Lesson Title:
Our Common Ground

Grade Level:
Grade Eight Lesson 10

History-Social Science Standard:
8.8.5   Discuss Mexican settlements and their locations, cultural traditions, attitudes toward slavery, land-grant system, and economies.

Correlation to K-8 California Adopted Textbooks:
Houghton Mifflin.  A More Perfect Union.  Chapter 8. 
Glencoe McGraw-Hill.  American Journey.  Chapters 12 and 21; Why We Remember Chapter 8. 
Prentice Hall.  American Nation.  Chapter 11.
Call to Freedom.  Chapter 17.

Setting the Context:
Mexican American “pilgrims” of Delano marched to Sacramento and demonstrated that cultural community demand for justice, freedom, and respect.  César E. Chávez began in San Jose where “house meetings” got Mexican Americans first talking about civic rights and registering them to vote and moving them toward a sense of community and “union consciousness.”  This tradition dates back to the Spanish and Mexican ideas of community property in the Southwest.  These ideas became laws that entitled farmers, “parciantes,” to share water and provided property protections for women and children.  Chávez’s childhood was shaped by these values.  (See Middle School Biography.)

Focus Question: 
What is community?  

How is it formed?  

Why do we need these groups in a democracy?

Expected Learning Outcomes: 
Students will relate the effect a sense of the historic role the Mexican American communities had on the southwestern United States through law, religion, and family values is still with us.  
Students will explain how we have inherited more than just language and Cinco de Mayo celebrations.

Assessment:
Have the students create a visual diagram of all the important communities and the historic role of the Mexican American communities to which they belong.  
Through class discussion, students will explain how the U.S. has inherited more than language and Cinco de Mayo celebrations. 

Key Concepts:
communities 
culture 
values

Essential Vocabulary: 
liberty 
collaboration 
pilgrim 
community 
egalitarian (one who believes in human equality)

Primary Sources: 
Ross, Fred,  Conquering Goliath: César Chávez at the Beginning  El Taller Grafico Press, Kenne, CA 1989,  page 99.
“The only way to do it is to get ‘em all on Plan I until just before you’re ready to switch to Plan II.  Then tell ‘em and lead ‘em in that direction.  That’s what’s known as the O.T.A.T., Fred, the One Thing At a Time principle in mass organization!” - César Chávez.

Visuals: 
Select pictures from the Photo Archive on the CDE Web site.

Procedure

Motivation: 
Quotes:  
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”  - Indira Gandhi

“We can choose to use our lives for others to bring about a better and more just world for our children.”  César E. Chávez

Making Connections: 
Economics:  Tradition of Acequias for 400 years: sharing a precious resource for mutual benefit.

Geography:  The landscape of the Southwest and Pacific Regions  

Vocabulary Activities: 
1)	Use the new vocabulary in sentences.  

2)	Put them on 3x5-inch cards for easy reference. 
(See integrating language for another activity and additional vocabulary.)

Guided Instruction: 
What is a community?  Lead a discussion brainstorming on this topic.  It’s more than a geographic locality where people live together under the same government; it can also be things like common interests or a feeling.

Write the word “community” on a chalkboard or newsprint.  Using “community” as a touchstone for inspiration, spend a few minutes gathering all associated words or definitions the class suggests.  Write down these terms as they are named.

Have the students create a visual diagram of all the important communities to which they belong.  For example, have them print their own name on an individual sheet of paper.  Then have them write the names of communities they feel they belong to on separate circles of paper.  Example labels can be suggested like: family, country, school, neighborhood, organization, club, church, apartment building, Internet community, sports team, and so forth.  

Have them arrange the circles so that those communities most important to the student are closest to the student’s name, and those least important farthest away.  How might the importance of these different communities change?  Have them arrange the circles according to how they felt when they were younger and how they predict they might feel in the future.  What communities might be added or removed in the future?

Have them create a circle for those students in the classroom.  Have them write the names of people with smaller letters into the different community circles.  Note any classmates’ names that might be shared in more than one circle.

What if the students had been born hundreds of years ago, or some other period of history you’ve been studying?  Would the list of communities be different?  Why?  Conjecture on what communities would be important to a person from another time.  Use the textbook chapter to examine community importance during the nineteenth century and how the development of our country was added by this social structure.  Make the contemporary connection for the students with César’s story. 

Integrating Language: 
Write a poem or short essay using terms from the American civil rights movements:
Injustice

Freedom

Segregation

sit-in

boycott

civil rights

nonviolence

passive resistance

racism

brotherhood

oppression

creed

equality

martyr

dream

Enrichment: 
Research the “Acequia” system in New Mexico where communities have shared water for centuries.

Assessment: 
Assignment:  Research a local person who you admire for their commitment to democracy or building common ground through collaboration.  

Research guide - Biography data sheet  (You may use this as a guide when you research a personality from the history of your town.)

1)	What is the personality’s name?  When and where were they born?  If applicable, when and where did they die?

2)	What were the most important experiences in this person’s life?

3)	What local contributions did this person make?  How did this person help in the development of the city?  Or how did this person lead his or her ethnic group?

Service Learning:  
Neighborhood issues

How are people joining together to resolve these issues?

What community resources do we have today?  With a partner, interview representatives from these community groups (police officer, park ranger, club president).  Name a problem they dealt with?  
How did it come up?  How were citizens involved in solving it?  (Videotape interviews if possible.)

This is a list of possible community problems that offer service opportunities ideas:
community gardens

voter registration

helping seniors

transportation

homelessness

AIDS

suicide prevention

farm and food issues

traffic and safety

hate crimes

endangered species

parks

drinking and driving

teen support groups

graffiti

animal rights

eating disorders