Tag Archives: hispanic history

Cultural Literacy: Guatemala

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Guatemala. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and eight comprehension questions. I contrived the questions for this text with an eye toward assisting students in developing their own understanding of how to tease out relatively complex details in a text. In this case, that work involves situating Guatemala in relation to its neighboring nations in Central America.

Editorially (if I may), I think Guatemala ought to be a subject of deeper inquiry in our world history or global studies (or whatever your district calls these kinds of courses), especially the dreadful consequences of United States foreign policy in this sovereign nation. Reading the primary documents from this period leads to the inescapable conclusion that the United States government was complicit in genocide.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Ariel

“Ariel: (1900) An essay by Jose Enrique Rod, which had a tremendous impact on Hispanic American Intellectuals. Rodo appealed to the youth of Spanish American to aspire to be the spirituality, idealism, and rationality symbolized by Shakespeare’s Ariel and to reject the brutishness and sensuality represented by Caliban. Because Rodo censured U.S. materialism and utilitarianism in the essay, many readers erroneously assumed that he was pitting Anglo-Saxon crassness against Latin idealism. A later essay by Fernandes Retamar made a quite different interpretation of Caliban, as the native and victim of imperialism.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Carlos Fuentes

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Carlos Fuentes. This is a half-page worksheet with a one-sentence reading (the sentence is longish and might require editing for some readers) and two short comprehension questions. It’s the barest of introductions to this eminent Mexican novelist and essayist; enough to help students gain knowledge of Carlos Fuentes, a significant figure in world literature. In other words, students will gain passing cultural literacy from this document, but little more.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Gaston Baquero y Diaz

“Gaston Baquero y Diaz: (1916-1997) Cuban poet, literary critic, and journalist. Although from a scientific background, he quickly gravitated toward the “Origines” group and became chief editor of the El Diario de la Marina newspaper for fifteen years. He left Cuba for political reasons in 1959, settling in Spain. Baquero’s poetry, collected in Poemas (1942) and Memorial de un testigo (1966), has a magical, visionary quality, laced with humor and sensuality. It is rich in sonorities and is strongly metaphysical, but also explores the intimate details of daily life, qualities more clearly seen in later works such as Magias e invenciones (1984) and Poemas invisibles (1991).”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

The Weekly Text, 1 October 2021, Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 Week III: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Don Quixote

For the third Friday of Hispanic Heritage Month 2021, here is a reading on Don Quixote with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I don’t know if you’ve read Miguel de Cervantes’ magisterial novel–I finally read it during the pandemic, and now want to read it again–but I must extol the virtues and richness of this landmark of world literature.

Otherwise, I have nothing to say, and I certainly wouldn’t presume to editorialize upon or criticize this novel. If that’s what you seek, I recommend Harold Bloom or someone of his ilk. It goes without saying, I assume, that a lot of ink has been spilled in seeking a deeper understanding of Don Quixote.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Luis Walter Alvarez

“Luis Walter Alvarez: (1911-1988) U.S. experimental physicist. Born in San Francisco, he joined the faculty of UC-Berkeley in 1936, where he would remain until 1978. In 1938 he discovered that some radioactive elements decay when an orbital electron merges with the atom’s nucleus, producing an element with an atomic number smaller by 1, a form of beta decay. In 1939 he and Felix Bloch (1905-1983) made the first measurement of the magnetic movement of the neutron. During World War II he developed a radar guidance system for landing aircraft and participated in the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. He later helped construct the first proton linear accelerator and constructed the first liquid hydrogen bubble chamber. With his son, the geologist Walter Alvarez (b. 1940), he helped develop the theory that links the dinosaur’s extinction with a giant asteroid or comet impact. For work that included the discovery of many subatomic particles, he received a Nobel Prize in 1968.”

Excerpted/Adapted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: Alvarez Hypothesis

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Alvarez Hypothesis. This is a half-page worksheet with a three sentence reading and three comprehension questions. For more on Luis Walter Alvarez and his son, Walter Alvarez, see the post immediately above this one.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Bartolome de Las Casas

“Bartolome de Las Casas: (1474-1566) Spanish-born Dominican missionary and historian. Las Casas came to Santo Domingo in 1502 and was the first priest ordained in the New World (1510). In 1514, Las Casas suddenly became aware of the injustice with which the Indians were being treated in America, and subsequently devoted himself entirely to promoting their welfare, usually with the support of the crown, but against the bitter opposition of the Spanish settlers. Brevisma relacion de la destruccion de las Indias (1522), his vivid, but probably exaggerated, account of the Indian sufferings, was instrumental in fostering the long-lived ‘black legend’ which denigrated the colonial policies of Spain in America. His major work, Historia general de las Indias (1875), is an important source for the early period of colonization in Latin America.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Cesar Chavez

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Cesar Chavez, the legendary civil rights activist and labor leader. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and six comprehension questions. As I do with many civil rights leaders, I wonder what Cesar Chavez would make of the current economic and social situation in the United States.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Mateo Aleman

“Mateo Aleman: (1547-1614?) Spanish novelist. Descended from Jews who had been forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism, he expressed many aspects of the experiences and feelings of the new Christians in 16th-century Spain. His most important literary work is Guzman de Alfarache (1599, 1604), one of the earliest picaresque novels, which brought fame throughout Europe, but little profit.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.