Vietnam/Aztlan: Civic & Political Engagement Through Art 

6-Hour Lesson Segment
Humanities (11th Grade)
Constructed by Celina Rodriguez

Community, Collectivism, Solidarity, Political Activism, Counter-narrative

Note: Please read through the “curriculum-thinking/rationales” behind this lesson before reading the hour-by-hour explanations.

Download Lesson Plan

About the Lesson & Learning Objectives

In this lesson, Vietnam | Aztlan: Civic & Political Engagement Through Art, students will learn about the power of the poster as a tool to spread information and empower communities, learn about the anti-war movement, and respond to Thanh Pham’s “call” for people to be politically engaged in their communities. They will start by analyzing posters by artist-activists such as Dignidad Rebelde and Malaquias Montoya. As a class, we will analyze an anti-war poster by Montoya that expresses solidarity with the Vietnamese. For their final project, students will create a poster print in multiples that will be distributed within their community to inform people about an issue that is important to them.

  • • Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions, expressing their own ideas persuasively and building on others’.

    • Interpret multiple visual representations

    • Evaluate information from multiple sources and be able to provide relevant evidence to support a claim or purpose.

  • • Day 1 : Gallery walk, art analysis, Vietnam History, call to action (slides 1-25: 1.5 hrs)

    • Day 2: Pick topic, research (slides 25-29: 1.5 hours)

    • Day 3 & 4: Design poster (slides 29: 3 hours)

    • Day 5 : Distribute posters - this may need to be done outside of class hours depending on the organization/topic that students choose (slide 30)

    1. Lesson Guide: Here

    2. Lesson Slideshow: Here

    3. Oral History: Thanh Pham

    4. Posters can be done via traditional screen printing, Photoshop, or Canva. The objective is to produce the same image in multiples for community-wide distribution.

  • • Community
    • Injustice
    • Resilience
    • Oppression
    • Solidarity
    • Collectivism

    1. How can posters serve as a form of knowledge & resistance to oppression over time?

    2. How have marginalized groups shown solidarity through art in American history?

    3. What is a relevant issue/problem facing your community?

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