Created by: Marlette, Laura, Julieta and René

1. A Hispanic Author Heritage Study Created by: Marlette, Laura, Julieta and René 1st grade Bilingual class

2. Authors

3. Rationale • Lesson 1: • In the Escamilla article the author talks about the importance of validating the ELL’s culture. We think that it is important for the students to learn about Mexican American authors. • In the book “Strategies That Work” (Harvey & Goudvis), the authors speak of the great importance and the need for readers to make connections with their text. • Lesson 2: • The creation of text-to-self connections to the 5 areas of the poem “Orgullo” (language, culture, family, race, and who I am characteristics), allows the students to connect experiences and ideas with others through speaking and listening (TEKS: 1.2A). Text-t0-self connections create unique bonds between the reader and the text, which motivates students to keep reading. Kathy Escamilla states that it is important that educators validate the ELL’s culture. This lesson was implemented because we (educators) know that background knowledge plays a huge role in enabling students to comprehend and interact with the text (Kathy Escamilla). • Lesson 3: • The purpose for this lesson is to allow students to get the most out of their reading. We introduced the strategy summary and synthesis because we want students to comprehend and ask questions throughout their readings so that they can make connections and pull important information for better understanding. To support this idea Strategies That Work states, “When we summarize information during reading, we pull out the most important information and put it in our own words to remember it. Each bit of information we encounter adds a piece to the construction of meaning. Our thinking evolves as we add information from the text”(Harvey& Goudvis, 179). • Lesson 4: • In the article, A focus on fluency ( Griffin& Rasinski). • The authors state that Readers Theater is a strategy that has helped students make substantial gains in reading fluency and also comprehension. • In Readers Theater, the children in the classroom did not act like readers, they became reader-making collaborative decisions on text, practicing their skills and performing their interpretations.” (Wolf,1992) • “The nature of Readers Theater requires interpretation of the text with the human voice. There is no memorization of text because the children are asked to creatively interpret the meaning of the passage each time they read.”

4. Goals • Students will learn about various of multicultural author Gary Soto, Alma Flor Ada and Pat Mora. • Students will learn to use background knowledge from personal experience and through text to visualize and infer what happens next in a story. • Students will use a poem to activate background knowledge and make connections about why they are proud of their family, language, culture, race, and who they are. • Student will be able to summarize and use synthesis to create a bubble map that wraps up what their topic is about. • Students will learn about the life's of the authors studied in this unit through readers theater.

5. Authors facts • Gary Soto- • Born in Fresno, California to a working class family. • An accomplished poet, writer and philosopher. • Has directed two films in Hollywood. • Alma Flor Ada- • Has lived in Cuba, Spain, and the United States. • As a child Alma Flor Ada loved to read, spend time in nature, both among the trees and in the ocean, to swim, and to explore. • Alma Flor Ada states: “Knowing two languages has made the world richer for me. I believe that all children should be given the opportunity of learning two or more languages when they are young, and can do so easily”. • Alma Flor Ada’s grandmother , Dolores Salvador, taught her to read at the age of three! • Alma Flor Ada says that she writes to share some of the feelings she had as a child: "the joy, the excitement, the surprise.“ • Pat Mora- • Born El Paso Texas, January 19th, 1942. • She was a museum director and consultant for US-Mexico youth exchanges. • She received a BA from Texas Western College in 1963 and an MA from the University of Texas, El Paso in 1967. • She won Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship • She is the founder of the family literacy initiative El día de los niños / El día de los libros, Children's Day / Book Day (Día) • Juan Felipe Herrera- • Herrera's experiences as the child of migrant farmers have strongly shaped his work, such as the children's book Calling the Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award in 1997. • Juan Felipe Herrera is a poet, performer, writer, cartoonist, teacher, and activist

6. Lesson 1 Strategy: Visualizing and Inferring ¡Qué montón de Tamales!

7. Lesson 1 • Introduction: • We will formally introduce ourselves showing/modeling our own name tags. • We will ask the students to write their name and draw their favorite “anything” on the name tags. • We will ask the students to write their name and draw their favorite “anything” on the name tags. • Whole Group: Read ¡Qué montón de Tamales! • We will ask the students about predicting and inferring. • We will then ask specific questions about what they think the book will be about. • Small Group: • Each group will independently work on drawing a picture and writing a few descriptive words to show what they think will happen next. • This step will help the students visualize and make inferences about the story. • Once the students have finished their drawings we will ask some of them to share with the class. • Closure Activity: • We will discuss how inferring helped us understand the book. • We will then have the students share their drawings with the whole class. • And we will also have them share their own family experiences and experiences with tamales.

