Tag Archives: hispanic history

Cultural Literacy: Buenos Aires

Here, at the end of this morning’s labors, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Buenos Aires. This is a half-page document with a reading of three sentences, each of them longish compounds, and three comprehension questions. When I opened this document to prepare it for publication here, it was formatted as a full-page document. I’ve revised it to a half-page. However, if you need to break up some of these compound sentences into shorter, independent clauses, for a diverse group of readers, then you will probably need to write some more questions–and therefore return this worksheet to a full page.

Have I mentioned that this, like most documents you will find on Mark’s Text Terminal, is formatted in Microsoft Word for ease of revision and adaptation? Of course I have; forgive me for belaboring the point.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Jorge Carrera Andrade

“Jorge Carrera Andrade: (1903-1978) Ecuadorian poet and essayist. A well-traveled diplomat and anthropologist. Carrera Andrade reveals in his poetry an intense identification with his native Indian forebears. His first selected edition of verse was Registro del mundo (1940), which was followed by Lugar de origen (1945) and Edades poeticas (1958). In all his work, he employs somewhat impressionistic techniques to evoke very clear images of his native land. Along with other writers of his generation, he pioneered the adaptation of haiku to the Spanish language. An English translation of his Selected Poems (tr H.R. Hays) appeared in 1972; his complete poems in Spanish are published in Obra poetica completa.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Emiliano Zapata

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Emiliano Zapata. This is a full-page worksheet with a three-sentence reading and four comprehension questions. This worksheet, I think, could be reduced to a half-page, and I’m not clear why I developed it as I did. Zapata is obviously a significant historical figure, and I imagine I expected to develop this a little further–though with a three-sentence text (the final sentence of which might be better broken in two for emergent readers and English language learners) I’m not sure how much more can be done with this.

But what do you think?

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

William Walker

[It may seem unusual to find an Anglo name like William Walker as the header of a post observing Hispanic Heritage Month 2023. If you read on, however, you will see that Walker, a mercenary from the United States, played a substantial role in extending United States influence in Latin America, particularly Nicaragua. I became interested in Walker after seeing Alex Cox’s strange–surreal might be the right word here–film Walker, for which the late great Joe Strummer supplied the music.]

“William Walker: (1824-1960) U.S. military adventurer. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he moved to California in 1850. His interest in colonizing Baja California developed into a filibustering (insurrection) scheme. He landed at La Paz (1853) and proclaimed Lower California and Sonora an independent republic, but Mexican resistance forced him back to the U.S. In 1855 he sailed to Nicaragua, where he effectively established himself as leader. There, officers of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Accessory Transit Co. promised him financial assistance in a plot to take the company away from Vanderbilt. Walker seized the company and turned it over to them, then made himself president of Nicaragua (1856). In 1857 Vanderbilt induced five Central American republics to drive walker out. In 1860 he attempted a filibuster in Honduras, where he was captured and executed.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Francesco Arrivi

“Francesco Arrivi: (1915-2007) Puerto Rico’s most important dramatist. Arrivi’s early plays, such as El diablo se humaniza (1940), Club de solteros (1940) and Alumbramiento (1945), were realistic social documentaries. His later work grew increasingly poetic, with more carefully drawn characters, as in his trilogy about Puerto Rico’s history and people, Mascara puertorrignena ((1971).”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Pablo Neruda

OK, time to wrap up this morning’s work and head off to school. Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Pablo Neruda. This worksheet is a half-page in length with a reading of three relatively simple declarative sentences and three comprehension questions.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Lake Titicaca

“Lake Titicaca: Lake, Peru-Bolivia border. The world’s highest navigable lake, it lies at 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) in the Andes. The second-largest lake of South America, it covers some 3,200 square miles (8,300 square kilometers) and is 120 miles (190 kilometers) long by 50 miles (80 kilometers) wide. A narrow strait separates it into two bodies of water which have 41 islands, some densely populated. The remains of one of the oldest American civilizations have been found in the area. Temple ruins on Titicaca Island mark the spot where the legendary founders of the Inca were sent down to the earth by the sun.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: Bolivia

Continuing with this blog’s underwhelming–for which I apologize profusely–observance of Hispanic Heritage Month 2023, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Bolivia. This is a full-page document with a reading of four sentences and nine comprehension questions. The asymmetry of this worksheet may require some explanation.

The first sentence in this reading situates Bolivia in continental South America with a series; that series could easily be broken up and turned into four separate, easier-to-use independent clauses. The next sentence is a compound separated by a semicolon. In other words, another sentence you might consider breaking up and turning into two separate independent clauses. The second two sentences are clear in their declarations, and should be easy for emergent readers and English language learners to process. I wrote nine comprehension questions because I decided to take the facts in the reading one at a time, which I suppose is how I imagine readers will take them.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Gabriela Mistral

“Gabriela Mistral originally Luclila Godoy Alcayaga: (1889-1957) Chilean poet. Mistral combined writing with a career as a cultural minister and diplomat, and as a professor in the U.S. Her reputation as a poet was established in 1914 when she won a prize for “Sonetos de la Muerte” (“Sonnets of Death”). Her passionate lyrics, with love of children and of the downtrodden as principal themes, are collected in such volumes as Desolacion (1922), Tala (1938), and Lagar (1954. In 1945 she became the first Latin American woman to win the Nobel Prize.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Bogota

“Bogota: city, capital of Colombia. The District Capital area is officially known as Santafe de Bogota. It lies on a plateau east of the Andes, European settlement began in 1538 when Spanish conquistadores overran Bacata, the main seat of the Chibcha Indians; the name was soon corrupted to Bogota, It became the capital of the viceroyalty of New Granada and a center of Spanish colonial power in South America. It was the scene of a revolt against Spanish rule in 1810-11, and Simon Bolivar took the city in 1819. It became the capital of the confederation of Gran Colombia; when that was dissolved in 1830, it remained the capital of New Granada (later, Republic of Colombia). Today Bogota is an industrial, educational, and cultural center.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.