations around immigration, migration and American identity.

The museum’s annual visitorship of 250,000 people includes about 50,000 local and national K-12 students. Our school programs combine inquiry-based learning with personal experiences; by engaging students with social studies practices in an immersive learning environment, Tenement Museum programs create opportunities for students to understand how ordinary people have shaped the past and how we all play a part in shaping the future. Through understanding their own agency in shaping history, and how their stories connect to American History, Tenement Museum school programs also aim to break down common myths about American immigration, combat stereotyping, and offer students space to understand how history is constructed. Expanding on and informed by the methodology of our onsite work with students, the Tenement Museum will be creating a set of curriculum units focused on immigration and migration.

Project Overview

Through this call for proposals, the Tenement Museum seeks a partner to develop curriculum units for New York City and New York State teachers to implement in classrooms during their study of immigration. Based on our decades of experience connecting students to the local, place-based history of immigration in New York City, this curriculum will center personal experiences in the study of immigration. These units will integrate the Tenement Museum’s resources with historic context and universally-designed social studies instruction to foster civic engagement, build empathy in the classroom community, challenge myths about American immigration, reframe who’s included in conversation about immigration and migration, and connect personal experiences of migration across time and place.

These curriculum units will include:

• • 5-8 modular, universally-designed lesson plans with instructional support and student-centered activities including optional museum visits and Your Story, Our Story participation.

• • Rationale and historical context for teachers

• • Supplemental content and instructional resources, including but not limited to the Tenement Museum's sources and collections.

Through this curriculum, students will understand:

• • That the study of ordinary people can teach us about the past.

• • That learning about other people can teach us about ourselves.

• • How immigrants and migrants played a role in the development of New York City, New York State, and the United States.

• • That there are common myths about American immigration, and we can all challenge those myths when we hear them.

• • Diversity is intrinsic to our society, and we must all work towards building an inclusive, equitable society.

Development Process

The curriculum project team includes Tenement Museum staff from the Education, Visitor Services, and Development departments, and a Teacher Advisory Committee which will include NYC teachers and local scholars to advise and offer feedback throughout the development process. The selected curriculum designer will work closely with the internal Museum project team, as well as our external stakeholders, including scholars, partner organization staff, and a graphic designer for the project. The project will begin with one unit for 4th Grade level for New York City teachers, and we hope to expand to other grade levels and geographies in the following years; we will seek out collaborators with strong understanding of scalability and opportunities for distance learning. We aim for teachers to pilot test lesson plans in the Spring of 2019, with full curriculum launch in Fall 2019.

Deliverables

Design and develop one curriculum unit for 4th Grade level, aligned to New York City Social Studies, C3, and Common Core Standards.

Design and co-lead a workshop for teachers to provide feedback in the development process.

Develop a plan and strategy for scaling the curriculum to other levels and geographies.

Qualifications:

• • Familiarity with Tenement Museum tours and programs; familiarity with immigration issues a plus.

• • At least 5 years of experience writing K-12 social studies curriculum in New York City or New York State.

• • Knowledge of Universal Design for Learning, C3 Framework and Social Justice Teaching Standards.

Proposals should include:

• • Your objectives and approach, addressing questions of scalability and geographic reach.

• • Two previous curriculum work samples, preferably aligned to the NYS Social Studies Framework and NYC Scope and Sequence.

• • A workplan and timeline with estimated budget for one curriculum unit.

To Submit:

All proposals should be submitted to Kathryn Lloyd, Director of Programs, at klloyd@tenement.org by Thursday, July 12th at midnight EST.