“Films are an excellent source of authentic spoken language in context – a resource for both language and culture.”  Kitty Johnson, Film in the Classroom

Today, I showed my Spanish 1-8 class one of my all-time-favorite films to show in conjunction with our unit on family: “Real Women Have Curves.”

At my previous place of employ in Poughkeepsie, NY, I did not have to “prep” the students much prior to showing the film, especially with respect to body image. It was a more socially aware student body.  At my current place of employ, however, the All-American personification of beauty looms large.  Therefore, I have learned that it is perhaps a good idea to “set up” the film prior to showing it.

To that end, I created the mind map below for my students.  This was my first foray with Inspiration, and it was not as complicated as I had anticipated.  Click on the mind map for a larger image.

I think the mind map helped the students to better understand the main issues of “Real Women Have Curves”, and to focus more on the content as well as the context.

For more on Kitty Johnson’s paper, “Film in the Classroom”, click here.