Storytelling and Representation: When Mountains Tremble

Documentaries, like novels, are a representation. We can learn a lot from documentaries, but we have to understand that a documentary is storytelling and be aware that a filmmaker (instead of an author) is representing an event using storytelling techniques. Below is a list of key terms students will use when analyzing the storytelling of the documentary When Mountains Tremble, but before showing the film elicit these techniques by discussing/reviewing Discovering Dominga: 

The next step in today's class was to talk about filmmaking. Soon, we will have iPads, which means we will have tools for making our our documentaries at some point. Thus, we started class with an "imagine-if" scenario. Here is an idea from http://www.pbs.org/pov/behindthelens/lessonplan1.php:

 MAKING A DOCUMENTARY ROLE PLAY


In this step students take on the role of being a filmmaker. Working in groups of 4 to 6, students should consider the following scenario:

In preparation for a community-wide open house, students and teachers at Anyburg Middle School decided that it would help people understand the school experience if each class recorded a video of a typical day. The school had a limited amount of video, sound, and lighting equipment, so staff worked out a schedule for each class to have the cameras for two days.

By chance, Ms. Perez's science class ended up with the cameras on days when students were doing test prep. The students didn't think that footage of them mostly reading, taking notes, and occasionally asking questions was representative of their normal, vibrant class with hands-on labs and real-world research problems. But that left them with a dilemma. Should they shoot what was actually happening in their class that day, or should they re-enact what would happen on a more typical day? To make things even more complicated, on the second day of their video shoot, someone accidentally knocked over a tray with test tubes and beakers. This had never happened in class before. Students disagreed about whether to leave in or edit out the footage of the accident and cleanup.

Ask students to discuss the following in their groups: In your view, in these circumstances, what production choices would a documentary filmmaker make and why? How about a Hollywood filmmaker? How about a reporter from a local television station? What would be the best representation of the class and why?

After giving students several minutes to discuss the questions, call the groups together to share responses. Help students make links between what they discussed and what they learned about documentaries and documentary filmmakers.

Note: There is no "right" answer. Even experienced documentary producers disagree about how best to convey "truth" and whether things like re-enactment are appropriate. The idea here is to get your students talking about what values are in play for each type of media-maker. The Hollywood filmmaker might be more concerned with drama, the news reporter more concerned with accuracy and what footage they can get during the ten minutes they are in the school, and the documentary maker might step back and ask what is most important for the community to understand about this class.

Next, we viewed the documentary When Mountains Tremble  looking for storytelling techniques  such as interviews, stock footage, voice-over, and re-enactments.

Students made a visual map of the choices the filmmaker made to tell the story noting the difference sources that the filmmaker wove together to tell a story with voices and images from many different points of view; however, those clips are selections made by the filmmaker to make an argument, so we have to think about what was not selected and be aware that a documentary is not neutral.

 Below are maps of the sequencing and subjects the filmmaker used to tell the first 45 minutes of When Mountains Tremble. The movie enters the conversation about Maya resilience, cooperation, and democracy with footage from guerrillas, soldiers, Maya, the United States, priests, and lawyers in 1982 along with archival footage from 1954 and one re-enactment. What Yates argues is that the United States was supporting a new version of democracy in Guatemala. Yates represents the United States as supporting a military dictatorship while the military is telling the people that they are supporting democracy, a democracy that allocates land for big business and forces Maya to work on business owned plantations of coffee and cotton in order to pay land taxes that have been Maya land for hundreds of years. Rather than an image of Maya remaining neutral in the war between the guerrillas and the government as we see in Tree Girl,  Yates represents the Maya as participants joining the guerrillas in taking up arms in the name of freedom. Students see the guerrillas and the Mayas depicted from a new point of view, which complicates the Western narrative of guerrillas as all evil. The idea of revolution is introduced to our study of the modern Maya. The sequencing map illustrates not only the complexity of documentary filmmaking but also the complexity of storytelling, of history. Thus is the messiness of democracy as well.

