Except for the minority of Native Americans everybody who lives in the United States is an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant. Almost 40 percent of the population of the USA can trace their ancestry back to someone who came to the USA through Ellis Island. Why did those people come to the USA? What happened on Ellis Island? How were immigrants received?
You will learn the answers to these questions while you, an immigrant living around 1900, travel from your country of origin to the United States. You will leave your country, your family and your friends to start a new life in the "land of the free". How will the journey be? Will they let you in on Ellis Island? Will your life be better in the USA?
Before you start, we need some information about you.
YOU have to decide who you are: 
In your first diary entry, write about the reasons for which you want to emigrate to the USA. Why do you want to leave your country of origin? Why do you want to go to the USA?
In your second diary entry, write about your journey to America. What do you take with you? Do you go on your own? How do you travel there? Describe the atmosphere aboard the ship so that the reader of your diary entry can imagine what travelling aboard an overcrowded ship at the beginning of the 20th century was like.
In your third diary entry, describe your day on Ellis Island. What are the first things you see when you come to America? What happens after your arrival? Do the inspectors let you pass all the exams without problems? What do you see, hear and smell on your first day in America?
In this section you will find all sorts of material and information that will help you complete the tasks. Complete one task after the other.
If you find it hard to remember and organize the amount of information you are given on the Internet pages, you might find it easier to answer the questions in the "HOW TO: Task 1-4" sections first. These questions will guide you to the most important information.
You don't understand a word?
In addition to the list of words you were given at the beginning, you can use a dictionary or you can use Online-Dictionary LEO. Just fill in the unkown word below.
You can look up new words here:Each of you will hand in the four diary entries, but only the best should be posted in the forum (Evaluation of the webquest ) below!
They will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
During the last few lessons, you have left your country and you have tried to immigrate to the USA. You have travelled across the Atlantic, you have seen New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty and you have gone through the immigration procedures on Ellis Island. Now you know what immigration to the USA at the beginning of the 20th century was like.
At Kommern you can learn a lot about this topic, especially about the early settlers and their lives. If you want to read some extra texts on this exhibition, you can use these links:
But what about today's immigrants? Find out for yourself:
http://www.us-immigration.org/
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/11664/1.html
Or read about illegal immigrants at the Mexican border: English G 2000 A4 pp.110-111.
7. Presentation Viele Moodle-Werkzeuge sind geeignet, um die einzelnen Ergebnisse innerhalb des Kursraumes zu sichern und den übrigen Schülern zur Verfügung zu stellen.
Spätestens bei der Ergebnispräsentation empfehle ich jedoch, diese abseits des Computers im Plenum zu besprechen.
http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquest.html To Kill a Mockingbird: Growing up in the 1930s Witchcraft or Witchhunt
-------------------------------> Dirk Weller
Building Blocks of a WebQuest, 1996 http://lehrerfortbildung-bw.de/werkstatt/netz/moodle/