Learning about César Chávez and his fight for farmworkers' rights can be a heavy topic for students. I used to start this unit by getting straight into vocabulary words like human rights (derechos humanos), labor union (sindicato), and hunger strike (huelga de hambre), but I noticed I was understandably losing my high school students' interest. 

Now, I introduce the topic using the book Harvesting Hope, or Cosechando Esperanza. Although it's a children's book targeted for 3rd-6th graders, most heritage speakers in my class have never read something like this in Spanish. Reading it gives students a softer introduction while still providing them with a challenge.

While-Reading Activity: Students often read without really processing the content and tend to skip over important details. I created this to hold them accountable for what they read. They have to describe the illustration they see, translate important vocabulary words, and ultimately write a summary of each page. 

Summative Review: The background of each of these questions is the illustration of the page where they'd find the answer.