Border Studies Curriculum

20 Ready-To-Use Lesson Plans

The NMSU Center for Latin American and Border Studies, with a grant from the federal Title VI program, has developed an integrated curriculum unit focusing on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The twenty lessons, which are downloadable from this website, are aimed primarily at a high school audience, for use as an adjunct in the study of U.S. history, border state history, or world history. However, the lessons can also be adapted for a middle school audience. In addition, The Border Forum (Lesson 18) provides a guide to the resources of the on-line border news service Frontera NorteSur which can be used by college students.

The border receives little attention in current secondary school textbooks. Although students in most U.S. states, including the four U.S. Southwest border states, may study the region to some degree, it is generally passed over. Yet the border is perhaps the most important region in the United States in many respects. Consider this statement made by the Southwest U.S.-Mexico Border Policy Group in 1994:
"The El Paso del Norte region . . . is the most crowded binational metroplex in the world. Because of this we have become the focus of global attention: people sense that our region is a portent of what is to become of borders everywhere, as the interconnectedness between peoples, groups and countries spreads throughout the world. Whether we will be judged successful or unsuccessful will depend on what we do now to alleviate the problems we have accumulated as a result of rapid border growth, and whether we can create a viable economy, a livable community, and mutual respect. . . Without special attention, increased economic interaction between the two countries . . . will simply aggravate poverty and fragmentation on the border."
Unfortunately, that statement is still true in the year 2004. The Border Studies Integrated Curriculum is a small step toward building mutual respect and creating the necessary special attention and focus on the U.S.-Mexico border. Teachers, especially those in the border states, may find these lessons particularly helpful in sparking student interest in the unique history, culture, and current issues of the borderlands. The curriculum has a social studies emphasis, but is integrated with lessons involving art, music, literature, math, language, film, and other subject areas.
The Border Studies Curriculum (BSC) is portable and ready-to-use in that the materials necessary to teach the lesson are almost entirely contained in the lessons as written. The BSC does make extensive use of the materials from the Center's Frontera NorteSur (FNS) news website, which has been covering the U.S.-Mexico border and in particular the Paso del Norte region on-line since 1996. However, the teacher will find that other than downloading a few internet items, most lessons are ready-to-go with just a few common materials available in the classroom. The decision was made not to rely on book or outside resources due to the realities of public school budgets. However, for some lessons, books and other outside resources have been recommended if the teacher is interested in pursuing the subject more thoroughly.

The BSC was also written in accordance with standards-based curriculum guidelines now used in almost all U.S. school districts. Each unit begins with an "Objective" statement and notes which of the ten National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Thematic Standards for Social Studies Teachers the lesson fulfills. In adapting these lessons for a particular school district, teachers can use this information to align the lesson with local and state standards.

The BSC approaches the study of the Borderlands in a constructivist manner, with the early units building on students' own experiences and prior social studies explorations. As the BSC progresses, the students are slowly introduced to more and more topics which may be outside of their own experience. The unit ends in a project-based manner, with a forum on current events, a border poetry writing workshop, and final Border Project, which builds on extensions suggested for the first 19 lessons.

Each lesson is structured in the same way, with a decisive beginning, middle, and ending (closure). However, experienced writers of curricula and lesson plans will note that the lessons are rather "abstract-random" in presentation rather than "concrete-sequential." Considerable room has been left for the creativity and ingenuity of individual teachers. These lessons are more aptly considered maps than rigid sets of instructions. Flexibility within the lesson plans allows teachers to offer options for research and study for students with a broad range of interests and aptitudes.

The twenty-lesson unit stands as an integrated whole; however, as teachers often can and must do, it also functions in parts. Each lesson stands on its own, and this being a free service on the worldwide web, teachers are free to pick and choose which lessons might be helpful additions to their study of U.S., state, local, or border history, culture, and literature, and adapt them as necessary.

Of particular interest here is Lesson 18, The Border Forum, which was the original inspiration for the Border Studies Curriculum. This lesson by itself could be a one-week to one-month long exploration of current border events. Drawing upon the more than eight years of reports and analyses available on the Frontera NorteSur website--the borderland news service published by the NMSU Center for Latin American and Border Studies--the Border Forum allows students to do in-depth research on such border topics as environment, health, human rights, immigration, underage drinking, drug trafficking, violence against women, and other topics which have received international media attention.

FNS has devoted itself to informing and educating readers on these topics in a way unique to border news media: unlike U.S. media which often ignores the Mexican perspective on these events, FNS strives to cover these topics from both sides of the border, and in particular from the Mexican perspective. For over a decade, FNS editors and writers have translated the Mexican news from Spanish into English reports, and conducted their own investigations and research into border issues.

The Border Forum includes a partial bibliography of articles from 1996 to 2002, with their URLs, so that they may be immediately downloaded for classroom use. The Border Forum can be of use to social studies, literature, and composition instructors from middle school to graduate school. We hope teachers, students, and other educational specialists--as well as people who simply have an interest in the borderlands--will find the BSC a useful, practical, inspiring, and challenging resource for use in the classroom.

Please e-mail your comments, questions, and suggestions about the BSC to Greg Bloom at the NMSU Center for Latin American and Border Studies at krebecca@nmsu.edu

The NMSU Center for Latin American and Border Studies, in conjunction with the Title VI program, wishes all teachers a good and productive school year and much success in bringing the study of the borderlands into the classroom.

Jeff Barnet, Project Coordinator, August 2000
Greg Bloom, BSC Revision Coordinator, October 2004

Thanks to the following people who assisted in the writing and revising of this project:
Héctor Carabajal
Dr. José Z. Garcia
Jim Herrera
Tina Patton
Nomi Washburn
Updated October 2004.

I hope you enjoy your visit to the Center For Latin American and Border Studies website. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call at (505) 646-6814.