6 Ways to Highlight LatinX Culture in the ELA Classroom

As we work as an educational community to bring stronger representation of our students to ELA curriculum, we must acknowledge the artistic, cultural, and linguistic works from the LatinX community. If you’re a busy teacher (I mean, aren’t we all!) finding the right artists, authors, and inspiration to find new ways to highlight the LatinX community throughout the year, I’m here with five ideas that will make your life easier and your curriculum even richer.

1. Close Reading New Voices

Small, bite-sized pieces of text and close reading is one of the easiest ways to streamline skills and layer in new voices to curriculum. I like to use my close reading templates paired with new, powerful texts and use them alongside other texts to make surprising connections. I’d love to share my Latinx author and creator series with you here featuring: Frida Kahlo, America Ferrera, Justice Sotomayor, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Richard Blanco. Each of these voices shares a unique LatinX experience with students and offers different opportunities for students to explore memoir, poetry, Hollywood screenwriting, and more!

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2. Naming, Culture, and Language

As cultures and language continue to evolve and blend across the world, the feminine and masculine endings of Spanish words have taken heat as the world seeks to create more gender-neutral ways of referring to groups of people.  Among these has been the uses of “Hispanic”, “Latino/a”, “LatinX” and, newly, “Latine”.   As our work in ELA is the study of the English language, it’s fascinating to also look at other languages in contrast.  Check out this Code Switch (occasionally explicit) episode about these terms and how they impact identity.  For a quicker look, here’s a great article to check out.   Even if this exact conversation doesn’t find its way into your classroom, this is worth our own study as educators as we seek to build our awareness of the communities we serve.

3. Elizabeth Acevedo “Afro-Latina”

In this highly energetic and passionate reflection on identity, Elizabeth Acevedo will stun your students in her poem “Afro-Latina”.  In one line, she cries:  “I know I come / from stolen gold. / From cocoa, / from sugarcane, / the children / of slaves / and slave masters. / A beautifully tragic mixture…”. Combine this piece with any unit or essential question exploring identity and you’ll have a seamless connection for students to analyze within the context of the unit you’re in. Have students pay attention to tone and imagery here especially.

4. Digital Choice Board

If it fits your calendar to celebrate the stories of LatinX voices for the whole month of Hispanic Heritage Month, this digital choice board will help you do just that. This simple board can be shared with students via Google Classroom (or other LMS), and they can choose from each of the five categories listed to dive deeper into stories, tradition, poetry, art, and books from fantastic LatinX authors and creators. Use this for bell work, for early finishers, or for added enrichment to any unit that you have lined up. Check it out here!

5. Decor & Representation

Over the summer and during back to school season, we’re very concerned about making our classrooms look appealing and feel welcoming. Our classroom decor, however, can be a powerful testament to helping students feel seen and communicating the authors, cultures, and stories that we value. To help you do that, I’ve designed some posters that can be easily printed, framed, and displayed any time during the year and give well-deserved shout-outs to some very big names in the LatinX author community.

6. SHOWCASE AUTHOR’S VOICE

When culturally diversifying curriculum, one important skill area to target is that of author’s voice. How does author’s voice emerge differently in one work vs another? How does one author speak about a topic in contrast to another? How does culture and language impact that tone? These questions and more are discussed in Brave New Teaching episode: Celebrating Diverse Voices: LatinX Writers (Episode 24). Listen in for some new ideas and grab the free download in the show notes for more close reading!

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