Exploring the Virtual Exhibition on Roberto Clemente
This will be a lesson in which students explore the website that has been created by the Smithsonian Institution to commemorate the life and career of Roberto Clemente. Here the students will get a chance to see many images and view a detailed time line of his life. The website will serve as a study guide for the students. After they explore and take notes there will be a Jeopardy activity where they will compete to answer trivia questions about Clemente. Some will also be in Spanish so they can continue to practice recognizing cognates and common words.
The Boxing Protocol and Self-Description
The Boxing Protocol is my go-to strategy when reading articles and comparing and contrasting topics. For comparing and contrasting Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson half the class will be given an article on Roberto Clemente published by the Smithsonian and a Robinson piece written by Larry Schwartz from ESPN. Each article goes over a brief biography and important events from each of their lives. Groups of five will be given a poster with an outer box, a middle box, and an inside box. The outer box is for things that the students already know before reading the article and questions that they may have about their particular athlete. The middle box is for things that the students learn while they are reading the article. The inside box is for writing a summary about the article. After the summaries are written, the posters will be shared with the class and similarities and differences will be discussed. For homework they will be assigned to look up a quick bio of any African American or Latino Baseball player. The next day we will focus on language and each student will learn how to introduce themselves as the players they looked up as well as describe one personality trait.
Giant Venn Diagram and Chalkboard Splash
One of the activities from the music section of the unit will be to fill out a giant Venn diagrams as a class. The first circle will represent Jazz and the second will represent Salsa. While the Jazz song is playing students will go up to the board and write in anything they notice about the music. The same will happen for the salsa song. Once they hear both, the students will discuss the differences and similarities and fill in the middle section together. Then they will follow the same process for Hip-Hop and Reggeaton. Then they will do a new diagram comparing the different eras of music.
Using Cognates to Translate Lyrics
In this activity students will listen to a Salsa/Reggaeton song and use the cognates they hear as well as context clues to translate the lyrics. They will each receive a copy of the lyrics in Spanish as well as a set of English lyrics that have been partially filled in. As a class with the instructor they will go through the song and translate each piece. After becoming comfortable with this, groups of five will get together and do the same activity with different songs. After that each group will present their song and how they translated it.
Comparing Musical Styles
To begin this case study students will be exposed to various songs from different artists. They will hear Hip Hop from Eminem and Jay Z, Reggeaton from Pit Bull and Daddy Yankee, Salsa from El Gran Combo and the Fania All-Stars, and Jazz from various artists of the twentieth century. Most students in New Haven listen to Hip Hop. They can tell you all of the popular artists and have most of their songs completely memorized. But do they know where Hip Hop came from? How did this form of music go from being an underground movement to the most popular music in the world? Most students who listen to Hip Hop have most likely heard some Reggeaton, but most also think of some type of tomato sauce when they here Salsa. Where did Reggeaton originate? Why is Salsa such an important part of the Latino culture? In this case study students will get a chance to do more research than in the previous case studies. They will be assigned to read chapter 8 from "Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New York" by Arlene Davila. Mambo Montage is a collection of essays about different aspects of the history of the Latino community in New York. This is a very unique reading that clearly shows the linked nature of the African American and Latino communities. Because students have more initial knowledge they will get to choose a song or artist they like and find a reggeaton or salsa artist to compare the careers and musical styles of each. The students will create Power Point presentations showing what they have learned. Each presentation will include an analysis and sound track of two songs, one from each genre.
Film Screening and Discussion
Towards the end of the unit students will be shown the documentary film "La Clave" which takes a look at the history of how Reggeaton became popular and how the musical style of Reggeaton compares to Salsa. Aligned with the film they will have a worksheet with questions about the film and also discussion questions to bring the conversation back to the historical context of Hip-Hop and Latinos in New York in the latter half of the twentieth century.