Strategies and Activities
Discussion
Students like to talk about things that are important to them. Simply posing questions with some visual aids or prompts might generate interesting ideas, allow students and teachers to explore similar and contrasting values, and promote reflective and critical examination of personal and societal values.
Some questions or provocative statements to discuss in class or have students write reflectively on are:
The latest cell phone model with all the bling ringtones is more valuable than gold to a high school student. Why or Why not?
What or who determines the value of things in a particular society?
What were things of value in the Americas before Columbus? What things did the Spanish invaders value? Compare the items that each side valued.
What role or function did things of value play in pre-Columbian Societies?
What do these things have to say about people of the past?
What do these things have to say if anything about us today?
What things do we value today and why do we value them?
How do competing value systems affect our attitudes towards other people and things?
Brainstorming
Thinking with your pen, listening and posting, and k-w-l are excellent strategies to get students thinking about things. In think with your pen, students write quietly about what they know on a subject that will be explored in their journal, notebook, or a piece of paper. After a minute or two (or perhaps more) of writing, students are invited to the board to write one or two of their responses without talking. After a sufficient number of responses are listed, the class may then discuss them. A more traditional way to brainstorm is to post and ask a question and write student responses on the board as they say them. During this process, the teacher may often group like responses, affirm each student's response, and ask students to clarify their response. Students may also complete k-w-l charts on for instance, the items of value for the people of Peru, Colombia, and the Aztec. In this strategy, students would write what they know about Peruvians, Aztecs, Olmecs et al. They would follow with thinking about and writing what they want to know about Peruvians, Aztecs, and/or Olmecs. At the conclusion of the unit, they would return to their k-w-l chart and write reflectively on what they have learned about Peruvians, Aztecs, and or Olmecs.
Reading Multiple Texts
Reflective writing becomes more substantial if students have access to vibrant resources. Reading multiple texts will allow students to explore the bling of pre-Columbian societies. Primary and secondary sources for multiple text reading include illustrations from the Guaman Poma, photographs from the Yale Digital Library, journal articles, and poetry. Aztec poetry contains excellent primary source accounts of things that were important to the Aztec people. Aztec poetry is full of references to symbolic things such as jade, gold, and feathers. Some examples include:
I have come, o my friends,
with necklaces I entwine,
with the plumage of the tzinitzcan bird I bind. . .
from the Poem of Temilotzin (Leon-Portilla 1992:195)
Even jade is shattered,
Even gold is crushed,
Even quetzal plume are torn. . .
One does not live forever on this earth:
From Nezahualcoyotl's (Lord Feathered Coyote's) poem of sorrow
Aztec Poems: http://www.indians.org/welker/aztpoem.htm
Aztec poetry effectively communicates elements of the human condition: a spectrum of joy, fortune, sadness, longing, and loss. Students may recognize this exclusively through reading selections of poetry. Students may read and discuss Aztec poetry for evidence of things of cultural importance. Parody may be employed as a strategy for interpreting poems and assessing students understanding. For instance, after reading Nezahualcoyotl's (Lord Feathered Coyote's) poem of sorrow, I will have students write their own parody with instructions to insert things beloved to them in the place of the Aztec symbols of importance. Class readings of these student poems should be insightful and probably entertaining for the whole class.
Primary sources material can be drawn from the Florentine Codex via We People Here by James Lockhart and The Broken Spears edited by Miguel Leon-Portilla. They offer much insight into things of value to pre-Columbian Americans.
For instance, one can gain insight into things of bling belonging to Montezuma from primary source readings:
First were the appurtenances of Quetzalcoatl: a serpent mask, made of turquoise; a quetzal feather head fan; a plaited neckband of green stone beads, with a golden disk in the middle of it" ( Leon-Portilla, p. 94)
In reading and interpreting the full passage (about a paragraph long) one can easily ask students to read, underline and make a list, of objects that were sent as gifts to Cortes. Furthermore students can be asked to suggest which items might be given the highest value to the Aztec given the frequency of their being mentioned.
One of my favorite accounts from the Florentine Codex reinforces Suanders idea that while Europeans and Amerindians both valued shining glittering things, they both had irreconcilable systems of valuation. Upon being accepted into Tenochtitlan, Cortes and his men help themselves to the stores of the royal treasury at Teocalco.
