During the first unit of the year, I will be discussing the topic of personal and cultural identity. My students will be investigating these themes for the first month and learning about different expressions of one’s identity through various modes of expression such as activities, stories, songs, poetry, art and lastly masks. As my students explore the importance of masks in Latin America, students will be asked to explore their identities and reflect on their own cultures. Our project will be the culminating activity of the unit, where we will write a short paragraph about ourselves in Spanish, cut up the paragraph into sentences, and then attach these sentences to milk-jug paper mache masks that we will be decorating together. Additionally, my students will present to the class and discuss why they decorated the masks the way they did.
My hopes are that through critical analysis of Spanish cultures and the significance of masks across the Spanish-speaking world, that students will critically analyze their own identities and learn a bit more about their peers in the process. Additionally, reflecting and sharing about one’s own identities, I believe, will help create a culture of understanding and respect for other individuals in the class.
About my class
During the first unit of the year, I will be discussing the topic of personal and cultural identity. My students will be investigating these themes for the first month and learning about different expressions of one’s identity through various modes of expression such as activities, stories, songs, poetry, art and lastly masks. As my students explore the importance of masks in Latin America, students will be asked to explore their identities and reflect on their own cultures. Our project will be the culminating activity of the unit, where we will write a short paragraph about ourselves in Spanish, cut up the paragraph into sentences, and then attach these sentences to milk-jug paper mache masks that we will be decorating together. Additionally, my students will present to the class and discuss why they decorated the masks the way they did.
My hopes are that through critical analysis of Spanish cultures and the significance of masks across the Spanish-speaking world, that students will critically analyze their own identities and learn a bit more about their peers in the process. Additionally, reflecting and sharing about one’s own identities, I believe, will help create a culture of understanding and respect for other individuals in the class.
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