Refugees and Globalization

Today we read chapters ten and eleven of Tree Girl. The setting of chapter eleven was the refugee camp at San Miguel in Mexico. This chapter is helpful in understanding globalization and how not only the commodities or products in one country impact the economy and culture of another but how the political events or disasters also impact other nations.

I did some drawing on the whiteboard to illustrate the concept of a refugee. Some students did have some prior knowledge about refugee camps because they learned about the Lost Boys of Sudan last year.  I drew a group of people in one place, discussed situations that would make them disperse, and then talked about where the now refugees might go. Next, we talked about the impact a mass of people would have if they had to suddenly migrate to another town or state. What impact would that have on the people in the new place? What about the resources? Who would organize the relocation? What might be the conditions or conflicts a refugee could expect?  We talked a little bit about the Red Cross and humanitarian efforts, too because there is mention of a gringo handing out rice to the people -- both the gringo and rice prompted interesting conversation from the students: " Do the Maya even eat rice? I thought they were corn people." "Why is the gringo speaking in Spanish? Doesn't he know there are like 23 Maya languages?"

We did a large Socratic Seminar today. I developed questions for chapters  nine, ten, and eleven so that we could  practice "building on ideas of others" in discussions. (Earlier in the week, they tried this out in groups of four with some success.) As I posed questions, I gave students a chance to write down their responses (think), then share their responses with their neighbor (pair), and then share their ideas with the class. After a student shared, I asked, "Would anyone like to build on ___'s idea?" When a student raised a hand, I would first ask for them to restate or clarify their classmate's point before building on that idea. After a few times, I didn't need to prompt this and students running the discussion.  This was a great opportunity for students to name one another, celebrate ideas, and make connections -- beautiful.

Here are some of the questions we discussed in chapter eleven, 155-169. The first two questions are not useful for discussion, but it helped us clarify the setting for students who may not have been following the text. Questions 3-6 ask students to predict and analyze using support from the text.


1.  Describe the refugee camp at San Miguel.
2.  What was the first thing Gabriela did upon arriving?
3.  Do you predict Gabi will or will not find Alicia?Explain based on the setting and the authorial pattern you've notice in the plot.
4.  What were the social values -- altruistic, individualistic, competitive, cooperative --  of the refugee camp?  State at least two and give quotes from the text.
5.  Did Gabriela share the values of the rest of the camp? Why or why not? p. 162-165
6.  How did the camp experience impact Gabi's view on America? On her Maya culture? What does modernity mean to Gabi?

For the upcoming research project, students may want to learn more about refugee camps or refugees. Discovering Dominga is one source for that, but this book can be, too.

The Gorgon Effect

Today, we started with a lesson on Perseus and the Gorgon, Medusa, to create a metaphor about genocide. (Most students knew Perseus and Medusa from  Percy Jackson movies and books.) Inga Clendinnen, in Reading the Holocaust, calls this the "Gorgon effect":"The sickening of imagination and curiosity and the draining of will which afflicts so many of us when we try to look at the persons or processes implicated in [atrocities]."  She claims that we cannot afford being blinded  into silence or reverence by humanity's atrocities and, thus, from changing things.

Often times, people turn away from terrible things. We look away because it is unimaginable or unbelievable or even if we just feel like we can't make a difference. The gorgon petrifies the human in itself and its prey, or those who look into its eyes. However, because the students are just now thinking about what they might want to do with their lives or what kind of person they want to become, now is a good time to face the horrible and think about the choices we can make in our lives, how we can be agents of change. While it is difficult to know about genocide, it is more difficult to say, " I didn't know." Phillip Gourevitch, in We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, writes, "The best reason I have for looking closely into Rwanda's stories is that ignoring them makes me even more uncomfortable about existence and my place in it. The horror interests me only insofar as a precise memory of the offense is necessary to understand its legacy" (19). For Clendinnen and for Gourevitch, it is a politics of seeing: if we want to destroy the gorgon -- genocide -- we need to stare back and see the processes of genocide.

