Día de los Muertos at the Minnesota History Center

So when you think of Día de los Muertos you probably don't think of the Minnesota History Museum.  But this weekend the museum was a great place to celebrate Mexican-American culture in Minnesota.

Día de los Muertos is becoming more and more prevalent in American culture.  Unfortunately because if falls in the same week as Halloween and has some of the same images, many people think it is the Mexican version of Halloween.  However, Día de los Muertos is a celebration to honor the dead.  Families gather in hopes of spending time together and with the spirits of those who have past but return once every year.  Families spend all night together in the cemetery waiting for their loved ones and enjoying the company of others.

The Minnesota History Museum is always a great place to learn about what makes Minnesota great.  Each year they sponsor a Día de los Muertos celebration that recognizes Minnesota residents with Mexican heritage and educates their neighbors about the culture.  The event kicked off with a performance in the First Floor Rotunda from a troupe of Aztec dancers called Kaplulli KetzalCaotlicue.  This volunteer group of dancers represents a learning community that honors the traditions of their Mexican heritage through music and dance.  Instructors teach classes and share their culture in schools across the Twin Cities.

You can find their next performance or learn more about the group from their Facebook page.

There were other musical performers throughout the day including Rico Duran and Siluetas singing Mexican folk songs and Los Alegres Bailadores with Mexican folk dance.

In the tradition of the museum, there were a lot of ways for visitors to engage in learning about Mexican culture.  Ofrendas are an important artifact of Día de los Muertos.  These altars are built for to honor the memory of loved ones who have passed away.  Because these loved ones may come back and visit, a table is prepared with all of their favorite things.  You start with a white tablecloth and cover it with papel picado.  This thin tissue paper represents the Mexican traditional folk art of paper cutting.  Artists punch designs into layers of the paper and create squares and rectangles that are hung during festivals.  The papel picado will blow in the wind when the spirits arrive.  Next, layers are added to the table.  Candles and flowers are placed on the layers of the altar, one candle for each person honored.  The flowers are orange marigolds whose scent is used to create a path that welcomes the dead.  Salt and water are put on the ofrenda to quench the thirst of those who travel to see their families.  Calaveras de azucar (sugar skulls) represent the sweetness of life and the sadness of death.  These are decorated with glitter, icing, colored foil, sequins, beads, or feathers.  Pictures and the person's favorite possessions and foods are also placed on the altar. Many ofrendas were on display that were made by students across the Twin Cities.

 Many of those who attended made their own Nichos (shadowboxes) or clay skulls to take home.  Small children and their parents enjoyed a bilingual puppet show about the Day of the Dead.  All ages enjoyed playing Loteria (Mexican bingo).

There were samples of champurrada, a Mexican recipe for hot chocolate, and Pan de Muertos, the special bread that is eaten during Día de los Muertos.  This sweet bread is usually shared at the vigil in the cemetery.

Dia de Los Muertos in the Twin Cities

Midtown Global Market

Every year the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis celebrates Día de los Muertos during the first week of November.  This year the festivities occur from October 27-November 2.  This is one of Minneapolis' best kept secrets in free and fun entertainment.  

On Sunday, October 27 there will be traditional Aztec dancing from noon until 3pm.

On Wednesday, pre-schoolers can celebrate by making a skull from 10:30am until 1pm.

The event closes on Sunday from noon until 6pm with a Pan de Muertos demonstrations, mariachi music, and other activities.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Offrendas built by local students will be featured.from October 22-November 24.  Their displays are the product of their study of the art and culture of Mexico.

Minnesota History Museum

This year the Minnesota History Museum in St. Paul is also honoring Día de los Muertos with an exhibit and program on Saturday, October 26 from 12pm-4pm.  This celebration features dance, music, and offrendas.  The schedule of events for the day is found on their website.  http://www.minnesotahistorycenter.org/events-programs/day-dead

El Burrito Mercado

This Mexican restaurant in St. Paul will have a free celebration on Saturday, November 2.  This is a great opportunity to check out the offrenda and hear restaurant owner Milissa Diaz describe it's meaning.  You will also be able to try Pan de Muertos and kids can get their faces painted.

 

TPRS

TPRS is a method for teaching foreign languages that was developed by Blaine Ray.   It is based on James Asher’s Total Physical Response and Dr. Stephen Krashen’s Language Acquisition Strategies.  The story-based approach was not only fun and engaging, it is an excellent long-term memory technique.  This inductive approach replaces the traditional method of teaching grammar.  Students are provided input rather than being taught form and rules.  The words and phrases used are more likely to be retained in long term memory because the grammar is used in context and students have the opportunity to construct meaning rather than completing one sentence drills.  Another reason this method is successful is because it caters to the interests of the students. As a graduate student at Mankato State University I attended a class in which Marti Sievik demonstrated the use of TPRS based on his experience using it while teaching Spanish in Colorado.  

