Women During the Mexican Revolution

Maria Montaya, Anaheim High School

As a first-year high school Spanish teacher at Anaheim High School, Maria felt "stuck" between restricting students to only speak and write in Spanish in the classroom, to creating a more linguistically inclusive environment. Through her involvement in Project LEARN, however, Maria focused on revamping her unit, "The Role of Marginalized Groups and Mexican Women since the Mexican Revolution" and structured this unit around gender roles, particularly experiences of marginalized women and Indigenous peoples during the Mexican Revolution in Mexico.

The Role of Marginalized Groups and Mexican Women since the Mexican Revolution

This unit took place over 5 weeks and involved students participating critically analyzing various texts regarding the experiences of marginalized groups during the Mexican Revolution. Students demonstrated their learning through assignments such as written reflections, answering reading comprehension questions orally and in writing, vocabulary exercises, character analysis, quizzes and a final written essay. Below, you will find some of the assignments and scaffolds Maria used to build students up to the final written assignment. Throughout this unit, Maria learned to brave up and embrace students' plurilingualism as an asset, rather than a hindrance, to demonstrate their growing understanding and abilities in Spanish.

The role of marginalized groups and Mexican women since the Mexican Revolution (in Mexico)

Scaffolding Reading Comprehension

El anillo del general Macías

Throughout this unit, students read and critically analyzed two core texts related to the roles and experiences of marginalized women during the Mexican Revolution. Students first began by reading and analyzing a play in their Spanish textbook, El anillo del general Macías. After reading this play, students analyzed core events of the play and its structure by creating a drama triángulo. The student example included below demonstates the significant depth and complexity of language the student used to create their drama triángulo. While students had the option to use any language to complete this assignment, this student chose to stretch themselves and write almost entirely in Spanish.

Elena Poniatowska

Shortly after reading and analyzing El anillo del general Macías, students read a chapter from the book Elena Poniatowska and completed reading comprehension questions about the text. The core assignments associated with this reading were a set of reading comprehension questions and an análisis de personajes (character analysis) that analyzed the relationships between the main characters using direct evidence from the text. Students were given the option of completing these assignments in any language they desired; however, many opted to complete them almost entirely in Spanish. Once again, a significant level of linguistic complexity and depth are present in both of the student examples included below.

Student Example: Análisis de _Hasta no verte Jesús mío.pdf

Student Example: Elena Poniatowska Reading Comprehension Questions

Análisis de personajes - _El anillo del General Macías.pdf

Student Example: Obras de la Revolución Análisis de Personajes

Final Essay

The culminating assessment for this unit was a final essay where students demonstrated their critical thinking and analysis of the readings they engaged in throughout the unit. The final essays focused on the discrimination and violence women (and, by extension, men) in Mexico faced during the Mexican Revolution. While students had the option to complete this final assessment in any languages of their choosing, may chose to stretch themselves by writing entirely in Spanish, and did not have to be prompted by Maria to do so. Below are final papers written by two different students. Each essay showcases students' deep understanding and analysis of the two core readings in this unit, and highlights how they are critically grappling with the concept of injustice as portrayed in each reading.

Student A Final Essay.pdf

Student B Final Essay.pdf

Language Fusion for Success

“I’ve learned that by embracing my students’ linguistic repertoire and letting them use what they already know in English and applying it in Spanish has definitely helped them achieve better in class assignments and quizzes. By encouraging students to use English in formative assignments, I’ve experienced that English is a vehicle and not an obstacle to continue learning Spanish.”

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