Granito: How to Nail a Dictator

Last year I showed the documentary Cuando las Montañas Tiemblan as a intro to the novel Esperanza. This year I decided to instead show Granito: How to Nail a Dictator. It actually is from the same flimmaker, Pamela Yates. She released Cuando las Montañas Tiemblan in 1983 which was live footage of what was going on during the Civil War.
Granito was released in 2011 and includes footage from the 1983 but also the aftermath of the Civil War.  It is in English and Spanish (with subtitles). You can buy it from YouTube.

Prior to the students watching the documentary, they read the Guerra Civil reading in the Esperanza Teacher Guide and played this Kahoot (thanks to my coworker Christie). If you haven't tried Kahoot, try it! The kids love it! Also it is easy to share with your coworkers so if one creates the activity and you need to modify your version slightly, no problem.

Then students watched Granito: How to Nail a Dictator. As students watched the video I had them write down 20 things that they learned about Guatemala and the Civil War and then respond to these essential questions.

• ¿A qué problemas políticos y sociales se enfrentó Guatemala? (What political and  social problems faced Guatemala?)
• ¿Cuáles son los orígenes de estos problemas? ¿Cómo pueden solucionarse? (What are the origins of these problems? How can we solve them?)
• ¿Qué derechos y deberes debe tener un guatemalteco como ciudadano? (What rights and duties should a Guatemalan have as a citizen?)
• ¿Qué derechos y deberes tiene el gobierno de Guatemala? (What right and duties does the government of Guatemala have?)

The students wanted to know about Rios Montt and the trial since at the end it talks about it In May 2013 he was convicted, but then it was overturned and the new trial was set for this year 2015. Here is the recent news update from CNN I shared with my students that occurred just a few months ago January 8, 2015.
I actually only had time to show about the first 60 minutes of this documentary and then jumped to the end to show the rest. It was powerful for the students to watch and helped them understand better what Esperanza and her family were going through.