To create a unit or lesson based on storytelling, start with 3-5 words or phrases that revolve around the grammar concept that you would like students to be able to construct.  Begin with the introduction of vocabulary and complex structures.  I was amazed by how easy it was to use facial expressions and gestures to teach vocabulary.  Although the objective of the lesson that Marti Sievik presented only required students to learn about four phrases, it was possible to add a lot more throughout the story.  The technique that was used to tell the story is called circling.  To do this teachers ask a series of questions that include choosing between two or more words.  Students can produce answers with only one word or even a gesture.  This method also allows teachers to double back and provide repetition of certain words or grammatical structures.  During this phase all attention is on the teacher, but it is important for the teacher to maintain eye contact.  Marti was a master at this.  I noticed that not only was he constantly moving around the room and making eye contact, he also got down to the student’s level when asking questions.  In this way the story builds based on student comprehension and response.  The oral presentation is followed by reading.  According to Blaine Ray, the emphasis is actually on the reading, although I feel that the story-telling is going to be more effective for most students.    Blaine Ray recommends that storytelling and reading should be followed up with an unannounced vocabulary quiz.  Not announcing the quiz will allow you to test the acquisition of the vocabulary and not how well they cram before class.  Words that are troubling can be recycled.

The only drawback that I could see to TPRS was that it was very physically demanding.  Most teachers have 4-5 classes a day, many times these classes are different sections of the same course.  Marti’s story took about forty-five minutes, a traditional class period after all of the housekeeping issues are attended to.  This would be hard to incorporate into curriculum more than once every week or two.

If teachers wanted to use this method, there are resources available.  The most important resource is the teacher.  An enthusiastic and energetic teacher is a requirement.  It is also important that the teacher is skilled at establishing relationships with their students.  To sustain a student’s interest in a story, you must understand what interests them.  To get them to respond, you must build trust with them.  Eye contact during story-telling not only allows the teacher to check for comprehension, it also establishes trust and an interest in the student.  Everyone loves the teacher that they feel took an interest in them.  Textbooks can be used by taking the words from each lesson and building a story around them.  School districts usually encourage teachers to attend workshops that pertain to their subject and will hone their teaching skills.  I plan on attending one of the workshops.  - http://tprstorytelling.com/

http://www.tprstories.com/what-is-tprs

Google in the Classroom

I'm not gonna lie, I am a huge fan of Google.  I first starting using Google when the overseas school that I was teaching at had an account for each teacher and student.  As teachers we used it to create and share documents.  Agendas for meetings were kept on a Google doc.  Anyone who was invited to edit the doc could post items to the agenda.  Google allows users to see revisions and who has made them so everyone was accountable for the document and it's content.  It seems like a small thing, but it saved us from a lot of confusing emails and paper trails in which information gets lost.

Students are already adept at technology.  It is fascinating and fun to use and I believe there are ways in which it can make life easier.  As teachers we should use technology when it enhances the learning experience. With students we used Google docs to organize projects. Again everyone who was invited to edit a document could participate. In one project my students had to create a newspaper. One student from each group was chosen to be the editor of the newspaper. The editor created a google doc for the group and shared it with all group members and the teacher. The group brainstormed a list of topics to write articles about and each student signed up for their topic on the google doc. Then students were able to write their rough drafts on the google doc. Other group members were able to edit those rough drafts almost immediately. When the final draft was ready the editor was able to do the final proof-reading and the teacher was able to approve the final revisions. The layout artist was able to copy the text from the google doc and paste it into a newspaper template. This is just one example of how a google doc can be used to work collaboratively.

One of the features that can be used to gauge background knowledge or interest is the forms which can be used as student polls.  Teachers can ask students to rate their interest in a topic. An advantage of using Google for this type of activity is that the answers provided, even if they are not posted for other students to see, would be attached to the student’s Google account. When you create a form you can ask students to answer a question. I have also used this feature to pair students into groups for information gap activities. For example, I asked students to answer yes or no if they have every watched the television show Duck Dynasty. During a speaking activity in class I paired students who watch the show with students who have never seen the show. It was a lot of fun for students to use family vocabulary and descriptive adjectives to describe a television family to those who had never seen the show. Me gusta tio Si.

Google can also be used to create graphs and other visuals to show data. Presentations can be created and shared on the drive. This means students don't have to save this information on their own flash drive. They can work on it at school or at home. They can present in class using the teacher's computer or they can share it in smaller groups.

I have obviously embraced Google. If your school allows students and teachers to have google accounts, it can make some of the tasks associated with learning more manageable and organized.