Unit Organizer

Following is an organizer that graphically demonstrates the areas covered in this unit.

                                                            General                                Specific                           General                        Specific

Objectives

The objectives for this unit are specific and measurable:

1) to probe students’ prior knowledge about Mexico and create initial interest in its geography, history and culture.
2) to learn the names and location of at least 15 Mexican states and gain a deeper understanding of a particular Mexican state.
3) to make students aware of principle historical periods in Mexican history.
4) to create interest in and appreciation for different forms of art found in Mexico.
5) to introduce students to a variety of music and dances of Mexico and to the use of masks as a Mexican art form.
6) to have each student give an oral presentation on a Mexican state.
7) to prepare and perform role plays on a variety of situations in Mexico.
8) to introduce students to information resources including the Internet.

The unit objectives are reflective of multiple intelligences: they require that students apply aural, visual, oral, tactile, social, musical, and other skills in the course of their classroom work and assignments.

The objectives and content of this unit also treat issues of multiculturalism: this is a cultural unit-the cultures, history and art forms of the indigenous peoples of Mexico are studied and compared throughout.  Cultural attitudes, histories and art forms are compared to one another and-to an extent-to American culture and art.

The above unit objectives are aligned with, and referenced to,  the Illinois Learning Standards as well as to the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning as developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (A.C.T.F.L.) and supported by the U.S. Department of Education. To view the national standards, go to: http://www.actfl.org/htdocs/standards/index.htm

Another wonderful site for viewing the national and state standards in world language, as well as examples of lesson plans:
http://www.mcrel.org/

Curriculum Module

Lesson 1-The objective of this lesson is to probe students’ knowledge about Mexico and to create initial interest in its geography, history and culture by showing the video Esplendores!/Splendors of Mexico (1992). [Link to site with map of Mexico]

Lesson 2-The objective here is to learn the names and location of at least fifteen Mexican states by having students study the map of Mexico for two minutes, then writing as many states and capitals as they recall on a blank map, and finally, comparing their partially filled maps with the first one, then two more classmates and sharing the information with them.

Lesson 3-This lesson objective is to gain a deeper understanding of a particular Mexican state of the student’s own choosing by randomly distributing the cut-out states of Mexico, one per student, and having students write the name of their state, its capital, bordering states, and any other information they may know about the state.  Students are told to work on the state they are holding in their hand, unless some have special reasons for wanting to work on another state.

Lesson 4-The objective here is to learn the names, location andimportant features of then more Mexican states by taping sheets of paper with the names of the seven locations bordering Mexico in their proper location on classroom walls, assuming the front of class is north, and telling students to write the name of a new state (a new cutout state of Mexico per student), its capital and bordering states, and any other information they may know about the state.  If they have difficulty identifying their state, tell them to hold it up to the map on the wall and identify it by shape.  Finally  students are asked to create a human map of Mexico by standing next to the persons representing their neighboring states.

Lesson 5-The objective of this lesson is to introduce students to information resources and to make them aware of principle historical periods in Mexican history by giving students a handout with a visual overview of major periods of Mexican history, and generating a class discussion (with the teacher playing a major role) about Mexico’s history.  Finally, the teacher accompanies students to the library and helps them begin to research their assigned states for an oral presentation and written paper they will be doing.

Lesson 6-The objective here is to assess the effectiveness of the research completed to this point and to develop persoanl strategies to find the required information by having students complete a questionnaire designed to have students list all research information thus far accumulated, then working in groups, comparing the usefulness of sources  used thus far.

A useful resource for lesson-planning for Spanish classes is the NYU ACF Multilingual Website was begun in 1996 in an effort to provide a resource for the NYU community in such areas as multilingual computing resources and information and has expanded to become a notable Internet resource.  The Website focuses on the 17 languages taught at NYU: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish.  It contains links to such areas as technical issues in computing with non-Roman character sets, language learning software, news and media links in the native language, and more. NYU Academic computing welcomes comments and additions to this Website.  Teachers may go to: http://www.nyu.edu/acf/multilingual

Lesson 7-The objective of this lesson to create interest in and appreciation for different forms of art found in Mexico and to learn to classify them by generating a list of different forms of art they have discovered in their research, then asking them to classify their lists using a handout designed to focus on artes visuales, plasticas, dramata, musica y literatura (Visual arts, plastic arts, theatre, music and literature). There is an excellent on-line resource for students to explore Mexican music, art and culture. Go to: http://www.itp.berkeley.edu/~thorne/HumanResources.html

Lesson 8-The objective here is to introduce students to a variety of music and dances of Mexico and to the use of masks as a Mexican art form by showing the video: FolkloricDances of Mexico (1990) and a series of teacher-prepared transparencies of the dancers' costumes.  Students also read Las Mascaras de Mexico (Castaneda, E. and Losada, R., 1991) (The Masks of Mexico) and discuss the use of masks in some of the dances viewed.

Lesson 9-The lesson objective is to understand more about the use, origins and symbolism of masks in Mexican folk art and to create a personal mask by first discussing the meaning of the Latin word 'persona', and relating it to mascara, then seeing samples of various of various Mexican masks and discussing symbolism.  Finally students are asked to design and make their own masks using a basic pattern for mask making developed by the Mexican Museum in San francisco.

Lesson 10-To have each student give an oral pesentation on the Mexican state selected and to have the rest of the class analyze each oral report in writing.

Lesson 11-The objective of this lesson is to test students' overall knowledge of Mexico's geography, history and culture, including information presented in student reports.  Students will be tested on-line using the following testing tool:
Link to be provided at next update of this page;  please check back here.

Lesson 12-In this last lesson the objective is to prepare and perform role plays on a variety of situations in Mexico, including deciding on which package tour to Mexico to buy, teaching a university Mexican culture and civilization course, being transported in a time machine to a specific time in the history of Mexico, etc. A  useful site for students to explore with numerous links is:
http://espanol.yahoo.com/Zonas_geograficas/Paises/Mexico/Deportes_y_ocio/Turismo/Guias_turisticas/