Audience                    

This multimedia module on Jesus Colón has been designed for pre-service and in-service teachers with two interrelated purposes appropriate to a course on literacy across the curriculum:

1. To address the entry-level skills of teacher candidates who typically enter teacher preparation programs with some knowledge of the uses of technology in daily life, but relatively less understanding of its strategic and selective application to enhance the teaching-learning process; and

2. To broaden the pedagogical content knowledge of teacher candidates who receive little preparation in the history and intellectual contributions of Americans of Puerto Rican descent—a group that has remained invisible in the knowledge base for teaching and that has been misrepresented in the media and educational references.

Attention to both of these needs is critical considering that the new learning standards and high stakes testing are already having serious consequences on the educational achievement and attainment of students from economically marginalized communities at a time when a college degree is deemed essential for survival. The Puerto Rican community, in particular, continues to experience a disproportionate percentage of high school dropouts and low-college enrollment rate, one century after the Puerto Rican community established itself in New York City.

The module has been designed as a component of Literacy across the Content Areas course, but it is also adaptable to other courses, including, teaching social studies, educational technology, and literature courses at all levels. A unique and significant feature of this module is the linkages it creates with the on-line database of El Centro's Library and Archives. The Archives are a repository of primary sources (e.g., photographs, letters, newspaper articles, short stories) that document the experiences and intellectual contributions of Puerto Ricans in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. However, despite the wealth of information of importance to educators, El Centro Archives are more frequently used by social scientists and students specializing in Black and Puerto Rican studies, nationally and internationally, than by teachers locally.

Objectives

1. Develop background knowledge on the experiences and intellectual contributions of the Puerto Rican community in New York City by accessing on-line resources of the Archives of El Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos.

2. Develop criteria for identifying and using authoritative on-line multimedia resources to broaden their knowledge of the literacy contributions of diverse authors, specifically the literary contributions of Jesus Colon, a bilingual journalist whose recollections make accessible in English a valuable record of the day-to-day experiences (social history) of Puerto Rican migrants in New York City during the decades prior to the 1950's.

3. Use technology tools (e.g., Web sites, digital cameras, scanners, photographs, etc.) to create knowledge products (e.g., a multimedia power point presentation/web page on Jesus Colon) for public elementary school students in New York City.