Reference
Review by Bryan Hanrahan, Spanish Teacher, Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School
Despite a lack of crossover between my Spanish curriculum and this curriculum unit, I was interested in learning more about the Chinese Cultural Revolution to see if there existed any similarities between the two regimes led by Mao Zedong and Francisco Franco. After browsing through the materials and lesson plans, information from this unit could supplement my lessons when covering the contemporary history of Spain.
During the 1900s, there existed many power struggles both intranationally and internationally around the world. This includes the World Wars, the Franco Era in Spain, the Cold War, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution to name a few. I would use some of the materials from this unit like the propaganda posters and timeline to help the students understand the global picture during this time period. Moreover, I would like to have the students research for any potential connections between the dictatorships throughout the world and present their findings. I would also take this as an opportunity to teach the students about Spanish vocabulary surrounding global politics including nationalities, war terms, and political terms. Due to the level of difficulty of ideas and advanced vocabulary, I would maybe teach this to high level seniors in the Spanish classroom. This potential unit would be great to teach at the college level in Spanish.
In terms of the amount of materials and lessons, the curriculum unit is a wonderful resource. I could not imagine teaching all of the material in the same fashion suggested by the unit; the amount of preparation for the teacher and work for the students seemed a little overwhelming. However, as previous reviewers mentioned the work can be adapted and differentiated to meet the needs of the learners and different teaching styles. The unit provides a wide array of activities and visual resources to go with it including propaganda artwork, songs from the era, and a timeline to better understand cause and effect. Moreover, the unit has group and independent work for students as they gain a better understanding of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Overall, I find this to be an incredibly useful resource and would definitely implement certain aspects into both a social studies and Spanish classroom.