As soon as the Spanish had found lodging. . .and had rested. . .The Spaniards began to remove the gold from the feather pieces, shields, and other dancing accoutrements that were there, and in order to remove the gold they destroyed all of the feather-pieces and rich jewels. They melted the gold and made it into bars, and then took the stones that seemed good to them. The Indians of Tlaxcala took all the less precious stones and the feathers (Lockhart p. 49).
Saunders has his own evidence to support his theory. This would also be an excellent quote to discuss with students because it hints to the underlying incompatibility between Spanish and Inca culture.
Of all the things that the Spanish showed him, there was none he liked more than glass, and that he was very surprised that, having things of such beauty in Spain [the Spanish]. . .would travel to distant and foreign lands looking for metals as common as gold and silver. Atahuallpa to Francisco Pizarro (Saunders 1999 p. 247).
Re-enactment Models
Re-enactment models might also be effectively employed in studying the mummy cults of the Inca. Royal mummies were adorned in as much as four layers of clothing. Groups of students could create mummy bundles with symbols of things that they value. Upon finishing, the group would then become the cult of their mummy bundle and be in charge of providing for their "ancestor" for a specified period of time (one or two class days). This will be a fun way to reinforce the practice of these cults of trying to keep the spirit of their ancestor alive. Brian Fagan describes the cults taking the mummies to important feasts and even having the mummies visit each other (Fagan p.48-49). As rules for inheritance did not allow for the passing of one ruler's property to his children, these cults provided an odd yet needed function in caring for the estate of the deceased Inca, and his less important offspring.
Multiple Sensory Presentation
One of the effective strategies Professor Miller employed in our seminar was to bring in samples of available things that were either the primary subject of our reading or were frequently referenced. It's easy to picture chocolate in the conventional way that we use it in our culture-sweet! However, in addition to reading and hearing that chocolate was hardly sweetened in the pre-Columbian era (sugar was not part of the New World diet), we also got to taste pure chocolate beans- certainly a bitter, caffeine laden, and quite memorable experience. I might let students try the same experience to some degree (with parental permission of course) with other items such as bitter, unsweetened chocolate, pumpkin seeds, potatoes, tomatoes et al. This is a multi-sensory way to experience and certainly remember the Columbian Exchange.
Interpreting Drawings, Paintings, and /or Illustrations
In addition to the strategies modeled by Professor Miller, all of us demonstrated mini lessons in our seminars at YNI. The practice helped us experiment with potential objectives, strategies, and classroom activities for our units and allowed us to work collaboratively. In many cases common subject matter or grade level sparked trading of ideas. I plan on using a role playing strategy to involve students in a lesson on a piece of Native American art that depicts Native Americans wearing symbols of hierarchy in their culture. Jayme Hicks, a ninth grade English teacher from Jacksonville School District modeled the strategy. Terry Pardee, a social studies teacher from East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, demonstrated a similar strategy. First, students observe and discuss a painting. The instructor hands out a sketch of the picture with everyone silhouetted and numbered. Each student writes dialogue for a character in the painting. Next, the class can recite the dialogue from their seat or from posed position that mimics the painting. I see plausible opportunities to use this activity as an introductory/anticipatory activity or assessment/exit strategy. This strategy appears to be adaptable to many forms of pre-Columbian Art including the figures found on wall paintings, pottery, and textiles.
The Guaman Poma is full of illustrations. Thanks to the work of Rolena Adorno, a Yale Professor of Portuguese and Spanish and the Dutch government, the full text with illustrations of the letter written to King Felipe from Guaman Poma is accessible on-line.
There is an excellent rendering of Pachacuti Inca to interpret.
Fortunately, many of the items that were of value to pre-Columbian Americans, aside from gold, can be easily and safely available for students, and even gold foil paper is commonly sold at holidays. Feathers, jade and other minerals, shells, fabric can all be acquired at craft stores.
Another activity would be to draw or sketch. Students will draw or describe how they would dress themselves given the notion that they would be the most important person in a particular pre-Columbian culture.
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