Teaching Immigration with PreK–5th Grade Children’s Literature
About the Course
In this in-person course, participants will delve into PreK-5th grade contemporary children’s literature highlighted in CUNY-IIE’s Immigration Literature Guide: Stories for Visibility, Understanding and Transformation. Themes of immigration, displacement, and diaspora will be explored through close reading of picture books, upper elementary grade novels, and graphic novels. Participants will also explore multimodal strategies to engage early childhood and elementary school-age children in reading these texts to become critical and engaged readers. Participants will be asked to develop a final project based on the topic of immigration and children’s literature with a focus on their current classroom context.
Sessions
Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 6:00–8:30 PM
Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 6:00–8:30 PM
Wednesday, December 3, 2025, 6:00–8:30 PM
The sessions will be held in person at:
The City College of New York
160 Convent Avenue
NAC 6/204 (North Academic Center)
New York, NY 10031
Deadlines
Confirmation of Placement on: October 27, 2026.
An additional 6.5 hours of asynchronous group and independent work.
Instructor: Dr. Cecilia Espinosa
The application period for this course has been closed.
CTLE Professional Development Opportunities
The City University of New York - Initiative on Immigration and Education (CUNY-IIE) is offering free virtual professional learning opportunities to PreK-12 educators across New York State!
Upon successful completion of an immigration and education focused module, educators will earn 15 hours of Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) credits.
The modules will include:
a 1-hour assignment prior to the start of the course (found at the end of the registration form linked below)
7.5 mandatory hours of synchronous sessions (divided between three 2.5 hour sessions)
and an additional 6.5 hours of asynchronous small group and independent work.
These modules take a strengths-based perspective (Gándara, 2018) of the resilience, multilingualism, and multiculturalism of immigrant students that prime them for 21st century learning. Whatever your area of certification, grade level, or position, you have the power and opportunity to educate yourself, your colleagues, and your students about current immigration issues.
These issues impact the freedoms, fears, hopes, and futures of our students and families in the U.S. and beyond.
Please note that we can only offer participation to educators working in public PreK-12 schools in New York State at this time.
