Américo Paredes

Lesson Plan 2

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Written by: Katie Daitoku
Date: January 15, 2007
Grade level: 7
Subject: Texas History

TEKS Connection: 19B, 21A, 22B, 22C, 22D

As a result of this lesson, the student will be able to: Identify and explain the importance of corridos in Mexican American culture.

The lesson content is about: Corridos (Mexican American ballads)

The student will process the content by: Working in small groups to explore the body of corridor music, particularly the south Texas variety, students will then write their own corridos.

The student will complete the following product as part of this lesson:
Their own brief corridos written as a group.

I will know how well the student has understood the content, process, or product by:
Reading their corridos and watching the students present them to the rest of the class

Prerequisite skills that students should have for this lesson to be successful: None

Actual Lesson

Introduction: Introduce students to corridos, using the audio links found the website: http://www.geocities.com/karenrae.geo/americo.html. Additional audio and visual links can be found through Google Video searches and students can see the music and text for various corridos in Paredes’s A Texas-Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border.
Time needed: 20-30 minutes

Learner-centered Strategies/Activities: Divide students into small groups and have them write their own brief corrido, although it will not be set to music. Students then present their corrido to the class.
Time needed for each: 30-40 minutes

Closure: Discuss with students why corridos are an important part of border culture and what role corridos play in the culture of the area. Answer any remaining questions and ask students to reflect on their own experiences as they attempted to write a corrido.
Time needed: 10-15 minutes

Paredes, Américo. A Texas-Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1976.

A book of sixty-six folksongs accompanied by bilingual text, music, and a discussion of how to perform them and their history.

Paredes, Américo. With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad & Its Hero. Austin, TX: The University of Texas Press, 1958.

The story of Gregorio Cortez Lira who killed a Texas sheriff and fled, who was eulogized in "El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez."

http://www.folklife.si.edu/frontera/paredes.htm

Entitled "The Problem of Identity in a Changing Culture: Popular Expressions of Culture Conflict Along the Lower Rio Grande Border," Paredes discusses conflict, smuggling, corrido ballads, and identity in this online article that also contains an audio link to a corrido ballad.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/dreamteam/paredes.html

A website from the White House devoted to Paredes, containing a brief biography, emphasizing his legacy and containing questions about Paredes for students to answer.

How will this lesson be made relevant to the lives of the students? Students will hear corridos and then be given the opportunity to write their own, allowing students to understand how corridos can be used to tell stories and the importance role their play in border culture.

Materials required: internet/computer with speakers

Classroom setup: ensure that all students can hear sample corridos; space for students to work together in small groups

In order to differentiate the lesson to meet the needs of the learners I will do the following:

(Please highlight those intelligences that have been addressed in this lesson)

• Verbal-linguistic
• Mathematical-logical
• Spatial
• Bodily Kinesthetic
• Musical
• Interpersonal
• Intrapersonal

Please note other adjustments that you have made to differentiate the lesson:

Pair students with weaker social studies or musical skills with more advanced students; Paredes’s A Texas-Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border provides bilingual text in addition to musical notation.

The following levels of thinking skills are utilized in this lesson:

• Knowledge
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation