Lesson One: La isla
Materials
Isla by Arthus Dorros
Chart paper and pens
Blank strips of oaktag (recycled folders are terrific) or paper for writing fact cards
Strips of oaktag with Spanish words and phrases from the story; matching strips with the English translations
Lined, bound journals
Sentence strip pocket chart to place Spanish and English word strips
Bulletin board display with heading Fact Wall
Objectives
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1. Students will predict the meaning of the Spanish words and phrases in the story from the context.
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2. Students will record facts about Puerto Rico that they have heard from a Shared Reading of Isla.
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3. Students will visualize a sentence from the book, orally and then in writing. One such might be “We are like big birds playing,” when Rosalba and Abuela are spinning and dipping high above the people in the city square. As a group the class will list on chart paper all the sensations, physical and emotional, they can imagine for such an experience. They will then describe the experience in their journals, as if it were happening to them.
Procedure
On the first day, tell students that they are going on an imaginative journey and that Isla will describe the place they are going to. Make sure they can define “island” before you begin. Isla is both simple and quite rich. The first reading should allow time to look at the illustrations since they are filled with relevant details. I have found that students are totally intrigued by the Spanish, especially if they already know some words. I have discovered children of Hispanic heritage in this way, children who had not identified themselves in this way before. I use the prepared Spanish and English cards as a review after this reading. (There is a good glossary with pronunciations at the back of the book.) I also ask students, working with a partner, to records two or three facts about Puerto Rico on the blank strips so that we can begin our Fact Wall. Before the first day ends, I ask them to make their first entry in the journals, being sure to date it: What is it about Rosalba’s trip that most interests you? Why?
On the second day, after reviewing, I reread. This time I tell them that as I read I want them to use not only the illustrations but all the words to imagine, to visualize what it would be like to be there too. After the reading, I select a sentence describing the girl and her grandmother spinning and dipping over the town square: “We are like big birds playing.” I ask them to imagine how their skin, their faces,and arms would feel, whether there would be wind or bits of cloud to bump into. How would they see or hear differently from when they were on the ground? Andbecause it never hurts to throw in a little math--how high up would they be anyway? I would also ask them to explain what their emotions would be. What kind of birds are they? And what games do birds play?
After having fun with this one, I would choose another moment in the story. The trip into the rain forest is particularly suggestive: Below the treetops, the canopy or umbrella, “it is dark and cool. ‘
Como la noche
,’ like night, Abuela tells me.” How does night feel? What does it smell like, look like? Or: “Forest eyes are open wide.” What eyes does the forest have? Why are they wide open? What do they see when it is as dark as night? Some students will dive right in; some will wiggle. All of them will enjoy rereading these passages in a week or so.
Lesson Two: Island Making
Materials
World map for the wall, globes, and large maps of Puerto Rico.
Sheets of letter-size paper
Large sheets of heavy, textured white paper, the best quality you can afford, both because they must sustain weight but because you will want to paint in a good sea.
Sheets of sandpaper, coarse enough so that the printing on the back does not show through. You will want each student to have a square at least 3 x 5.
Enough 3 x 5 squares (more or less) of green felt, light blue or gray felt, and brown construction paper for each student.
Enough 2” red circles so that each student will have at least two.
Crayons, pencils, and markers
Several large brown paper grocery bags for each student
Bottles of glue
Scissors
Newspapers to cover tables; masking tape to secure them.
Green and blue paint, brushes, cans for water.
Objectives
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1.
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Students will be able to find Puerto Rico on a world map.
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2.
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Students will be able to locate the Antilles, the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Island of Vieques, and the six geographical zones in Puerto Rico.
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3.
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Students will be able to find San Juan and Ponce.
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Procedures
This lesson is in three parts. Students will first learn about the geography of Puerto Rico through studying maps. They will then sketch their own small maps. On the next day, they will each construct and paint a large three-dimensional map. The experience of constructing each geographic area should make them more interesting and easier to remember.
