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.
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