Introduction
This comprehensive AP® Spanish Language and Culture review will help guide test-takers through one of the AP® Spanish themes of the CollegeBoard’s Spanish Language & Culture curriculum. To be specific, it will focus on the theme of Beauty and Aesthetics. This review will discuss why the CollegeBoard uses themes for the AP® Spanish Language and Culture course, what the theme of Beauty and Aesthetics actually entails, and will specific context examples of how this theme may be applied in a class or study session.
We will also review some overarching, essential questions regarding Beauty and Aesthetics to assist you in your understanding of the topic, as well as offer short examples on how to answer them. Finally, this guide will deliver information on where you can find practice texts, audios, videos and other study tools related to Beauty and Aesthetics, and review top 10 Spanish vocabulary words related to this theme and how to use them in a sentence.
Why does the CollegeBoard use Themes for AP® Spanish Language and Culture?
The AP® Spanish Language and Culture course is organized around six AP® Spanish themes of historical and contemporary importance: Global Challenges, Science and Technology, Contemporary Life, Personal and Public Identities, Families and Communities, and Beauty and Aesthetics. These themes are used to create thought-provoking contexts for you to explore the diversity of language and culture inherent in the Spanish-speaking world. Themes may appear in short lesson plans lasting only a class period, or broader units spanning several course periods, hours, days, or weeks.
By the end of the AP® Spanish course, you should be able to implement knowledge of these themes into written and oral interpersonal and presentational communication forms for the AP® Spanish Language and Culture exam.
What does the Theme of Beauty and Aesthetics Entail?
The AP® Spanish Language and Culture theme of Beauty and Aesthetics may incorporate lessons on architecture, describing beauty, defining creativity, fashion and design, language and literature, or visual and the performing arts. Teachers may introduce any number of specific discussions and class projects that focus on fashion trends in Mexico City, Mexico; plastic surgery in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; or modern architecture in Barcelona, Spain. You may be asked to watch documentary films or study advertisements for clothing and weight loss products in magazines, or discuss cultural conceptions of beauty and body image in various countries they’ve visited or are familiar with because of their own cultural history.
What are Beauty and Aesthetics Overarching, Essential Questions?
The following essential questions may be used to stimulate AP® Spanish learners through directed activities and performance assessments. Essential questions are used to trigger interest and involve students in realistic scenarios, while challenging them with a multiplicity of problem-solving tasks. These questions encourage students to research and express different opinions on current world issues, make associations between disciplines, and equate characteristics of the target culture(s) to their own knowledge and social circumstances. Essential questions also provide a window into interdisciplinary exploration, encouraging you to apply knowledge and viewpoints across subject areas while working with content from language, literature, and cultures of any number of Spanish-speaking communities.
Essential questions on the theme of Beauty and Aesthetics may include:
- How are perceptions of beauty and creativity established?
- How do ideals of beauty and aesthetics influence daily life?
- How do the arts both challenge and reflect cultural perspectives?
Example Answers to 2-3 Overarching, Essential Questions
Below are short examples of how students can consider answering essential questions they’ll encounter in their AP® Spanish Language and Culture course.
How are perceptions of beauty and creativity established?
Social media, television, magazines, and billboards barrage the public with advertisements, photographs, and slogans for weight loss pills, gym equipment, and veggie shake diets. Models are taped up and airbrushed to hide flaws, creating impracticable and unhealthy standards of beauty for men and women.
The media significantly impacts people’s health by altering our perception of what is considered a normal human body type. Constantly seeing pictures of string bean-thin models and celebrities who are celebrated for their small-framed bodies and youthful beauty sells being underweight as the cultural norm. It gives viewers an inappropriate understanding of what normal bodies look like and thus establishes a false sense of aesthetic, attainable reality.
As the media broadcasts their views of what bodies are beautiful, both men and women are vulnerable to feeling the influence of that. This has a radical impact on people of all ages, but particularly teenagers, who are frantically trying to fit into the “norm”. Not meeting the standard can make many feel undesirable and lose self-esteem. As a result, many people cultivate inaccurate opinions of themselves, opinion which could lead to eating disorders, depression, or a harmful preoccupation with exercise.
People currently traumatized by our current image-obsessed culture should remember that every body type – the tall, the curvy, the flat, the hairy – has at some point been idealized in the media – time- and place-dependent. We’re so often anxious to inoculate ourselves with the most recent styles that we lose perspective on how transitory our fascination with bodily flawlessness really is. As damaging as our awareness of an ideal body type may be, we should remember that yesteryear’s perfect will, without fail, change into something entirely different tomorrow.
How do the arts both challenge and reflect cultural perspectives?
The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is famous throughout the world for her prolific self-portrait paintings that both reflect and challenge cultural perspectives of beauty. In her self-portraits, Kahlo dresses in intricately embroidered clothing and handmade jewelry from Indigenous cultures from throughout Southern Mexico. She adorns her long dark hair with colorful ribbons, flowers, and styles of these women as well.
