Building Collective Memory Through History and Poetry
High School
By Melissa Espiritu
In this mini-unit developed as part of the UCI Central American Studies in K–12 Curriculum Project, students explore the personal impact that the politics of El Salvador and the United States have on both Salvadoran migrants and their children.
Students read and analyze a timeline, an article, and a poem written by a Salvadoran-American daughter detailing her personal diaspora story as a child of immigrants. Students end the unit by writing their own historical timeline poem modeled after the poem they read in the unit.
Learn more about the lesson in the video below from the author, high school teacher Melissa Espiritu.
Melissa Espiritu (She/Her) I am the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants and I grew up in the South East Los Angeles (SELA) neighborhoods. Both of these identities have been central to who I am as a teacher. I have spent the last twenty years teaching English language arts at several high schools in the SELA and East LA area.