Lesson Title:
Chávez, A Renaissance Man
“We seek our basic, God-given rights as human beings.”  César E. Chávez

Grade Level:
Grade Seven Lesson 2

History-Social Science Standard:
7.8   Students analyze the origins, accomplishments, geographic diffusion of the Renaissance.

Correlation to K-8 California Adopted Textbooks:
Houghton Mifflin: Across the Centuries.  Chapter 12, Lessons 2 and 3.

Setting the Context:
The setting takes us back in time to the period called the Renaissance to illustrate a way of organizing a small city-state called Venice.  It is still located in modern day Italy and is a popular city for tourists to visit.  During this period, the philosophy of the Humanists prevailed.  Humanists believed:

1)	In the worth of the individual and the individual’s ability to achieve almost anything.

2)	Individuals must commit to public service.

Focus Question: 
Why did people form guilds?  How?

Expected Learning Outcomes: 
Students will understand the purpose of guilds and unions and why they have been important in world history.  Students will be able to:

1)	Identify a guild and understand its purpose during the Renaissance.

2)	List the factors that make a city a strong trading center.

3)	Compare the forces of cooperation and conflict among people that influence the division and control of the land.

4)	Understand the importance of ideas about people during this period.

Assessment:
Students, as a group, will justify and defend their decisions on the placement of their city.  The group’s grade is based on the inclusion of all the factors listed on their matrix, the map, work finished on time, neatness, and cooperation.

Key Concepts:
Renaissance 
center of power
guild

Essential Vocabulary: 
guild
Renaissance
dodge
artisan
union
humanism

Primary Sources:  
Maps

Visuals: 
atlas, blank maps of Europe

Procedure

Motivation: 
“His union dramatically lifted wages of farm workers and improved their conditions. … Chávez to the end continued to seek more than traditional trade union goals.”  (1993 E.G. Brown, Jr.  Compare guilds and Chávez’s idea of a union.)

Making Connections: 
Chávez believed in individual worth and the ability of people to achieve almost anything despite the odds.  These were two of the chief principles of the Humanists during the Renaissance.  He first organized people during his CSO days and ultimately was the founder of the UFW.

Vocabulary Activities: 
Draw pictures next to a list of factors.

Guided Instruction: 
Divide class into small groups or guilds.

The students will form guilds (forerunners of unions) that will help each individual to be successful; their guild is modeled after the ones created in Venice and other European countries during the 1400 and 1500 centuries.  The guilds controlled all business and trade within a town.  Members were provided with medical aid and care.  They created a new class within this structured society that sometimes challenged the nobles.  The students in their guilds will examine the forces of man and nature that had to be faced if they had lived in Europe during this time.

First segment:
1)	Each student team or guild will pick three locations on the map of Europe where they would like to live and that would serve their trading needs to make them prosperous.  The guilds should mark their choices on the map and be prepared to defend their choices in front of the class.

2)	Have the guilds consult a map of Europe in an atlas.  Did their group select a location where there was a city today?  What does that tell them?

3)	The guild decides on a name and home city-state, indicating this on their blank map.

Second segment:
1)	Distribute the factor list.  With the class, identify the factors that are a part of a physical environment and those that people create.  Ask each group to make a matrix to organize the factors affecting their guild.  Label the matrix with the following titles:

“Factors that help”  
(make our guilds stronger, create a strong trading center)

“Factors that hurt”  
(would cause problems or weaken the guild)

Artisans from the guild may decorate or illustrate the matrix and map.  A guild master should be selected to speak for the group.

Note:  Make sure the students are familiar with the words on the following list:
Adriatic Sea

Mediterranean Sea
300-ton ships called “cogs”
diseases  
humanist ideas
artisans
banks
war
floods
islands
seafarers
loaning money
no fertile land
navy
silk 
Christianity
The Travels of Marco Polo
good working conditions
citizen (must live there 25 years)
dodge (ruler)
canals
merchants
taxes
port
people could read and write
spices
maps
population growth

Note:  Some of the things on the list are usually problems, but an argument could be made for their positive influence.

Integrating Language: 
Factor list and see enrichment.

Enrichment: 
Interview a union leader of today and ask what factors make their organization strong.

Writing assignment:  
1)	Select three factors and explain how these affect the work of a guild during the Renaissance.

2)	Select one of the factors that could still be a reason for a modern city or nation to be strong or weak.  Why?

Assessment: 
Students as a group will justify and defend their decisions on the placement of their city.  The group’s grade is based on the inclusion of all the factors listed on their matrix, the map, work finished on time, neatness, and cooperation.