The Sizzling Southwest
La Vida Hispanica (¡no es loca!)
San Xavier Mission
Mission San Xavier de Bac, near Tucson, AZ

by Timothy McDonnell
Victor Junior High School
Victor, New York

CONNECTIONS TO THE NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR GEOGRAPHY:
The geographically aware person knows how…
Std. 6 - How culture and experience influence people's perceptions of places and regions.
Std. 12 - The processes, patterns, and functions of human settlement.
Std. 13 - How the forces of cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and the control of Earth's surface.
Std. 18 - How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future.

CONNECTIONS TO THE NEW YORK STATE STANDARDS FOR MODERN LANGUAGES:
Std. 2.1 - Effective communication involves meanings that go beyond words and require an understanding of perceptions, gestures, folklore, and family and community dynamics. All of these elements can affect whether and how well a message is received.

OBJECTIVES: (to know, to do, and to be like)
1. Students will identify vocabulary used in describing the Southwest that derives from Spanish words.
2. Students will use bilingual children's stories about the Southwest to build Spanish vocabulary and to discover cultural values of Hispanic people.
3. Students will analyze thematic maps of the Southwest to determine the regions with the fastest growing Hispanic populations.
4. Students will write and read a dialogue in Spanish about a trip through the Southwest.

MATERIALS: Activity Worksheet (in pdf format), children's books with Southwest themes (see suggested reading list)*, thematic map of Hispanic population in the Southwest, key to thematic map

* For the Activity Worksheet used with this lesson, I used Los Tres Pequeños Jabalíes by Susan Lowell. Other books can be used instead, but it will require modification of the worksheet.

PROCEDURE:
1. On the worksheet, students define the vocabulary of Southwest words (desert landscapes, foods, place names) that derive from Spanish. They also should add to the list if possible.
2. To help them see that Hispanic people are very important to the Southwest, have them make a graph of the percentage of the Hispanics out of the total population from 1980 to 2010.
3. Next they should visit a web site about missions of the Southwest. Discuss with the long history of Hispanic people in this region.

San Antonio missions: http://www.lsjunction.com/facts/missions.htm
Sonoran desert churches: http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/images/swf/welcome.html
California missions: http://library.thinkquest.org/3615/

4. Student groups read a children's book (bilingual) that is set in the Southwest. They should read it first in English, and then compare the Spanish narrative to English. This will help them pick out words that they would not otherwise recognize.
5. Then they go through the story to pick out words that describe people, animals, plants, foods, or anything else native to the Southwest.
6. They are now ready to write a short dialogue about a trip through the Southwest (a walk in the desert, a visit to a Hispanic home, a tour of a Spanish mission, a dinner at a Mexican restaurant, etc.). Encourage them to use the vocabulary generated in this lesson.
7. Finally the two partners should read their dialogue to the class. Questions and discussion should follow.

SUGGESTED STUDENT ASSESSMENTS
1. Give the students a short quiz on the vocabulary learned in this activity.
2. The dialogue written and then read aloud by the student partners should be assessed for correct vocabulary, sentence structure, etc.
3. Show the students a picture of something "Southwest" and ask them to describe the scene in Spanish.

ADAPTATIONS AND EXTENSIONS:
1. Depending on the level of the students, they can write their own story about the Southwest.
2. Prepare a meal with Southwest foods, perhaps as a Cinco de Mayo celebration.
3. Try to find a school with Spanish-speaking students from the Southwest that could be pen pals with your students.
 

 

Return to the Southwest Title Page.