Galeria De Pinturas (gallery of pictures), is a curriculum unit planned to showcase
scenes from life in the Caribbean according to Latina writers. The “gallery” showcase will be presented during Hispanic Awareness month (November). Its aim is to focus on women from three Spanish-speaking Caribbean islands ( Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic). These are three distinct countries with cultures that typify Spanish culture as a result of historic conquests and imperialism but also maintain distinct differences. Another intention of this curriculum is to represent the cultures of Latino students at West Hills Middle School and provide enlightenment to the greater population of the school of their Hispanic peers. Through this showcase students will recognize similarities in their own cultures like experiences of first generation immigration, religion, roles of women, and an infinite belonging of two cultures.
West Hills Middle magnet has been celebrating Hispanic Awareness Month for three years. An assembly with speakers, music, and dance has been the previous format. Students have also researched famous Latinos and shared them with the school through murals and bulletin boards. Although the variety of people presented have come from all areas of the Americas, little is done about women. Students will be guided through Latina literature and pick important sections that provide visual images. These images will then be translated into pictures that will literally come to life with drama and dance. Poetry will also be incorporated into the presentation so audience members can use their own imagination to conjure up visual images of their own.
“Readers are intrigued by a literature that can claim antecedents in the Spanish-language Latin American literary tradition, the English-language literature of immigrants to North America, feminist literature, and the literature of the emerging voices of America’s ethnic minorities”. 1
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Students will study life in the writer’s native land, if applicable, but focus on the transition to life in the United States and cultural traits that were kept and discarded. The preparation for our “picture” involves a technique in drama called creating tableaus. A tableau is a silent and motionless depiction of a scene that is often taken from pictures. Students will be encouraged to form visual pictures from the descriptive stories read in class to base their tableaus. Drama classes often use the pictures as a springboard to develop characters and stories through the use of improvisation. The improvisation will lead not only to acting but to poems and dances also. The final assembly will showcase these talents in a gallery of pictures encased in frames that is presented to the audience and will evolve into motion. The whole process of developing the resulting pictures involves:
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1. Choosing pictures
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2. Planning a tableau.
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3. Developing improvisation.
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4. Performing to a small audience.
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5. Responding to audience critique.
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6. Adapting the project for a larger audience.
