Objectives
Integrating the Seminar Experience to the Standards and Practices of Teaching High School.
This unit seeks to integrate my experience as a fellow in Mary Miller's seminar Art and Identity in Mexico from Olmec Times to Present at the 2005 Yale National Seminar with the standards and practices of high school history teaching. During the unique ten day session, nine middle and high school teachers from school districts in Duval County, Florida, Pittsburg Pennsylvania, Charlotte, North Carolina, Houston, Texas, and New Haven, Connecticut and Professor Mary Miller, Yale University's Vincent Scully Professor of History of Art explored art and identity in Mexico from antiquity to the present and discussed the methodology of creating curriculum based on this material for our respective classes. The unit seeks to extend our collaboration to the high school classroom where students and teachers can engage the questions and issues we explored. I thank my colleagues for their inspiration and dedication to the experience. In essence, I hope my curriculum unit can create a similar engaging collaborative mission in my classroom that was modeled in our seminar.
However, addressing high school students with issues regarding the Spanish invasion of Mexico and the Columbian Exchange requires the consideration of some additional variables and dynamics that differ from the experience of adult professionals in a seminar. Strategies in this unit deal with many of these variables and dynamics: local, state, and national standards, school culture, class size, levels of maturity and ability levels. These are reflected in the following narrative. Translating the products of our national initiative experience to the high school classroom will be full of challenges. However this fusion of educational forces seeks to achieve a fruitful result somewhat akin to the amalgam produced by the collision of the Old and New World through the Columbian Exchange-hopefully without the warfare of course.
While the unit is specifically designed to use with mid level history classes at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut, its alignment with state and national standards should make at least some of the objectives, strategies, lessons, and resources useful for application to remedial and honors level high school classes in any urban school district. In short, this unit is for high school history teachers and/or, I suppose, any teacher or person interested in learning about the events and outcomes of the Spanish invasion of Mexico which begins in 1519.
The unit audience will be college and honors students of grade 9 World History Class and grades 10-12 International Relations Class at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, Connecticut. Cross is a diverse urban high school with approximately 1400 students. The school serves children from different socio-economic backgrounds. The school serves children who live in public housing and children of Yale University faculty. Children who are immigrants to the United States and children who are multi-generation Americans attend Cross. The three largest ethnic groups are Latino, African American, and Caucasian. However, there are also significant numbers of other ethnic groups that attend Wilbur Cross. Students are grouped by ability level in honors or college level classes. Some remedial classes are offered to those in need. AP classes and elective courses are also offered. Students are required to accrue 24 credits in order to graduate. Before graduating students are expected to complete a full year of World History (grade 9), a full year of United States History I (prehistory -1877), a one half year course in United States History II (1877-present), and one half year course in Civics. They may take additional history electives such as International Relations or Caribbean History.
Presenting the Perspectives of the Multiple Players in the Spanish Invasion of Mexico: Historical Figures and Historians
The story of the Spanish invasion of Mexico is remarkable episode in human and international relations. Above the interaction, deception, the fighting, and correspondence among the Spanish, Aztecs and neighboring tribes, exceptional historical figures emerge: Hernán Cortés, the bold Machiavellian conquistador, Montezuma, the superstitious and conservative Aztec emperor, and Doña Marina, Cortés' undoubtedly brave yet enslaved interpreter. The complexities and realities of these exceptional historical figures make for great historical drama on an international stage. The drama relates to what history textbooks famously document as the Columbian Exchange: the exchange of ideas, people, livestock, and produce between the Spanish and Native American world. The story of these people is the force that humanizes the exchange; textbooks alone often lack elements of personification. The characters reveal components of our own personalities amplified: ambition, fear, tradition, superstition, and greed. Yet we would know nothing of these great people and events without the witnesses and interpreters. The historians, of this drama provide us with the detail to benefit from this story. Cortés wrote letters to King Charles asking to legitimize Cortés' invasion of Mexico. Bernal Díaz retold the story of the invasion years after serving under Cortés. Bernardino de Sahagún compiled an immense encyclopedia which detailed the accounts of the Spanish invasion from the Nahua perspective.
Students will respond orally and in writing to activities presented to them in the unit. Some particular outcomes relating to reading strategies are expected of students as they complete the unit. Through applied reading strategies students will gain insight into key content areas. First, students will become familiar with the historical figures Montezuma, Hernán Cortés, Doña Marina, Bernal Díaz and Bernardino de Sahagún. Second students will demonstrate understanding of the complexities of Aztec society and the relationships the Aztecs had with other tribes of the area. Third, students will analyze the circumstances leading to Cortés' invasion of Mexico. Lastly, students will interpret the irrevocable effects of the Columbian Exchange. Strategies for the unit will include having students read from and interpret multiple texts: primary and secondary sources. They will read excerpts from Bernal Díaz, Hernán Cortés, Miguel Leon-Portilla's Broken Spears, and the Bernardino De Sahagún's Florentine Codex. Excerpts from the work of secondary authors, Hugh Thomas, James Lockhart, Stuart Schwartz, Tzvetan Todorov, and Gérard Chaliand will also be utilized.
Naming and Describing the Major Characteristics of the Columbian Exchange: the Transplant of Animals, Plants, Disease, and People.
When we read details about the Columbian Exchange we are reminded that the "Exchange" can be a rather polite term for the baggage brought and taken by the Spanish in their enterprising conquests. Below Alfred Crosby's comments suggest that Cortés' expedition into Mexico already integrated elements of the native culture with European culture.
