Puerto Rican Identity

I want to be sure everyone in this group is aware of an outstanding set of lessons from Emerging America, a TPS Consortium member. It's called Puerto Rican Identity, and it includes helpful historical context, three different approaches to teaching with primary sources, and complete sets of Library of Congress primary sources that include images, audio files, maps, manuscripts, and music. It also follows Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. 

From the lesson description:

Model Lesson for Engagement: In Puerto Rican Identity, students examine documents and other primary sources showing various generations of Puerto Ricans engaging with Anglo-American culture while preserving their cultural identity.   

Cultural Considerations: 

An essential facet of engagement is to ensure that materials and approaches are culturally relevant for the particular students in your classroom.  

​Puerto Ricans Arriving in at Newark airport, 1947

I would also suggest checking out all three Classroom Activity Ideas. Although geared to this unit, they would work well with all sorts of primary sources lessons no matter what the content.

1. Timeline Activity: ​ Have students sort photographs from the primary source set into chronological order. Provide students with key event dates. Ask students to reflect on the ways that early events may effect current identity of Puerto Rican Americans.
2. Perspective-Taking:​ Ask students to choose one person from a photograph or audio-recording. After carefully analysis, students will select a perspective from which they will write or speak. Use the photograph or recording to create questions that will launch research to inform students’ writing.
3. Semantic Mapping:​ Semantic Mapping leads to written end products. Students will have a graphic organizer with the categories where each image might fall under. They have to check off the categories where the images might be categorize and explain on a space provided in the organizer why they selected that category.

  3 - 5    6 - 8    9 - 12    Social Studies/History    Bilingual Education/ESL    Puerto Rico    Teaching Strategies  

  Rich Cairn    Alison Noyes