United Farm Workers. UFW Boycott lettuce. Between 1970 and 1972. Print. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2015649388/.
Students will engage with the UFW Boycott Lettuce poster using a three-step analysis protocol: observe, infer, and question. The lesson will begin with introducing a See-Think-Wonder graphic organizer that will be used to support students with taking notes throughout the lesson. The poster will then be introduced visually, prompting students to record observations, draw inferences about its message, and generate questions about labor rights and activism. Students will work independently and collaboratively to analyze the poster, with expectations to think critically, contribute to discussion, and connect visual rhetoric to broader themes of justice, protest, and farmworkers’ rights.
The United Farm Workers (UFW) is a US labor union founded in 1962 by labor leaders and activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Initially named the National Farm Workers Association, the union’s primary goal was to empower migrant farmworkers. They sought to improve wages and working conditions, ensuring these workers received just and humane treatment both as employees and as members of their communities.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Farm-Workers
- How does the “Boycott Lettuce” poster reflect the values and goals of the United Farm Workers (UFW) movement?
- Though this poster may be limited, dig deeper for symbolism. What other meaning can you gather from the details of this poster?
- What do the symbols and language in the poster reveal about the strategies used by the UFW to gain public support?
ELA Standard
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
Social Studies Standard
HSS Standard 11.6.5. Trace the advances and retreats of organized labor, from the creation of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations to current issues of a postindustrial, multinational economy, including the United Farm Workers in California.
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- Begin the lesson by projecting the poster on the board and then providing each student with a copy of the See-Think-Wonder graphic organizer and ask students the following question: What do you notice about the imagery, colors, and text on the poster?
- Students should write their observations on their graphic organizer in the “See” column prior to sharing with a partner and the class in a Think-Pair-Share aloud.
- Have students form small groups (2–4 students) to discuss their observations of the poster. As they talk, students should begin writing inferences in the “Think” column of their graphic organizer. These inferences should focus on the poster’s meaning, tone, and historical message. To guide their discussion, consider the following questions as starting points:
- Who do you think the intended audience is and why?
- What message is the poster trying to communicate about farmworkers and the lettuce boycott?
- What assumptions or emotions does the poster rely on to persuade viewers?
- As a class, generate questions about the poster’s purpose, audience, and the broader context of the lettuce boycott. Record questions on the board and identify themes.
- A starting point for the teacher may be: What questions does this poster raise about labor rights or activism during the 1970s and/or the symbolism used?
- Exit Ticket: Have students write 2–3 sentences reflecting on the following question: How does the Aztec eagle in the UFW poster symbolize the strength and resilience of the farmworker movement, and what does this imagery help you understand about the goals and impact of the lettuce boycott?
- Extension
- Students research Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta to learn more about the leaders of the lettuce boycott.
- Students can research or write about the following prompt: To what extent are the labor rights issues raised by the UFW still relevant today, and how might modern activism use similar or different tactics to create change?
Women’s Graphics Collective. Boycott lettuce & grapes. 1978. Print. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/93505187/.