By the time of Cortés' assault on the mainland, the Spaniards had created in the Caribbean a perfect base camp for that assault. When the conquistadors moved into Mexico, Honduras, Florida, and elsewhere, they carried smallpox and many other maladies, freshened by recent passage through the bodies of the Arawaks. The Spaniards rode on horses bred in the Antilles, and wardogs from the same islands trotted beside them. Their saddlebags were packed with cakes of Caribbean cassava. Behind the conquistadors, herded along by Indian servants, came herds of swine, cattle and goats all of which had been born in the islands. In the span of the first post-Columbian generation, the Spanish had created in the Caribbean the wherewithal to conquer half a world. 1
Crosby's statement reflects how quickly the elements introduced by the Spanish took to the Caribbean. It suggests that the spread of these elements into Mexico was inevitable. It also suggests that the Spanish were already adapting components of Native American culture. Animals that were introduced and thrived in the New World include swine, cattle, sheep, goats, and horses. Plant life introduced by the Spaniards include: wheat, rice, barley, oats. Alternatively, Native Americans provided maize, beans, peanuts, potatoes, sweet potatoes, manioc (cassava), squashes, pumpkin, papaya, guava, avocado, pineapple, tomato, chile pepper, cocoa. Smallpox the deadliest effect of the exchange decimated the Native American population by up to 90 percent. Today the populations of Mexico and surrounding areas reflect a unique mixing of native -American, Spanish, and African blood.
Elements of the exchange were evident in the consciousness of Cortés' contemporaries. An illustration from Sahagún's Codex circa 1560's (see lesson plan) indicates a rather glowing depiction of the degree to which the Old World has adapted to the New World. The figure shows the Old World connected to the New World by a rainbow. Spanish men are unloading ships while a Spanish man sits comfortably writing on a tablet. An Indian in a cloak appears to be speaking to another Spaniard. Is the woman to his left interpreting for him as Doña Marina did for Cortés, or is she being given to the Spaniard as a gift as was common practice? In the figure, one can also see many animals that were introduced to the New World; lamb, goats, horses, cattle, and swine took comfortably to the New World. In fact, swine reproduced so rapidly that they were deliberately left on islands to multiply and be future food source. In 1609 shipwrecked sailors were able to survive in the Bermudas on the offspring of swine left on islands years before.2 Cattle also adapted well. The result was that meat soon became a staple of the New World diet and cattle by-products such as hides and tallow (used in making candles) was in abundant supply. The abundance of cattle provided inexpensive meat. Hides were also so abundant that they were exported back to Europe. In 1587 only sixty-six years after Cortes retook Tenochtitlan a Spanish fleet brought 64, 350 hides to Seville.3 The introduction of Old World animals produced some negative results; overgrazing by cattle and sheep deteriorated some of the plains of Mexico by 1580. Rats also flourished on some Caribbean islands.4 Education and religion are also represented in the picture. The tree on the earth platform has religious connotations. The man writing comfortably perhaps represents the practice of numerous religious orders such as the Franciscans who in addition to trying to Christianize New Spain sought to educate natives and Spaniards. Sahagún, a Franciscan friar, helped found a controversial school of Latin in 1536 in which sons of native nobility were educated. Despite protests against educating Native Americans in Latin by some Spanish and religious authorities, these students ultimately helped Sahagún compile the native Nahua accounts for Sahagún's historical encyclopedia.
Encouraging Students and Teachers to Effectively Address Performance Standards.
Adherence to standards has become a cornerstone to most public education. Increasingly it seems as if teachers are being asked to adhere more closely to district, state and national curriculum standards. The lessons in this unit adhere to a number of standards from the New Haven Public School Social Studies Curriculum that are also state and national standards. The primary standards to which the unit aligns are listed below. A more comprehensive list of standards that are addressed in this unit is included as Appendix 1.
Students should be able to demonstrate understanding commonalties, diversity, and change in the societies of the Americas from their beginnings to 1620 by comparing commonalties and differences between native-Americans and European outlooks, and values on the eve of "the great convergence." [Era 1, Standard 1A, #4 {7-12} (page 40) National Standards for U.S. History.]
Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the ways that cultural encounters and the interaction of people of different cultures in pre-modern as well as modern times have shaped new identities and ways of life. [Standard 3c Historical Themes, {9-12} (page 9), CT Social Studies Curriculum Framework]
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the characteristics of societies in the Americas, Western Europe, and West Africa that increasingly interacted after 1450. [Era 1, Standard 1, (page 40) National Standards for U.S. History]
Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the ways race, gender, ethnicity, and class issues have affected individuals and societies in the past. [Standard 3f Applying History, {9-12} (page 10), CT Social Studies Curriculum Framework]
The New Haven Public Schools Social Studies Curriculum also includes some prescribed essential questions and suggested activities. The essential question and suggested activity of the New Haven Curriculum that pertains to this unit is listed below. I have added a second essential question and an alternative activity.
Essential Questions
Essential Question 1: What is the "great convergence" and how did it contribute to the development of societies in the Americas prior to 1620? (cultural)
Essential Question 2: How did the respective cultures of the Aztec and Spanish influence the decisions of Montezuma and Cortés?
Suggested Activity: Students will draw a map showing the spread of diseases, animals, and plants during the "Columbian Exchange"
Alternative Activity: Students will examine an illustration from Book 12 of the Florentine Codex to unpack characteristics of the Columbian Exchange
Promote Enthusiasm for Achievement
Guaranteeing that students will be enthusiastic about learning is difficult to ensure. However, I hope to encourage enthusiasm for learning in this unit with positive reinforcement and incentive based learning. A curriculum rubric will outline assessment for activities in the unit. It's fun to add incentives such as praise, certificates of achievement, gift certificates for completing assignments on-time, going beyond requirements, and submitting excellent work. The unit will be taught with the maxim that positive reinforcement will best generate enthusiasm for achievement and promote further independent investigation. The rubric will allow students to understand how they are being assessed and monitor their own progress throughout the unit.
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