We read chapter nine of Tree Girl  out loud. In this chapter, Gabi has hid her sister Alicia and the baby she helped birth under a bush so that she could to go to a nearby market for food, a pueblo apparently untouched by the scorched earth policy of the Guatemalan army. There, she meets Mother Lopez, a nun who intends to help Gabi until the soldiers surround the market. Gaby runs and climbs a machichi tree, and from the branches, she bears witness to the soldiers' systematic massacre of every living being in the pueblo over a two-day period. This chapter is the most graphic chapter of the book, so after I read this, I ask students to journal a response to this question: Do you think the graphic nature of these chapters was necessary for a young adult book? Should history like this be retold or kept silent?  Is it more or less powerful in fiction than in a text book?  Why or why not?Students had a lot to say about this. I will post some pictures from their journals.

Chapter nine seems to be based off of the events at Dos Terres: Here is an episode from This American Life , which aired May 25, 2012; there are also updates as recently as September 25,2012.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/465/what-happened-at-dos-erres. Below is an ebook about the same story.

Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory, and Justice in GuatemalaBy ProPublica

BUY THE EBOOK

The harrowing and heartrending story of Guatemala’s Dos Erres massacre, and the survivors whose lives were forever changed by it

In 1982, at the height of Guatemala’s civil war, twenty soldiers from the army’s commando unit, called the Kaibiles, invaded the farming village of Dos Erres. Masquerading as leftist guerillas, the squad members cut their way through the small town, killing more than 250 men, women, and children. Only a handful of people survived. One of them, a young boy, was adopted by Kaibil lieutenant Ramírez and raised by Ramírez’s family, who named him Oscar. Just three years old at the time of the massacre, Oscar grew up unaware of his true origins. It wasn’t until almost thirty years later, living in the suburbs of Boston with a family of his own, that Oscar would learn the truth.

Drawn from interviews with massacre survivors, commandos-turned-protected witnesses, lawyers, and forensic anthropologists, Finding Oscar is a powerful, groundbreaking investigation into the Dos Erres massacre and its aftermath. It is an unforgettable account of the secret abductions of Dos Erres survivors, the mission to bring the perpetrators to justice, and the courage of the Guatemalan people.

This ebook contains content not available anywhere else. Additional features include:

-A preface by Sebastian Rotella

-An afterword by acclaimed author Francisco Goldman

Oscar’s story is also featured on the May 25, 2012, episode of This American Life, available for download atwww.thisamericanlife.org. A slide show, timeline, and details about how this story was reported can be found atwww.propublica.org.

Troubling Truth

At this point, students have read through chapter eight of Tree Girl, which means they are bearing witness, as Felman in Testimony  might say, by "listening" to Gabi's narratorial account of the aftermath of the massacre in her canton and her 200 kilometer journey to a refugee camp in Mexico.

We started class today by going to tables in the library or cafeteria to have small book discussions. One of the learning goals is to Speak about Reading and to practice "building on ideas" of others.  Students selected classmates to work with, and I provided a rubric to help set goals for the discussion -- listening with postiive body language and eye contact, building on others' ideas when you speak,  using the book to clarify, and noticing the great ideas that members contribute. Students did a self and peer assessment of how it went.

Students wrote comments about what they discovered during their discussions with the help of their peers. Here are a few comments:

• We re-read the part where Antonio died. It was really sad, but we wanted to read it together one more time. 
• One student helped me understand this history of land ownership between the Latinos and Indios. 
• It was helpful to go back and figure out how much time has passed. This all happened so quickly.
• We are not sure who are the "bad" guys in this -- both the soldiers and guerrillas seem "bad."
• I can't believe this is based on a true story.

 The next day, I will read these comments to the class to point out conversation can answer questions, but it also opens spaces for more question. I also want to use a little class time to talk about what went well in the small group discussion: Do we work well together? Do we trust each other? Do we share our knowledge to help others?

After a discussion of the book thus far, we will talk about the genre "historical fiction" briefly before turning to the "documentary," Discovering Dominga." Students are realizing what it means for fiction to be "based on a true story" and how the documentary has both real footage and re-enactments. Understanding Rio Negro is just one example of  240 villages that were scorched in a two-year period and that there are at least 75 mass graves across Guatemala complicates the novel for students. Only Rio Negro was building a dam, which the government used as an excuse for killing the Maya there, but the government did make a common accusation that the Maya were "subversives."  The other issue complicating students' understanding of global issues is that the "good guy/bad guy" binary is being troubled. The Maya  civil patrolmen that the government enlisted to monitor their own villages was "responsible" for some of the massacres in Rio Negro, so students are asking questions about guilt. Who is right? Which stories are true? Can we believe the novel? Is it any more or less truth that the documentary? What is our responsibility as readers or listeners?

