Unit: Getting to know the Puerto Rican Culture
Tittle: Match the image to the correct historical influence
Grade Level: Students from middle school to high school
Brief History: Puerto Rico is full of diversity and cultural influences. The island was home solely to the Taíno Indians until Christopher Columbus, in his second voyage, landed on its shores. Taínos where enslaved and most of them died within decades, further on African slaves had to be brought to the island to do the hard labor.
Standards:
Content Standards #2: Using knowledge of structure and function
1. Students know the differences among visual characteristics and purpose of art in order to convey ideas.
2. Students describe how different expressive features and organizational principles cause different responses.
3. Students use visual structures and functions of art to communicate ideas.
Content Standard #3: Choosing and evaluating a range of subjects matter, symbols, and ideas
1. Students explore and understand prospective content for works of art.
Content Standard #4: Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and culture.
1. Students know that the visual arts have both a historical and specific relationship to various cultures.
2. Students identify specific works of art as belonging to a particular culture, time, and place.
Goal: By conducting this lesson, students become aware that the visual arts are influenced by a direct relationship to history and various cultures. With this overview, the students will better understand how multiple cultures influence the Puerto Rican art.
Objective: With the showing of the video Puerto Rico; Paradise, Beauty, the students will have the opportunity to understand the mixture of cultures that the island have. By playing the matching game the students will interpret the images that they have in front of them and place them with the right heritage. With the use of the images the students can observe and relate what they saw in the video with the Taíno, the Spanish or the African culture.
Requirement: In addition to learning the history and the culture of Puerto Rico the students will have the opportunity to put in practice what they saw in the video matching the images provided by the teacher to a sheet of paper that has the different cultures on it. With this hands-on activity the students can observe and engage in conversation on why they think it belongs to a particular group.
Material / Media / Resources:
· Projector, Computers, Images, Video, Paper, Glue, Notebook, Pencil or Pen\
Teacher preparation: The teacher must present the history of the conquering of Puerto Rico to answer question from the students. By using the videos and images the teacher can explain better to the students the importance of the multicultural identity that the Puerto Rican culture has. The teacher must find the images that they want the students to identify before the day of the lecture.
Teaching:
Introduction: Introducing the topic, the teacher can explain to the students that in the upcoming week they will be learning about the Puerto Rican culture and their art. The teacher must explain to the students that Puerto Rico has a variety of cultural influences and that is very important to understand them to create the final project. For the first day activity, which is the matching game, they have to tell the students to pay careful attention to the video shown and take notes for the activity at the end of class.
Direction: Once the students finish the video, the teacher will have an open discussion on the images that they saw and what they saw that was traditional of Puerto Rico. When the teachers understand that the class has had a general understanding they will introduce the activity. The activity consists of handing each student a piece of paper divided in three categories: Taíno Indians, Spaniards and Africans. The teacher will give the students different images that represent each culture and the students must match the picture to the correct column.
Closure: Fifteen minutes before the class end, the teacher will start discussing how they match the images with the culture and explaining to them why it is part of that category. In this moment of the lesson the teacher will star asking question like: What can you see in their art that you recognize? Are they any specific color that helps you identify the piece of art? Did you saw that image in the video and recognize it?, Where you interested in any specific image that we saw today?, etc. This will help the student explore more the identification of each image with the right culture. The open discussion of the subject will engage the students to tell the teacher what they found interesting in the lesson and how much they learned.
Clean up: Five minutes before class ends the teacher can tell the students to put away all their stuff and clean up their area.
Time Frame:
1. 10 minutes – Introduction
2. 20 minutes – Video and Activity
3. 15 minutes – Group Discussion
4. 5 minutes – Clean Up
Vocabulary:
1. Taíno Indian: is a subgroup of the Arawakan Indians, inhabited the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean Sea at the time when Christopher Columbus arrived to the Americas.
2. San Juan: is the capital of Puerto Rico is the oldest city on US territory. Founded in 1521 by Juan Ponce de Leon.
3. Puerto Rico: rich port.
4. Slavery: the state of a person who is a chattel of another.
5. Island: a track of land surrounded by water and smaller than a continent.
6. Hammock: a swinging couch or bed usually made of netting or canvas and slung by cords from supports at each end.
7. Bomba: it comes out of the musical traditions brought by enslaved African in the 17th century. It’s a source of political and spiritual expression.
8. Salsa: popular music of Latin American origin that has absorbed characteristics of rhythms and blues, jazz and rock.
9. Reggaeton: popular music of Puerto Rico origin that combines rap with Caribbean rhythms.
Evaluation / Requirements: Because this is an introductive class, this unit will not be evaluated with points. The students are required to have an open discussion on the learn subject with the teacher to continue with the next class.
Special Needs: None
Extended activity:
Safety Concerned: None
Bibliography / Reference:
Puerto rico **la isla del encanto**paradise, beauty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvOLT7fjQ3Q
Comments regarding follows up class: The next class would be creating the Vejigante mask and learning the story and legacy of the African Diasporas in Puerto Rico