8. Lesson 2 Strategy: Activating Background knowledge & making connections “Orgullo” and Canción de Todos Los Niños del Mundo

9. Lesson 2 • Introduction: • Recall strategy from lesson #1 (visualizing and inferring), book used (Que Monton de Tamales), and author introduced (Gary Soto). • Introduce new author Alma Flor Ada and her poem “Orgullo”. Discuss/share orally what we are proud of in our lives & clarify the purpose of the poem: being proud of who are. • Whole Group: • Introduce the strategy activating background knowledge & making connections. • Model, explain, and give examples of t-self connections for the 5 areas that are addressed in the poem (language, race, family, culture, and who I am details). • Explain and inform to students the purpose of bubble maps. • Small Group: • Students make t-self connections to the 5 areas of the poem. • Students place their 5 t-self connections to the poem on the bubble map. • Students orally share their t-self connections with the rest of the class. • Closure Activity: • Reinforce the focus of the lesson (activating background knowledge and making connections), speak about Alma Flor Ada, and revisit the bubble map. • Read the book “Cancion de Todos Los Niño's del Mundo” by Alma Flor Ada and discuss the message of the book and how it ties to our lesson. • Inform students of the importance of being proud of who they are and the benefits of learning 2 languages!

10. Lesson 3 Strategy: Summarizing and Synthesizing “Una biblioteca para Juana: el mundo de Sor Juana Ines”

11. Lesson 3 • Introduction: • Teachers introduce themselves and shares their favorite vacation. • Review the two authors posters and present the author of the day Pat Mora. • Share a bit about Pat Mora and her accomplishments • Review the strategies that were taught to them and tell them they will learn a new strategy. • Whole Group: • Provide image of both US ($20) and Mexican (200pesos) currency as an attention grabber. • Inform students that they will learn about the person in the front of the 200 pesos bill. • Introduce and model strategy by reading “Una biblioteca para Juana El Mundo De Sor Juana Inés". • Discuss what the book was about and after the discussion show students that from your thoughts througout the book you created a bubble map where the theme is Juana Ines, the details is what Juana Ines did and the illustration represent Juan Ines. • Then read the first page of “Una Visita Al Suroeste” let students know that we will be help the young girl finish her scrapbook about the states she visited while she traveled to San Antonio TX. • Before splitting into small groups show visuals with US map and talk about the states the young girl traveled while letting student see where each state is located. • Small Group: • Each group has a copy of page from “Una Visita Al Suroeste” that represents a state that they are going to learn about. • Teacher reads first through the information the young girl has provided about the state while student listen. • Before rereading inform students that they will listen for any information they might think is important to summarize what we learned about the state. Each student will write one sentence inside their bubble. • Students create a bubble map (theme is the state of the small group and the details is the information students wrote. • After completing the bubble map students color in illustrations that represent their state. • Closure: • In the small groups prepare students to present their bubble map and illustrations‘. • Each group will share to the class their scrap book pages on their state and share something new they learned about their state. • Once every group shares then we bind the scrapbook together with some yard. • Allow students to go the center of the room and grab a Pat Mora book and read/look through.

12. Lesson 4 Strategy: Readers Theater For this lesson the students performed a Readers Theater using one of the authors shared in our study.