We finished Discovering Dominga -- what came out of this second part of the short documentary was the way the survivors worked together to seek answers and work towards justice for government's actions. As a the poorest members of the society, they were able to bring about awareness and justice by working together: this is the message of cooperation.

Discovering Dominga Joins the Conversation

Over the weekend, students read chapters five and six of Tree Girl; these chapters are heart-wrenching, and students expressed as much today when I saw them. Because of the graphic nature of these chapters, I decided it was important for students to have the choice to start and stop reading as they needed and even to skip over a page or two if the content proved to be too overwhelming. Some students told me they were glad to be able to cry in privacy; others told me that they did actually have to stop reading at parts. Still, other students simply said, "This book is good, and I couldn't put it down."

In chapter six, Gabi's teacher, Manuel Quispe, is attacked. During the 1980s, the Guatemalan  army was systematically killing Maya leaders who might organize government resistance. Mikaelsen, the author of Tree Girl rendered this in the novel; Manuel was with Gabi and other students when the soldiers, some Civil Patrolmen (Maya forced to work for the military), attacked them. Gabi survives by climbing a tree; she is Tree Girl after all, but she witnesses the massacre and narrates the events vividly. And then in chapter six, after hearing this violence has spread to other cantons, Gabi returns home from the market to find her own canton scorched. Students bear witness to the atrocity as listeners of Gabi's story, and they are filled with questions of "why."  Doing inquiry, putting other texts in conversation, is one way students can have agency in their learning, but inquiry is also a life-long skill. Truth is complex and ever-shifting; as we add to a central narrative we find answers and make space for more questions. There comfort in doing something to find answers, but there is a discomfort in never quite knowing what is truth -- this is learning.

Today we viewed the documentary Discovering Dominga in order to 1) put a first-hand account in conversation with the first person narrator in Tree Girl  and 2) see what additional questions emerge when new information is introduced. What happened to the Maya in Guatemala in the 1980s and why? What was going on across the country that, once again, exploited the Maya? And how, once again, have the Maya responded to signs of change?

Procedures:

To prepare for the documentary, Discovering Dominga, students read a short article about Rio Negro. In any lesson, the "how" of reading and writing is essential. For today, the "how" was to focus on topic-specific language to set a purpose for reading. The strategy is to highlight or underline topic-specific words in the questions before reading. This way, before reading, students are primed for the content and  have a purpose for reading. After reading, I asked students to write their own questions about what they read and still want to know about Rio Negro.

Here are a couple of sources that you can use for the pre-viewing reading, but there are a lot of options on the Internet. This topic can and should be extended to include an activism piece. After doing more research for this lesson, I saw that Rio Negro, perhaps more than other  massacre sites during this genocide, is an excellence example of cooperation and solidarity efforts as there are quite a view organizations working to attain justice for the victims:

• http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/1802-scorched-earth-the-rio-negro-massacre-at-pakoxom-guatemala-
• http://advocacynet.org/resource/855

Before viewing, we set up Research Log #3 for notes about who, what, where, when, and why. We also talked about how a documentary is a weaving of interviews and re-enactments with some archived footage.

During the viewing of  Discovering Dominga, students took notes on their Research log. It is a story about Denese Becker, an "Americanized" refugee from Guatemala living in Iowa and raising two children.  She tells her extraordinary story: at age ten she survived a massacre in her village of Rio Negro during the 1980s Guatemalan civil war, a conflict primarily between the government and the guerrillas.  Denese, born  Dominga, remembers and bears witness to the massacres that killed her mother and father with the help of other survivors, but she is left with more questions. She and her family do research into what exactly happened and who was responsible. Their research reveals that this chapter in Denese's life is actually a hidden chapter in  U.S. history; in 1954, a CIA coup overthew the democratic government making Guatemala a military state and a partner in agriculture.  The U.S. continued to support the military in the 1980s , in part, to protect the land for the United Fruit Company. In this documentary, we see Denese finding her voice and becoming a political activist as she brings awareness to the atrocities in Guatemala both in Guatemala and in her home town of Iowa.  Here is a discussion guide for more information: http://www.pbs.org/pov/film-files/dd_discussion_guide_action_discussion_file_0.pdf.

