September 29th | Week in Review

¡Hola a todos! With Hispanic Heritage Month upon is, our minds are percolating with the wealth of resources available to help teach about Hispanic heritage in the classroom.

– First and foremost, we’re proud to share an amazing resource produced by Teaching for Change: Teaching Central America. This website is dedicated to producing rich, nuanced content focused on Central America. It’s particularly useful right now as educators turn to this topic in their classrooms, but we also hope that it will be a tool to infuse Latin American content into the curriculum all year long. Full disclaimer: our office, the UNM Latin American and Iberian Institute, is a partner organization on this initiative.

– Next, to put some of these resources in context, here’s a lesson plan on “Latino Heritage” from Teaching Tolerance that introduces the topic of Latino Heritage and offers activities to help students gain a deeper understanding of past and present struggles for Latino civil rights.

– Scholastic has done some legwork in compiling lesson plans, book lists, crafts and biographies to help teachers looking for resources to Bring Hispanic Heritage Month to Life

– Here are 14 New Children’s and YA Books that Celebrate Hispanic Heritage.  This list includes our recently read (and loved!) book, Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar.

— Embrace Race posted 26 Children’s Books to Support Conversations on Race, Racism, and Resistance. “Research from Harvard University suggests that children as young as three years old, when exposed to racism and prejudice, tend to embrace and accept it, even though they might not understand the feelings. By age 5, white children are strongly biased towards whiteness.” Many of the books on the list have been featured here before on the blog and we even have curriculum to go along with them, such as Separate is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh.

–Share with your students 18 Major Moments in Hispanic History that All Americans Need to Know. This includes a series of accomplishments from major social justice movements to policy to demographics, and also includes deeply troubling moments like public health test trials.

-When considering short films about food, entertainment, and culture, you might want to check out PBS’s list of Videos that Celebrate Latino Heritage and Culture.

–Additionally, the National Education Association has K-12 resources dedicated to Hispanic Heritage Month.

– Lastly, we conclude this list with Teaching Resources from the Smithsonian Institute, which highlights materials on the Bracero Program, Latino music, Puerto Rican Carnival, and much more…

Abrazos,
Alin Badillo

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Image: La Lucha Sigue. Reprinted from Flickr user Daniel Lobo under CC©.

 

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Our Next Good Read. . .Lucky Broken Girl

Join us on Monday, September 11th at Tractor Brewing (1800 4th St NW) from 5:00-7:00 pm to discuss our next book.  We are reading Lucky Broken Girl (Grades 6 and up) by Ruth Behar.

Here’s a sneak peek into the book: (from Goodreads)

Based on the author’s childhood in the 1960s, a young Cuban-Jewish immigrant girl is adjusting to her new life in New York City when her American dream is suddenly derailed.

Ruthie Mizrahi and her family recently emigrated from Castro’s Cuba to New York City. Just when she’s finally beginning to gain confidence in her mastery of English and enjoying her reign as her neighborhood’s hopscotch queen, a horrific car accident leaves her in a body cast and confined her to her bed for a long recovery. As Ruthie’s world shrinks because of her inability to move, her powers of observation and her heart grow larger. She comes to understand how fragile life is, how vulnerable we all are as human beings, and how friends, neighbors, and the power of the arts can sweeten even the worst of times.

We hope to see you there!

We’ll also be raffling off a copy of October’s featured book, Reputations / Las reputaciones (Adult).  Join us that evening to be entered!

 

April 7th | Week in Review

¡Hola a todos! This week I found interesting resources, I hope you enjoy!

– You might appreciate Mexican author Valeria Luiselli’s book-length essay, Tell Me How It Ends, if you are teaching about Central American migration, and especially about child migrants. “Until it is safer for undocumented folks to share their own stories, to argue on their own behalf, Luiselli makes for a trusted guide.”

— Check out these three authors shortlisted for the Burt Award for Caribbean Literature. “The finalists were selected by a jury administered by the Bocas Lit Fest and made up of writing, publishing and educational professionals with expertise in young adult literature.”