Famous Contemporary Spaniards

Hi everyone! I am going to give an assignment to one of my classes where they must research a famous Spaniard (living or deceased)and I was wondering if you could share who you might think would be good to put on the list. I only have 8 kids in this class and it is a low-level class.
Thanks, in advance, for your suggestions.

Columbus; Picasso; Javiar Bardem & Penelope Cruz (sorry but they will know those two name!)Cervantes ....

Penelope Cruz is the essence of Cinema in Spain today. My contribution.

Plenty of sports celebrities such as Pau Gasol , Raúl , Iker Casillas , Dani Pedrosa, Fernando Alonso etc....
Away from sport , how about King Juan Carlos and/or Queen Sofia .
Singers such as Julio and Enrique Iglesias .

keep them coming! This is a class of 8 boys, so I think I will include a lot of Sports figures but I would like to also include people from other areas.

Vicente Ferrer, an extraordinary person

How about MadridMan? oh wait, he's not Spanish.

Rafael Nadal!!!! The Spanish futbol team as a collective!

as sports goes Iker Casillas.

You'll have to get away from el Caudillo, Francisco Franco during the Years of and following the Spanish Civil War. For contemporarys, take a look at Jose Maria Aznar, Franco's Conservative follow-on, who helped lead Spain to its rightful place in the European Community.
Pelayo, who defeated the Moors at the battle of Covadonga, is another who deserves mention (although his victory was with the aid of an avalanche).
Arts and Artists: Antonio Gaudi's Barcelona contributions; Federico Garcia Lorca's Poesias; Francisco de Goya y Lucientes; and many, many more

Antonio Gaudí is a GREAT idea Eddie. If the kids don´t know him already they´d surely be fascinated to see his wierd and wonderful architecture .
How old are these boys , Esperanza ? That may give us more ideas of what to suggest .

these boys are 17 years old...high school juniors and seniors.
Poor Spanish students, very limited grammar skills.

Esperanza, Let us know who you settle on and how it goes!

Mine include many of those already mentioned: Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machado, El Cid, Elsa Pataki, Antonio Gaudí, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Manolete (that'd be a great one for these boys, probably), and.. umm... Goya, Velázquez, Cervantes, Zapatero, Isabel II, Plácido Domingo, Julio Iglesias, David Bisbal, Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Pau Gasol, Fernando Alonso, Rafael Nadal, Iker Casillas, Camarón de la Isla, Paco de Lucia, Pedro Almodóvar

Saludos, MadridMan

well, I think I have the list I plan to use: Dani Pedrosa;
Fernando Alonso; Penélope Cruz ; Plácido Domingo; Pau Gasol; Rafael Nadal; Pedro Almodóvar; El Rey Juan Carlos I de Borbón; Salvador Dalí; Pablo Picasso; Javier Bardem; Miguel de Cervantes; Iker Casillas; José Luis Zapatero. Mostly contemporary, with a few people from the past.

I am going to ask them to do the research and then make a pretend "facebook" page for the person. I have a fb template that they will fill in with photos and information. Then I will correct it and then they will prepare to share it with the rest of the class when they talk to the class about the person they researched.
Hopefully it will be a fun activity and they will enjoy it.

Sounds like a great activity for your class, esperanza! Looks like you already have a list, but if you need additional names for now or for the future, here are a few:

Nobel Prize for Literature -- winners from Spain are: Jose Echegary, Jacinto Benavente, Juan Ramon Jimenez, Vicente Aleixandre, and Camilo Jose Cela.

Actors and directors (some have made/been in American films) -- Luis Tosar, Luis Bunuel, Carlos Saura, Fernando Trueba, Alejandro Amenebar, and Fernando Fernan Gomez.

Musicians and dancers -- Alejandro Sanz, Ketama (and entire Habichuela family), Flores family (Lola, Lolita, Rosario, Antonio), Joaquin Cortes, and Morente family (Enrique and Estrella).

Famous chefs -- Jose Andres and Ferran Adria

Architects (in addition to Gaudi) -- Santiago Calatrava, Ricardo Bofill, Churriguera family (from several centuries ago).

Bullfighters -- Francisco & Cayetano Rivera Ordonez.

Also, I didn't see artists Joan Miro or Joaquin Sorolla mentioned above.

Good luck! Buena suerte!

Esperanza , that´s a great idea to do the pretend fb page !! And the list of people you´ll be using , as well as those suggested afterwards by La Historiadora , goes to show what an amazing country Spain is culturally !
I did a project with some 15 year olds at a municipal school where I told them that , for their homework , they had to imagine they were holding a dinner party . They had to invite 5 famous people . They had to tell me why they chose those people . I had to also tell them that they should consider whether those people would get on together . I gave the example that sitting Pope Benedict next to Paris Hilton may not be a good idea . It worked out great and , importantly , the kids enjoyed it .
You´ll have to tell us how your class went .

Esperanza, Super idea about the fb mock-up! I've been a volunteer teacher w/ Citizen Schools for a couple of years now; teach media & how to make a PSA to 6-7-8th graders. Would love to incoprorate the concept of fb w/ the kids going forward - doing a blog in addition to the PSA (3 this term) is driving me nuts. FB would be a much more 'stand-alone' concept & not reliant on me as a once-a-week volunteer! Would you mind emailing me the format - or info on where I can grab it?
Thanks!!!!!!!

Puna, hope you got my email. For anyone interested, you can find templates of FB on the internet and then I just adapted it and translated it into Spanish. Lots of work for a class that probably won't appreciate it, but I had fun doing it and I know I will be able to use it again with another class.