Because Tree Girl is historical fiction, I thought it was important to show a first-hand account of Denese's voyage of discovery as she became familiar with the history of the U.S. intervention in Guatemala but also how she fought for justice by testifying in court and partiicipating in survivors groups. Despite the odds, the Maya of Guatemala have survived and maintained their heritage, religion, and languages. Today, Mayans constitute 60 to 80 % of Guatemala’s population.

Homework: read chapters 7-8 of Tree Girl and complete the study guide

Building the Context of Cooperation

Now that we surveyed some sources about the Maya and read a few chapters from Tree Girl, students have a narrative going about the Maya. However, there are many gaps in their narrative, and so students are ready to dive into research armed with some of the reading practices we've been doing together. Through inquiry, students will build a context for what is coming up in their reading. The massacre at Rio Negro and Dos Terres in rendered in several chapters of Tree Girl, and I want students to have some idea about this living as a modern Maya before getting into the complex issues of 1980s Guatemala.

Here are the goals for today's learning and practice:

• vocabulary,  Tree Girl: cooperative, lingua franca
• vocabulary, research: source, plagiarism, quote/citation, paraphrase, summary
• strategy: research logs

Procedure: 
1. I modeled how to set up notes for a research log (Cornell inspired):

•  source and date at the top, 
• one column for topic specific words and definitions -- often bolded or in italics, 
• one column for quotes (exact words of the author to avoid plagiarism) and bullet points (paraphrasing observations or facts), and 
• the bottom of the notes for a summary. 

2. I then showed a sample and talked through the notes and how I might use them in my research paper:

3. Before getting to the sources, I talked a bit about reading images.  Many of our sources are going to be images, so it was important to talk to students about "reading" an image and that after watching a slide show, for example, they can actually write down inferences for their research.
4. Because our purpose for reading is to understand what the Maya do for cooperation and democracy, I asked that students look for quotes, facts, and examples of people working together, sharing knowledge, and trusting each other to do their part. After students take notes, they write a summary of their findings in that source, so all summaries should try to synthesize the "text," thinking about how what we read or viewed provides clues as to cooperation in Maya society. Students create one research log per source. Today, all students viewed a video on farming and the market and then read about the people of Guatemala.

 

5. We had one computer cart in class -- or 13 computers. So that students could have their own computer and so that each student could manipulate or move through the research as he or she needed, we divided the class into two groups. Because of the grouping (see below), I was able to give a lot of individual attention to students. For example, in the research group, I could monitor their note taking, talk to them about what they noticed in the images, and also talk to them how they might use their notes later. For the reading group, I was able to watch their active reading, see their faces as they grappled with the text, ask them questions about what they were understanding, and see how they were responding to the study guide (sometimes encouraging them to go back to the text).

• Group one used the computers for research. As they located sources, they took notes in their research log -- one log for each source.
• Group two, read Tree Girl. The students started by looking at the study guide to set a purpose for reading, and then they read Chapter 3 with attention to the study guide's vocabulary, themes, and events.
• Then, the two groups switched.

Homework: Read through chapter 4 in Tree Girl and complete the study guide through chapter 4.

How do we learn cooperation?

Goals:
1. Question to Text connection: Students struggle answering comprehension questions, so we will continue to work on setting a purpose for reading, noting the key words or central ideas, and then actively reading -- making connections, asking questions, and making predictions. Students will note the way Mikaelsen build suspense and crafts vibrant images by stopping at various points to discuss or to write in order to demonstrate active reading.
2. Historical Context: In historical fiction, it may be necessary to do a little research on your own to gain a better sense of some historical context. Tree Girl  synthesizes the events that led to the genocide of 200, 000 Maya in the early 1980s, but understanding the history of the Spanish conquistadors will show how the resilience of the Maya.


