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Lesson Plans

School/Institution Name

AlFaEs, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico

Teacher Name

Professor Norma Felix

Grade

High School (Secondary)

Unit Name

Introduction To The Web de Anza Project

Lesson Name

Project One: Anza's Historical Journals

Focus of Lesson

The focus of this lesson is to review the primary source journal (diary) written by Juan Bautistia de Anza concerning his first exploratory expedition to present day Northern California (January 8 - May 27, 1774) and to understand what the Anza expedition learned as a group in that exploration.

Objectives

To recognize, through a review of Anza's original journal, important leanings from the perspective of the curriculum areas of Spanish, Geography, History, Civics, Science, and Mathematics.

To complement the traditional curriculum and explore beyond regular academic programs.

To familiarize students with computer technology and benefits of using the Internet.

To promote collaborative learning through teamwork.

To strengthen reading habits, increase vocabulary, and improve comprehension.

To encourage student motivation to learn.

To provide holistic curriculum and instruction experiences.

To introduce students to learning a global environment.

To interest students in the knowledge of the history of Sonora, Mexico.

Projected Time Needed

Six weekly class sessions of 45 minutes each.

Materials/Technology Needed

Computer/Internet access

Use of Web de Anza

(Lesson Focus)

Use of Scholars-Consultants

Teacher/Student Activities

1. First two class sessions are devoted to introducing students to the topic of Juan Bautista de Anza, history, and society. A few exercises can be developed to study historical inquiry as way of understanding society and the use of the Internet in that inquiry.

2. Students are introduced to Anza's original journal of exploratory expedition, in Spanish, and the study of the historical era of Spanish Colonial culture.

3. The perspectives of the curriculum disciplines of Spanish, Geography, History, Civics, and Science (Mathematics) can be defined for students. In turn students can then select one of these approaches in a work group and brainstorm a possible curriculum focused way to research and study the Anza exploratory expedition which began in present-day Sonora, Mexico

Possible student work group curriculum focused research topics could include:

Spanish: To make a dictionary or to write a newspaper article about events which during the exploratory expedition.

History: To make a "Timeline" index of significant locations/features encountered in the colonizing expedition.

Geography: To make a graphic (spatial display) of the main locations encountered during the colonizing expedition. (Basic drawings and graphic ideas also presented in lecture for student understanding and application.)

Science (Mathematics): To make a conversion or equivalence table to locate, according to decimal system, distances between main locations in Anza expediton.

Civics: Students will study societal structures in expedition.

Evaluation of Student Learning

Evaluation of Lesson

Content Standards

Other:

About AlFaEx, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico

AlFaEs is an educational "institution characterized by its philosophy and methodology focused on the personal growth of the student..."the main institutional mission goal is more related with the personal attitude to life...".AlFaEs want their students to "...discover and look for harmony in their way of thinking, saying, and doing".

AlFaEs comprises three schools, with 513 students, and 78 educators located in Hermosillo, Mexico, a city of about one million inhabitants. The school can be found 60 kilometers down the river of San Miguel de Horcasitas, the Presidio from which Juan Bautista de Anza selected 97 colonist families to travel north to settle the Presidio of San Francisco.  

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Home Page

Note: Web de Anza resources contain an extensive collection of primary and secondary historical sources on the Spanish Colonial era of Juan Bautistia de Anza in North America, 1750-1800. We encourage you to visit the main Web de Anza site at http://anza.uoregon.edu and explore.