south by southwest essays

south by southwest essays 1. Title : South by Southwest : The Mexican-American and His Heritage 2. Author : John Tebbel and Ramn E. Ruiz 3. Publisher : Zenith Books and Doubleday 5. The setting of this story covers an immense number of years of conquering and colonization in the Southwest areas we now know as California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. It begins in the early 15 and 1600s, in a time when many important Spaniards, such as Juan Bautista de Anza (in 1775 he led the longest overland migration of a colony in North American history before Oregon), were moving into the Southwest in search of gold, silver, bread, and jobs. It also talks about the Indians, who were already living in the area we now know as Mexico, that did not get along real well with the Spaniards(Anglos) when they came in to invade their land. The two main Indian tribes of that time were the Mayas(a peaceful people who were interested in science, invented a calendar to grow maize, and were later believed to be wiped out by a great natural catastrophe), and the Aztecs(a powerful bloodthirsty tribe who feared no human only their gods). Next it went on to the 1800s and early 1 900s, when Mexico decided to fight the Spaniards for their independence. Finally, the book went on into the mid to late 1900s, where Mexico began to modernize and become a good neighbor to the United States. 6. The major conflict was between the Anglos and the Mexicans. It began with the Spaniards and the Indians(Aztecs) fighting over the Valley of Anahuac. The Spaniards(led by Cortez) ended up winning the battle over the Aztecs(led by Moctezuma). Due to the cruel and ruthless Spanish rule, a new social system was set up where the Spanish-born whites were the rulers, the Mexican-born whites were the aristocracy, and the Indians lived lives of poverty and slavery. Anothe ...

Process Writing for ESL and EFL

Process Writing for ESL and EFL Process writing is an approach to incorporating writing skills from the very beginning of the English learning process. It was developed by Gail Heald-Taylor in her book Whole Language Strategies for ESL Students. Process writing focuses on allowing students- especially young learners- to write with plenty of room left for error. Standard correction begins slowly, and children are encouraged to communicate through writing, despite limited understanding of structure. Process writing can also be used in an adult ESL/EFL setting to encourage learners to start working on their writing skills from a beginning level. If you are teaching adults, the first thing learners need to understand is that their writing skills will be well below their native language writing skills. This seems rather obvious, but adults are often hesitant to produce written or spoken work that is not up to the same level as their native language skills. By easing your students fears about producing sub-par written work, you can help encourage them to improve their writing abilities. Only mistakes made in grammar and vocabulary that has been covered up to the current point in time should be corrected. Process writing is all about the process of writing. Students are striving to come to terms with writing in English by writing in English. Allowing for mistakes and refining based on materials covered in class- instead of perfect English- will help students incorporate skills at a natural pace, and improve their understanding of materials discussed in class in a natural progression. Here is a short overview of how you can incorporate process writing into your students learning routine. Aim: Improve writing skills from beginning levels of EnglishActivity: Process writing - journalsLevel: Beginning to advancedMaterials Needed: Notebook for each student Outline Encourage learners to write in their journal at least a few times a week. Explain the idea of process writing, and how mistakes arent important at this stage. If you are teaching higher levels, you can vary this by stating that mistakes in grammar and syntax on material not yet covered arent important  and that this will be a great way to review material covered in past levels. Students should write on the front side of each page only. Teachers will provide notes on the writing on the back. Remember to focus only on material covered in class when correctly student work. Start this activity by modeling the first journal entry as a class. Ask students to come up with various themes that could be covered in a journal (hobbies, work-related themes, observations of family and friends, etc.). Write these themes on the board. Ask each student to choose a theme and write a short journal entry based on this theme. If students do not know a particular vocabulary item, they should be encouraged to describe this item (for example, the thing which turns on the TV)  or draw the item. Collect the journals the first time in class and do a quick, superficial correction of each students journal. Ask students to rewrite their work based on your comments. After this first session, collect students workbooks once a week and correct only one piece of their writing. Ask students to rewrite this piece.