After reviewing the definition of an island, members of the class will locate Puerto Rico on various maps and globes. They will then identify the other large islands around it and the bodies of water. The class will then look at a large map, hopefully topographical, of Puerto Rico and its own islands and decide upon its basic geometric shape. Using a sheet of letter-sized paper, they will loosely sketch this shape. They will also add the island of Vieques. (These sheets will be taped into their journals later.) They will also be asked to identify the compass rose that is found on virtually every map and draw one on their sketch as well. Take some time to make sure that everyone can point to the four compass points on their own sketch.
Students will then be given the names of the various regions and, once they have located them on the larger maps, will sketch them on their own: 1. The spine of mountains, the Cordillera Central, runs east to west. 2. El Yunque, the Caribbean National Rain Forest, is in the east, and the Reserva Forestal Toro Negro’s Clour Forest is in the center of the mountain range. 3. Along the north coast is the karst country, filled with sinkholes and caves. 4. Between these caves and the ocean, is a fairly wide coastal plain; on the southern side of the island, the plain is less than half as wise. 5. In the southwest is a coastal dry forest, a very rare desert wilderness, where caucti and rare birds can be found. 6. Finally, around San Juan and the island of Vieques, there are beautiful and delicate coral reefs. An excellent description of these areas can be found in Peffer’s Lonely Planet Guide Boo, Puerto Rico.
The next step is to construct a three-dimensional version of their sketches. First students will sketch the outline of the island. They may outline it with a marker or crayon, if they like, of let the outline blur as they later add blue paint for the surrounding water. They will then crumple and glue down small sections of the brown paper bags into a mountain range to create their own Cordillera Central. They can have fun varying the heights of their mountain range. They will use their green felt to simulate the rain forest; gray or light blue for the cloud forest; sand paper for the coast dry forest; and brown construction paper, cut into strips so that the ends can be glued down to form cave entrances, for the karst region. The coral reefs can be drawn in with crayons at the coastlines as clusters of tiny circles; the wax of the crayons will act as a resist when a thinned-out wash of blue paint is applied for the water surrounding the islands. To finish the maps, the mountain ranges should be painted green and numerous blue rivers (painted with unthinned paint) should wind their ways from the mountains to the coastal plains.
Extensions for this project will focus on one area, the rain forest, since there are so many excellent books about it: Flashy Fantastic Fain Forest Frogs by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, Chameleons Are Cool by Martin Jenkins, and The Great Kapok Tree, by Lynne Cherry, are excellent. They can help students build on their visualizations of the dark forest with open eyes in Isla.
A Mexican legend, Opossum and the Great Firemaker, will allow them to imagine the worlds of some creatures of the rainforest. Alma Flor Ada’s bilingual folktale, The Lizard and the Sun , which is set in the area around Mexico, celebrates the ingenuity of another inhabitant of the rain forest. Interestingly enough, both Opossum and Lizard are female. A third legend, this time from Jamaica, also gives us a heroine. This time it is a girl who outwits the terrible Mancrow, half human, half beautiful bird.
Ideally, students would go on-line, or use CDs, or spend time in the Media Center to research the other geographical areas. They should certainly collect as much information as possible, even about one zone such as the rain forest, so that they can respond to the prompt: Upon entering this zone, I saw…, I felt…, I heard…, I touched. After an honest effort to create a visualization, they can watch the Eyewitness video Jungle, narrated by Martin Sheen. They will then have more information as they move to a full narrative that begins:
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One morning, upon awakening, I discovered that I was on the edge of an area I had never seen before, hearing sounds that I had not believed possible. I decided to investigate, partly because I was curious and partly because I was growing very hungry.
Teaching Suggestion: Juan Bobo
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The famous folk character from Puerto Rico, Juan Bobo is available in an easy edition edited by Carmen Bernier-Grand. Students love reading this edition and identify with this hero who is always making mistakes but who is also a lot smarter than he seems at first.
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The first story in the collection, “The Best Way to Carry Water,” lends itself to dramatization. Students can add additional adults in the form of Tias, Tios, and Abuelas, and they can extend the dialogue. A good way to begin developing the characters is through making very simple masks out of paper plates, with eye holes. Juan is shown in this story scaring the chickens with a Vejigante mask and this too can be made from a paper plate with rolled-up paper to create horns. Props can be simple: aprons, pots, metal buckets, and baskets that are loosely-woven on the bottom so that scraps of blue paper can fall through for water.
