Teachers can use several teaching strategies in the classroom to make this documentary accessible to students. Popular approaches to dissecting and internalizing information can be effectively employed. Listed below are some of these methods that we encourage you to use before and after sharing this documentary with your students.

1. Assessment: Be sure to track how students’ opinions, understandings, and thoughts evolve through this learning process. Identify a strategy to help you record the growth of each student. One approach is to have students create their own T-charts in which they list on one side their thoughts and ideas about Cuba before watching; and, on the other side, list their reactions to their own comments after watching the documentary and as they research.

2. Web: Put a key word in the center of the “web” and draw connecting lines out from it. For example, what comes to mind when you hear the word Cuba?

3. Index cards: Use the cards in a variety of ways. For example, you could have students anonymously write a question they would like to have answered on one side of the card, and then pass it in. The questions can be discussed in class and the “stumpers” can then provide research topics to follow up on.

4. KWL: Ask the class “What do I know about Cuba, What do I want to know, and then, after a bit of exploration and research, What did I learn?” This is a chart that is filled in over time as the group has time to think, question, and finally, research.

5. T-Chart: Use a T-chart to list things such as myths and stereotypes of Cuban or North American culture. Use this list as a foundation for discussion or the chart could provide topics to “de-mystify”.

6. Time Line: Identify important dates in Cuban history for students to do research on and expand on. Challenge your students to be artistic and creative with this project. Students will find background information to share with the class; creating a more comprehensive time line and leading them to discover even more interesting and pertinent events. For each time line moment the students should begin by finding:

1) A photograph that illustrates each historical event.

2) An explanation of the event’s significance.

3) A description of what ties the events to each other.

1959 -- Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista overthrown.

1960 -- United States imposes trade embargo on Cuba.

1961 -- U.S. severs relations with Cuba; Bay of Pigs invasion fails.

1962 -- Cuban Missile Crisis.

1975 -- Cuba intervenes in Angolan civil war.

1980 -- Mariel boatlift.

1991 -- Soviet Union collapses.

1999 -- Elian Gonzalez rescued off Florida coast.