13. Lesson 4 • Introduction • 1.     We began the lesson by introducing ourselves and greeting the student with a good morning. (Lesson will taught primarily in Spanish) • 2.     Then we continued our lesson by sharing our “interesting fact” and giving the students a few seconds to share as well. Because we will be doing Readers Theater relating to authors we will share who our favorite author is. • 3.     Quickly we reviewed the past three authors by showing the author posters that we have presented to them. Each teacher gave a short summary of the strategy they presented. • 4.     The students were then told that they were going to learn more about all three authors through their biographies. • Whole Group • 1.     We told the students that they would be learning about the life of the authors we have presented to them.  We explained to them the importance of reading a wide range of books and getting to know the authors.  • 2.     We introduced a new author to them. ( Juan Felipe Herrera) We will have some of his books on display for them to see. • 3.     We asked students to respectfully watch us teachers perform a small skit about the biography of an author (Juan Felipe Herrera). Props were pre-made to save time. The play will only be four to six lines long. Each line will be a fact about the author. • 4.     We explained that they will be performing a Readers Theater as well using one of the authors shared in our study.  • 5.     We then asked them to please divide into three groups, The Gary Soto group, the Alma Flor Ada Group, and the Pat Mora group. Color coded index cards were used to divide the class. • Small Group Activity • 1.     Each teacher read to the students a short biography about the authors. Using the strategy learned in the previous lesson, Summary and Synthesis, the group will make the biographies no longer than 8 lines. Each student should have at least one line to perform. • 2.     The teacher assigned roles and allowed students to get together to rehearse reading their parts. • 3.     Each guiding teacher helped students prepare to present. Gary Soto’s group will go first, Alma Flor Ada’s group second and Pat Mora’s group third. • 4.     The teacher could have read the lines as the students performed, or students could read their own lines. • 5.     Guiding teacher helped them practice bowing after performing and will remind students to be respectful when other groups are performing their authors. • Closure: • 1.     Each group performed their author biographies. • 2.     Lead teacher congratulated the students for their performance and will ask all of them to applaud each other. • 3.     We once again discussed the importance of getting to know our authors further than just their books. • 4.     We asked students to join us to the reading circle to sing a song. The song is repetitive and very short; this helped students follow along. • 5.     This song is a short summary that included the definition of an author, illustrator, and the three authors discussed in the previous lessons. • 6.     We ended the lesson thanking each student for allowing us to teach them and we present them with a small gift basket full of school supplies such as color pencils, crayons, pencils and other stuff. Each student also got a small certificate that recognized their outstanding participation.

14. Authors song Un autor (2x) Escribe el cuento (2x) Un illustrador (2x) Dibuja (2x) Yoconosco (2x) A tres autores (2x) Alma Flor Ada esuna (2x) Gary Soto esotro (2x) No olvidemos a Pat Mora. (2x) By Julieta Espinoza

15. Annotated Bibliography • Ada, Alma Flor .(1988). Canción de todos los niños del mundo. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Thepoem contains amazing photographs of children from all around the world in order to highlight the diversity of their environment as well as show the universal similarities of children. The poem shows and explains what other children in other parts of the world do in contrast to what children in the United States do. The message of the book is that we are all brothers and sisters no matter how different we are or how far apart we are from each other. • Ada, Alma Flor.( 1997). Gathering the sun : an alphabet in Spanish and English. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publisher. It is a book of Spanish and English poems about working in the fields , one for each letter of the Spanish alphabet. Together, the poems and the rich illustrations by Simon Silva celebrate the glory of nature and the hearts of all who dedicate their lives to working the land. The Orgullo/Pride poem can be found here, and is the one we used in our lesson. • Jardine Leon, R. (1993). Una Visita Al Suroeste. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. This oversized book goes through a young girls trip from Los Angeles, Cali to San Antonio TX. The book goes through six states Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. She is creating an album of her vacation and on each page of her album she talks about some facts about the state and what her family did while visiting each state. • Mora, P. (2002). Una biblioteca para Juana: el mundo de Sor Juana Ines. New York, NY: Dell Dragonfly Books. Una biblioteca para Juana: el mundo de Sor Juana Ines discusses the life of the famous Mexican writer from her childhood to when she become older. The book demonstrates her love for books and words that she begins writing her own stories, songs and poems. • Soto, Gary: (1996) ¡Qué montón de Tamales!. New York, NY: Putnam Juvenile. Maria tries on her mother's wedding ring while helping make tamales for a Christmas family get-together. Panic ensues when hours later, she realizes the ring is missing.

16. The readers theater performance

17. Gracias!

18. THANK YOU!