Teaching Suggestion: Saturday Sancocho
Reading this story about going to market will be a lot more fun if it is accompanied by food, and it is not necessary to make chicken stew. But ingredients such as cilantro, cumin, and onions can be brought it to smell and feel. Many cities now have Hispanic markets and the large chains carry a wide range of products in some of their branches. Thus it is possible to find cassavas and plantains and to buy plantains, at least, in a pre-cooked and frozen form. There are also many different kinds of tropical juices available. It’s simple to make delicious fruit shakes, or
bastidos
, in class out of these fruit juices, milk, ice cubes, and sugar. Hispanic custard or
tembleque
can be purchased as a mix, like jello, and is easy to make and even easier to eat.
Teaching Suggestion: Vejigante Masquerader
To extend this book, it is worthwhile making real masks. There are directions in the back of the book. Easier than making clay casts are balloons set in plastic margarine containers. Students can lay their paper strips over these just as well. I would avoid flour and water paste since it becomes moldy. The old standby, wallpaper paste, turns out to be toxic and should be avoided. But craft stores have alternatives that are safe and easy to use. There is wonderful product called Rigid Wrap, which is a roll of plaster of Paris-covered gauze much like what a surgeon would use for a cast. The technique is to lay wet pieces of it over a form and then to keep rubbing until all the little holes are filled. It’s a soothing, satisfying process for students and creates a sturdy object.
Lesson Three: In the Shade of the Nispero Tree
Objectives
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1.
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Students will compare passages in this novel to situations in two earlier books, Saturday Sancocho and Vejigante Masquerader.
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2. They will use the techniques of inference and visualization to analyze the passages and to write about the situation in them more fully.
Materials
It will help students with one of the passages they will work with here if they have some real velvet to handle and if they can see the effect of adding rhinestones. Even at $20.00 a yard, a third of a yard would give each student a small piece to decorate with rhinestones that are only $4.00 for a big package. Aleene’s All-Purpose Tacky Glue, at $2.49, is the best for this project.
Procedure
This novel offers a number of contrasts to the books designed for younger readers and thus a number of opportunities for visualizing and inferring. Because the students have read Saturday Sancacho, it would be interesting for them to begin by inferring the point of view of the mother in the following passage, comparing it to that of the grandmother and little girl in Saturday, and then reflecting, through description, upon their own experience of shopping in different places:
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La Plaza del Mercado was where the mountain people came to sell
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their goods. Mami didn’t go there anymore because she said the place had the smell of chickens, cilantro, plantains. The new supermarkets didn’t smell like that because they sold everything wrapped in plastic (26).
From the standpoint of developing students’ abilities to infer and visualize, there are some other exciting passages in this novel. Consider this one:
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The night of the Ponce carnival, the sky wore a black velvet gown with rhinestones. At first I thought the crescent moon was its crown, then I changed my mind. It had to be a smilea happy smile, like mine (179)
Once the students have the sheen and feel and sparkle of this image, they can go to work inferring the mood of the narrator. They can infer the shape of the moon, even if they do not know all of the phases. It will also help them to know that there is a Queen for each Carnival, chosen for talent and beauty. After discussion, students can expand this passage in their journals, making up a narrator, giving a specific setting, and a before and after.
Finally, here are some paragraphs that allow readers to infer and visualize how a girl can participate in the mischief and misrule of Carnival:
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A
vejigante,
wearing a mask with at least seven horns, turned around and shook a
vejiga
, an inflated cow bladder full of dry beans. I ran away from him, laughing.
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As soon as he turned his back to me, I went behind him and pulled one of the jingle bells on his bright red-and-yellow costume. Eva and Marisol did too. He chased us to the curb and walked away.
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We held hands and moved closer and closer to him. When he turned around, we screamed and ran away. This time he threw a bunch of pennies at us and ran to join the other vejigantes (184).
Why did he throw the pennies? How does he feel about this episode? How can you describe how the three girls feel? The story that some of the students will develop from these paragraphs shows how far their writing has come from the initial exercises in their journals. Before moving on to the many passages that it is possible to use from Nilda, the most complex book of the unit, students should take time to review their journal entries, make changes, read them to one another, and select one or two that they wish to edit for possible reading in pubic.