What catches most observers’ eyes, however, is Kahlo’s prominently featured unibrow, facial hair, apathetic and detached facial expression, and lack of a smile. This same expression and appearance is evident not only in her self-portraits, but in black and white photographs of the artist as well. Art historians have attested that Kahlo’s portraits echo the many emotional and bodily traumas that she endured throughout her short lifetime.
At a young age, Kahlo was stricken with the poliomyelitis virus, an illness which left her body enfeebled and malformed throughout her adolescence. As a teenager, a metal handrail pierced her body in a streetcar accident, which, though not killing her, caused irreversible damage to her spinal column, pelvic organs, and general well-being. As a result, she suffered chronic pain, infertility, and depression that would plague her on into her adulthood. The emotions surrounding her traumatic accident and medical complications became prominent themes in her artwork.
Kahlo painted experiences that were not beautiful by traditional cultural standards. Instead, her work offers viewers something to identify with in their own struggles –withstanding pain, being hospitalized, and feeling at war with our bodies and other situations out of our control. In confronting the often quieted, dehumanizing aspects of pain and illness, her artwork challenges our cultural perspectives associated with the beauty of art and what it has to teach us of the human condition.
Where can you Find Practice Texts, Audios and Videos Related to Beauty and Aesthetics?
In this section, you’ll find a few suggestions on AP® Spanish Language and Culture practice texts, audios, and videos that will bring you specific content knowledge related to the AP® Spanish theme of Beauty and Aesthetics.
For a General Overview of AP® Spanish Language and Culture Themes.
First, for general overviews of all six themes, a great place to begin would be the AP® Spanish Language and Culture homepage. Here AP® students and test takers can access official CollegeBoard course information. Here there are example syllabi, course milestones and objectives, and other useful material to help both teachers and learners make their way through the material. Textbooks are also available to help students strengthen their skills. For a book focused particularly on the six themes, get your hands on a copy of: Temas: AP® Spanish Language and Culture.
Granted by Instituto Cervantes and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Spain, DELE (Diploma de Espanol como Lengua Extranjera) is comparable to the AP® Spanish Language and Culture course exam in that it confirms test takers capability and mastery of Spanish. Their website offers online and printable practice exams based on oral and written expression and interaction.
Quizlet is a fun online tool to create “index cards” with key terms and definitions relative to any of the six AP® Spanish themes. These can then be turned into review items in the form of games or practice tests. Click here for flashcards on Beauty and Aesthetics.
Another entertaining online tool for AP® students and teachers to draw ideas from (or be entertained by!) is Audiria. This site offers podcasts and videos in the Spanish language that are centered on various cultural and thematic issues.
For a More Intensive Practice with the Theme of Beauty and Aesthetics.
PBS offers some great mini-documentaries highlighting African culture and its influence throughout Latin America. Here you can learn about the African effect on food, dance, clothes, style, amongst many other important cultural markers.
Likewise, information on dance and music styles of the Garifuna Indigenous cultures of Central America can be found on UNESCO’s web page.
The Virtual Diego Rivera Web Museum can provide you with an insightful introduction to the Mexican muralists’ creative works and life history. Check out the 2002 film Frida for a fictionalized account of the tumultuous relationship Rivera shared with wife and famed portraitist Frida Kahlo, as well as their relationship to Mexico’s socialist party and Leon Trotsky.
Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista (1902 – 1989) is a great Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer to know about. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba. Here you can listen to Guillén recite one of his most famous poems, Sensemayá. You’ll notice that his poetry is a mix of African and Spanish ancestry, combined with traditional literary forms with speech, legends, and songs of Afro-Cubans.
Top 10 Spanish Vocabulary Words for Beauty and Aesthetics
Here is a list of frequently used AP® Spanish vocabulary words related to the theme of Beauty and Aesthetics.
Hair Style: Peinado
Mi hermana fue al peluquero para hacerse un nuevo peinado antes de su boda.
Fashion: Moda
La moda de los jóvenes en la ciudad de México es muy gótica.
Appearance: Apariencia
La apariencia del edificio ha mejorado mucho desde que lo pintaron.
To Reject: Rechazar
El trabajo del artista fue rechazado porque era difícil de entender.
Every day: Cotidiano
Cuando se les presenta un problema cotidiano lo resuelven rápido.
Beauty: Belleza
La belleza de estas plantas siempre mejora al llegar la primavera.
Symmetry: Simetría
Estudios han comprobado que la belleza de un rostro se correlaciona con su simetría.
Boring: Aburrido
La exhibición del museo era muy aburrida.
Environment: Ambiente
En este ambiente no se permite fumar.
Perspective: Perspectiva
Si cambias tu perspectiva sobre el arte moderno puedes llegar a disfrutarlo.
Looking for AP® Spanish Language practice?
Kickstart your AP® Spanish Language prep with Albert. Start your AP® exam prep today.
