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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome Message

I. Background

  1. Country and State Fact Sheet
    Blank Fact Sheet
    Completed Fact Sheet
  2. Big Maps
  3. The Mexican Flag
    Flag Terminology Handout
  4. Mexico's National Anthem
  5. History of Mexico and Veracruz

II. Music

  1. Los Utrera, Son Jarocho, El Fandango & Versada
  2. Instrument Making for
    Students and Adults
  3. World Music Links
  4. World Culture Links

III. Mexican Culture

  1. What is Culture?
    What is Culture? handout
  2. Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)
  3. Folklore
    Folklore Values Survey
  4. Culinary Culture
  5. Religions of Mexico—Architecture
    Religions of Mexico—Origin Myths

IV. Here and Now

  1. Migration and Immigration
  2. Borders
  3. Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples
  4. Stereotypes

V. Community Connections

  1. Before and After Questions
  2. Intercultural Connections
  3. The Heritage and Oral History Projects
  4. Student Curator Project
  5. Class Newspaper or Web site
  6. Culture on Parade
  7. Student Participation in Events

This curriculum was written by Jeanne Paliatka and Olaf Nelson for Arts Midwest.

Mexico

III: MEXICAN CULTURE

Part 3: Folk Tales

Overview:
Folk tales are another excellent vehicle for exploring a culture and its values. Students can discuss their own values and then compare their values with those present in folktales. Students can further explore values by writing a present day folk tale in which young people struggle to retain values in more modern situations.

Objectives:
Students will read and analyze Mexican folk tales.
Students will gain an appreciation and undestanding of Mexican culture through folk tales.
Students will discuss values and compare their values to the values they identify in Mexican folk tales.

Grade Level:
Elementary through high school

Time Required:
One to two class periods

Materials:
Values survey handout
Copies of Mexican folk tales (See resources section for links to online texts and a bibliography of books of Mexican folk tales.)
Teachers may direct students to the Student Resources Pages where they can follow relevant links without having access to lesson plans.

Procedure:

  1. Distribute the values survey handout. Ask students to rank the values in the order of their importance, with one as the most important and ten as the least important.
  2. Ask students to form small groups and compare their rankings of the values. Emphasize that students should also discuss WHY they ranked the values as they did, explaining their reasons.
  3. After students have discussed the values survey, and while they are still in groups, distribute a copy of a different Mexican folk tale to each group. Have a member of the group read it to the other members. Ask students to discuss the story, paying particular attention to any values that they see present in the story and examples of those values. Students could also look for comparisons to any folk tales with which they are familiar.
  4. Students could then either report to the class a brief summary of their folk tale and the values that they identified within it, or students could do a jigsaw cooperative learning activity where they would reconvene in groups containing a member of each of the other groups. They could then teach the folk tale to the other members of the second group and ask them to identify the values present in it.
  5. Once the class has heard a summary of more than one folk tale, ask students to draw some conclusions based on the folk tales they read or heard.
    What did these stories teach them about Mexican culture and the values associated with it?
    How did the values they identified compare to their most important values?
    Besides values, what else did they learn about Mexican culture from these folk tales?

Extensions:
Depending on time and age level, students could

  • write a modern day folk tale that focuses on an individual struggling to demonstrate values in contemporary situations
  • examine a folk tale of their culture and write a comparison essay, chart the similarities between both, or use a Venn diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences between the two folk tales
  • illustrate the folk tale
  • turn the content of the folk tale into a song or choose a modern song or film that is similar to the folk tale and write a comparison

Resources:
(Links will open in new windows.)

Magic Tales of Mexico collected by Gabriel A. Cordova, Jr. This site contains the text of nine magic tales in Spanish and English, most of which are suitable for students. The end of each story also contains extensive notes.

Mexican Folk Tales and Legends from Mexico for Kids, created by the office of the Mexican President, contains the text of ten stories.