In chapter two of Tree Girl,  the author creates images with simile, metaphor and personification and mood by creating suspense about the "changes" coming to the canton (e.g., war). Mikaelsen introduces the antagonists -- soldiers and guerrillas -- but I think this is an important time to introduce the original antagonists to the students -- the Spanish conquistadors. The narrator, Gabi, explains how a Catholic priest will bless her for her quinceanera, but shares her questions about why the priests made the Maya change their Maya, "pagan," names to Spanish names. Another important theme in this chapter is family, so it is an important time to talk to students about the different personalities that contribute to their family and how because the family is the first group to which we are born it is our first opportunity to learn and practice cooperation.

Procedure:
1. Read the questions in the chapter two study guide to set a purpose for reading.
2. Read chapter two out loud and model interacting with the text -- making connections, predicting, asking questions -- and also show how to use text citations to support responses in the study guide. This chapter ends with armed soldiers interrupting the Gabi's quinceanera -- students, of course, want to keep reading.
3.For the inquiry project, start by taking questions from students. What are they wondering about with regard to the Maya? Show how inquiry begins with questions and talk about who you might go about answering such questions, which is research.For example, I want to know how the Maya avoided losing their culture when the Spanish came?
4.Send students to our "intranet" to read a PDF from a book about Guatemala. In just two pages, the authors give a nice overview of the theories about why Maya people left the cities like Tikal, when and why Spain invaded Guatemala, how Mayans adapted Catholicism, and finally how Maya moved into the highlands as a way to preserve their traditions. Students needs some practice reading on the computer, using the scroll bars and zoom, and noting topic-specific language like the "encomienda system." This can be done with a printed text as well.
5. Discuss the different classes that have been created in Guatemala due to the Spanish invasion as it relates to Gabi and her canton. In chapter two, we see Gabi celebrating her quinceanera with Catholic and Maya rituals. We hear how the people in her canton told both guerrillas and soldiers that they did not know or see anything about the "enemy." Gabi's canton is an example of a group of Maya who were not revolutionary or "subversives" as we will see in When Mountains Tremble and I, Rigoberta Menchu. 


 If time, you can show a movie clip to talk to students about how documentaries are source material for research, too. I think the movie Breaking the Maya Code does a nice job of talking about the hieroglyphics and archeologists and linguists determined the Maya people as storytellers. There were many books documenting their history, but De Landa burned nearly all these books during the Spanish conquests. Nevertheless, the Maya did not lose their identity.

Discussion and Inquiry

Goals:
1. Speaking about reading
 a. building off the ideas of other
 b. textual support of claims
 c. use of topic-specific vocabulary
2. Inquiry/Research

1. Today, we will do a fishbowl to discuss the study guide questions from chapter 1 of Tree Girl. The "fishbowl." The “fishbowl” is a teaching strategy that helps students practice being contributors and listeners in a discussion. Students ask questions, present opinions, and share information when they sit in the “fishbowl” circle, while students on the outside of the circle listen carefully to the ideas presented and pay attention to process.  Then the roles reverse. This strategy is especially useful when you want to make sure all students participate in the discussion, when you want to help students reflect on what a “good discussion” looks like, and when you need a structure for discussing controversial or difficult topics.

The discussions went well today. Something interesting that came up when we talked about the protagonist's ethnicity was that students wanted to name her "Hispanic." 

Q. What is Gabi's enthnicity? 
S1: Hispanic
Teacher: No, let's go to the text. What does Gabi say.
S1: Oh, she is Maya. Isn't she also Hispanic.
S2: Wait, didn't the Spanish invade that part of the world? So...
Teacher: Right, so what does it mean if Gabi is not Hispanic and does speak Spanish. How is that possible if it is a Spanish speaking country? 
S1: And this book is set in the 1980s? And they still don't speak Spanish? 

As you can see this was a great development in the discussion. Students were putting some of the pieces together (e.g. Guatemala is not in Mexico).  


