This unit will be taught towards the end of the school year. By this point in the year, students will have a solid foundation in how many Spanish-speaking countries there are, as well as how many Spanish speakers. They will be aware of the countries in the Southern Cone, and they will already have background knowledge that they can connect to Argentina and Chile. This unit will give students the opportunity to see that problems exist in other countries, and they will have a chance to connect those problems to some that exist in our own country, as well as other parts of the world.
The classroom activities can be modified to be used in other classrooms. During the first week, I will introduce students to the idea of human rights by having them brainstorm what rights they have in the United States. Students will be able to define the concept of a human right. Students will be introduced to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the Geneva Conventions. Students will read short passages from these documents, in order to understand that there are worldwide standards and laws about both human rights as well as war. Towards the end of the first week, and the beginning of the second week, I will introduce the idea of a dictatorship to students. Students will be introduced to the dictatorships in Argentina and Chile through a visual PowerPoint. Students will also read passages to gain an understanding of the human rights violations that occurred, watch a short video, and have classroom discussions.
During week two, students will read literature and analyze art from the time period to understand the air of fear during the time period. From these visual sources, students will gain a better understanding of what it was like to live under one of these dictatorships. They will better understand the culture of fear and the human rights violations that took place.
During week three, students will introduced to the idea of retrospective justice. I will define this for them. Students will research the retrospective justice in a particular country in the Southern Cone in small groups of 4-5 students. They will present their findings to the class in the fourth week. Finally, students will take a written unit test.