NOTE: The Visual Front site does include extensive interpretations of its
collections. Advise students to click through the interpretive pages to the
enlargements, in order to complete their assignments.
Shouts from the Wall
Galleries
The Visual Front
8. Provide students with time to develop and present the results of their
investigations. Before presentations, remind students of their initial efforts to
interpret images they collected from their own lives, and ask them to reflect on
the differences or similarities between these and the ones they've studied from
the Spanish Civil War.
9. Following student presentations, have students discuss in either small groups or
as a whole class several concluding questions:
What were the main reoccurring themes depicted in the poster art of the
Spanish Republic?
What impact do you think these posters had on the Spanish population?
Why?
What distinguishes the images of the Spanish Republican posters from the
kinds of images you see every day in your own lives? Why do you think
these differences exist?
Considering the variety of images you've collected, interpreted and discussed
in this lesson, why do you think governments, businesses, and organizations
rely upon visual imagery to communicate fundamental ideas and values?
Suggestions for follow-up activities
For a more extended examination of wartime propaganda, students could compare
and contrast the content and design of the Spanish Republican posters with visual
imagery used in Nazi Germany during roughly the same period of time.
Additionally, collections of American propaganda can be examined to compliment
this activity. For examples, see the following sites:
German Propaganda Archive
World War II Poster Collection
Suggestions for assessment of student learning
1. Provide individual students with reproductions of propaganda posters from the Spanish
Civil War and, if necessary, other conflicts. Have students write an interpretive essay in
which they identify the core message of the poster(s), the graphic devices used to
communicate this message, and the likely impact it would have had upon the civilian and
military population.
2. Pose an historical situation derived from classroom study of the Spanish Civil War
and/or the Second World War, such as the need for civilians to conserve natural
resource. Have students develop and design a propaganda poster, song, slogan etc
