In order for students to work successfully with the story, we will focus on the adapted version for teenagers and young adults Cantar de Mio Cid. Versión modernizada by Buque de letras (2022). In addition, some previous context will be provided by studying El Cantar del Cerco de Zamora, which provides the historical background of the events that led up to the exile of our hero.
This unit will start with an individual survey to assess previous knowledge, followed by a whole-class activity with some introductory questions for the students to assess their previous knowledge about Hispanic literature. The results of the survey will determine the depth of the contents to be taught throughout the unit. Some examples of these questions are the following:
- ¿Qué es la epopeya? (What is an epic poem?)
- ¿Qué relatos épicos conoces? (What epic poems do you know?)
- ¿Qué representan? (What do they represent?)
- ¿Conoces Don Quijote? (Do you know Don Quixote?)
- ¿Conoces El Cid? (Do you know El Cid?)
The brainstorming will be supported by the display of images on a PowerPoint presentation. We will then move on to work with the adapted version of the book.
Once students are familiarized with the context of the poem, we can start comparing some excerpts of the adaptation to the original work which will be followed by reflecting on the difference between both versions and how the language, the story and the characters might change depending on how the adaptation is done. In addition, the reading of the poem will open some debate, like the meaning of honor, so that students can be given the opportunity to relate to their own experiences.
Considering the structure of the curriculum, this unit will take place in the fourth quarter of the school year, devoted to unit 4 “Literature of the Culture” and it will require the entire quarter. The number of sessions devised for this unit will be 13, but it might require some more depending on the students’ learning paces. In our school there is a block schedule, so lessons last for 80 minutes. By the end of this unit, students will have gained a better understanding of Hispanic literature, cultures, values, beliefs and behaviors; they will have learnt how to read, understand and analyze epic poems which will broaden their horizons and will, hopefully, make them keener on reading literary classics in the future. To achieve this, for this unit development and assessment strategies Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory will be considered, so that students will be presented with learning materials in multiple formats in order to compensate for their weaknesses and reinforce their strengths in the different intelligences. This will help educators facilitate students’ learning to reinforce their mastery of the content (Gardner, 2011)4. In this line, students will be presented with a range of meaningful methods, activities and assessments, such as videos, pictures, audiobooks, comic design, dramatization, debates, essay writing, questions on an individual, pair and whole class level5. In this line, the lessons will include as far as possible the M.A.G.I.C. strategies to engage students (M meaning the inclusion of movement, music and manipulatives; A meaning the authentic materials; G meaning gaming and guessing; I meaning interactions in pairs or groups; C meaning chunking and challenges) (NHPS World Languages)6.
Even though this curriculum unit is designed for native and heritage students, it could be adapted for non-native speakers in Spanish IV (students who have been learning Spanish for at least 4 years), as this level shares the same curriculum as NHS-2. However, some changes should be made, instead of contrasting the adapted version with the original poem, the comparison could be done with literature and a film adaptation in order to analyze fidelity and accuracy depending on the channel of communication. The film we will analyze is El Cid: La Leyenda (El Cid: The Leyend), version of 2003 directed by the Spanish filmmaker José Pozo. Another possible combination would be contrasting the adapted version with the graphic novel Cantar de mio Cid, Novela gráfica from the year 2014.
Finally, the final group project of this unit will be the design of a comic of different fragments of Cantar de Mio Cid and its dramatization in class. As for the individual work, this unit prioritizes the knowledge about the poem in the final paper as well as the assignments to be completed throughout the whole unit.
