I think I saw the Maria Martinez video about 10 years ago when I was student
teaching at the high schol level and had two ceramics classes in my
schedule. It was a beautiful and inspiring video.
Even if you unable to do pottery with your middle schoolers, you could make
a connection with studio production by assigning them a black-on-black
matte/shiny project. After studying the pueblo imagery and patterms you
could have them paint with acrylic gloss medium on black construction paper.