WHS WL Social Justice Curriculum Guide

This course is designed for the student who has successfully completed 3 years of Spanish or ESL 2B or higher. Teacher recommendation is required. This course will be predominantly conducted in Spanish. Students will explore and examine topics related to social justice including identity, intersectionality, equity, advocacy and how they relate to education and culture in the 21st century. In particular, this course will focus on Spanish language development and application with an emphasis on acquisition of critical vocabulary, as well as approaches to literary texts.

Unit

Timeframe

Big Ideas (Statements or Essential Questions)

Major Learning Experiences from Unit 

  • Identidad y interseccionalidad (Identity & Intersectionality)

varied

  • ¿What is the concept of intersectionality?

  • Who are you? How do you identify yourself?

Students will explore the meaning of social justice through identity and intersectionality. By doing so they will read stories of people’s experiences, listen to podcasts and watch documentaries

  • Immigration 

Varied

  • Why do people come to the United States? For what kinds of opportunities? What role does education play for recent immigrants?

Students will explore the meaning of social justice through immigration. They will further understand the impact it has on education and how to overall teach for social justice. They will also create more connections between immigration and latinx/hispanic culture in the United Stated. 

  • La Equidad (equity) 

Varied

*Race

  • How do we define race? How does my culture define race? 

*Langue

  • We are all multilingual: What are the different aspects of multilingualism?

  • Lenguaje: what is the role of language in the school system? Should we only be taught English?


  • Language as an identity → your language and languages are a potential source of identity, how do you use it to reflect what you believe? 

In this unit, students will explore the meaning of social justice through Equity. They will further understand this topic by studying subtopics such as Race, language, gender and sexuality, socio economic status and the impact those have on education. They will develop a further understanding on how these topics impact education and their culture. 

  • Defensa (Advocacy)

varied

  • How can we empower teachers?

  • How can we empower students ?

  • How can we change embedded systems? 

-What is the difference between activism and service and what are the long term effects? 

- What is a challenge at Waltham High School? How can you solve this problem as an activist and not as an act of service? 

In this unit students will reflect on the knowledge and understanding of the topics studied throughout the year and use this towards an act of service or change at Waltham High school. Students will identify an adaptive challenge and create a proposal as to how to progress towards change.