 2. Chapter 1 of Tree Girl lends itself to doing inquiry. We learn about Maya clothing, language, life, traditions and get a hint of the war. Today, students will do an open inquiry -- no notes yet, just an exploration of a variety of topics on which they will later do a multigenre project.

·         Ancient Maya

·         Spanish Conquistadors and Maya Survival

·         Famous Mayans who Changed the World

·         Music of the Maya

·         Stories of the Maya

·         Government of Guatemala

·         Farming of Guatemala – Maya corn versus the Big business of coffee and bananas

·         Weaving

·         Languages and Cultures of the Maya

·         Religions and Sprititual Ceremonies of the Maya

·         Maya foods

·         Education of the Maya

     Here is a picture book, Hands of the Maya, that provides a nice overview of Mayan life. Students will see that their lives require cooperation. Is this democratic living? What can they teach us about living with others? 

What is democracy?

We started the year with a study of trees. Students learned the physical anatomy of a tree, adopted a tree to observed throughout the year, took a picture of themselves and the tree, and then wrote an autobiography using parts of the tree to talk about themselves. For example, the outer bark of the tree represents what people see whereas the inner bark represents their personality and their values.

After the research about trees and writing an informative autobiographyical essay, we did a short unit a unit about gum and the chicleros, Maya who harvest chicle from sapodilla trees and who have formed a coop to produce and make their own 100% biodegradable gum. Because of globalization, chicle came to the U.S. in the mid1800's, and because of capitalism, the sapodilla trees became endangered before synthetic gum became so ubiquitous. Chicleros, and the Maya way of life, also became endagered. Students business wrote letters to Whole Foods persuading them to sell Chicza, which is the gum the Chiclero Consorcio makes but is not available in the United States: Here is a an example of a letter in revision:

To continue our themes of trees and globalization, today we began a closer study of the Maya. Who are the modern Maya, and what can they teach us about democracy? At the heart of this is cooperation.

Here is the procedure for day 1:

1. On a sticky note, write a definition for any words you associate with "democracy." 
2.  Social value orientations are based on the assumption that individuals pursue different goals when making decisions for which the outcomes affect others.  The main difference between each category is the extent to which one cares about his or her own payoffs and that of the other in social dilemma situations. Rank these four social values according to which one you this is most important in a true democracy. Then, using "four corners," stand in the corner you ranked #1 and prepare to argue for this ranking. 

• Altruistic:  being generous, charitable, giving to others?
• Cooperative:  working with others to meet needs or bring about change with shared knowledge and trust 
• Individualistic: working and living  for himself with no concern for the other
• Competitive: working and living to beat or be better than the next person, business, etc. 
 

Here are examples of the class brainstorm. The majority of the students chose the cooperation corner, but students who chose the competitive, individualistic, or altruistic corner added many great points that complicated the idea of democracy. Overall, students initially associated government terms to "democracy," but through discussion it became must more nuanced.  

Democracy, thick democracy, is about inclusivity, participation, and critical engagement, and the foundation of this is cooperation not individualism.  Cooperation is inclusive because it needs people to work, participatory because it needs action, and it is critically engaged because it needs ideas and problem solving.

3. Handout the study guide and read the first chapter of Tree Girl. This chapter introduces you to Gabriela as she is weaving her huipil under an avocado tree just outsider her canton in the Guatemalan highlands. She is "attached" by two drunk boys, but she traps them in a tree until the canton arrives to "save her." We learn her native language of Quiche, a little about her culture, and get a hint of the signs of change coming to her canton in the early 1980s. Gabi is the only person in her canto going to school, and her parents tell her that she has to adapt to change or be destroyed by it.

What can the Maya teach us about democracy as a way of life? Although they do not live in a democracy, their way of life is a model of democracy full of cooperation,  but how do they do it?  And how did they cultivate their way of life in the face of violence? We will read about the lives of modern Maya and to research about different aspects of their lives -- farming, weaving, cooking, education, history of Spanish conquistadores, music, etc -- to trace how they have responded to change and cultivated their traditions with or in spite of such changes. 

Homework: Read the first chapter of Tree Girl and respond to the study guide questions.

 

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