The poem in the statue

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Arriving in New York mini-series, episode 38) is a short documentary about the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, a present from France to the United States in 1886, and often the first picture of America for people on the ships. A single narrator explains that in 1883 a young New York writer, Emma Lazarus, wrote a poem to help pay for the big stone base under the statue. In her poem the statue is like a mother who speaks to the whole world: "Give me your tired, your poor", a welcome for tired and poor people from other countries. Emma Lazarus died in 1887 and people forgot the poem, until a friend found it again; in 1903 the words went on a metal plaque inside the base, where visitors still come to read them. It is a comprehension episode: the narration uses the past simple, with dates, and no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 9 on facts and 1 on vocabulary (base). The study topic is migrations: arriving in New York.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three photos, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (What words would you like to see on a statue in your town?) for a short class discussion or a writing task. Learners should know the words ship, friend, money and city, and be able to read years such as 1886. The pack's key words explain the new words (poem, base, stone, welcome, tired).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged languages-places-stories (5e, "Des langues, des lieux, des histoires", Cycle 4). The episode targets CEFR level A2-.