Language Arts

This lesson deals with the different understandings of the meaning of "macho" and "machismo" between the United States and Latin America. Students will understand this difference through a reading,mini drama and comparative exercise and discuss the role of "machismo" in both cultures.

In this lesson, students will read two readings about folk medicine, one with general information and another that looks closer at the practice of folk medicine. They will understand the practice of folk medicine in Peru and will be able to relate where and why it is prevalent and the types of "treatments" that are employed.

The writing of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega bear witness to the high level of social development in the Inca Empire and have been instrumental in creating strong national pride. Students will read a description by Garcilaso and will be able to describe how the Incas socially organized to cultivate the land.

Students will be able to account for language variations in South America and gain some awareness of the separatism in which many natives still reside in within some South American countries, principally Peru.

Students will begin dealing with the issues of land reform and will develop their own opinions on the idea of land reform.

Aymara is another language spoken in Peru. Students will learn to sing an Aymara song.

This lesson plan is meant to accompany the 2015 Americas Award Winner "Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal" by Margarita Engle. The book and lesson will allow for classroom discussions pertaining to race relations, power struggles and the differences between race, nationality and ethnicity. In this unit students will experiment with how sentence fluency can help create distinct voices and will also recognize how specific voices can encompass characteristics of communities.

In this lesson, students will learn about the problem of illiteracy in order to better understand the situation in Nicaragua and the rest of Central America. Students will also begin to form a new perspective of their own education and how most of the U.S. population is literate.

In this lesson, students will read a poem and be introduced to the human, individual side of the struggle in Central America. They will focus on understanding people in terms of humans rather than just statistics.

In this lesson students will learn new vocabulary related to climate change, distinguish between local climate and weather, explore the meaning of average climate data by calculating average temperatures, learn about global warming, role play as climatologists and think critically about climate adaptions.