Site MapHelpFeedbackStage I. Develop Cultural/Historical Framework
Stage I. Develop Cultural/Historical Framework
(See related pages)

Strategy 1. Create/Add to Graphic Organizer

Task 1. Create Graphic Organizer. If this is the first genre you study, you will need to create a graphic organizer to serve as your cultural/historical framework. For more specific guidelines, refer to Stage I, Strategy 1, in Chapter 1: La narrativa.

Task 2. Enter Information.

1.
Determine the chronological placement of Rosario Castellanos and enter her into your graphic organizer.

Task 3. Make Mental Connections. Make note of any writers, poets, and dramatists you have studied already and their relationship to Rosario Castellanos. Are there any similarities in their styles or in the topics they write about? What are the differences?

2.
Similarities:
3.
Differences:

Strategy 2. Expand Background Knowledge

Task 1. Activate Background Knowledge. Go back to the first task in the I. Introducción al ensayo: El ensayo como género literario where you answered questions about the role of the essay and listed examples of essays from your daily life. Brainstorm answers to the five W's related to at least one of your examples.

4.
Example:
5.
Who?
6.
What?
7.
Where?
8.
When?
9.
Why?
10.
Is there a pattern of information that might be applied to your other examples, or to essays in general? Are there common characteristics that all essays share? What are they?

Task 2. Key Word Search.

11.
Refer back to the key words you listed in Task 2 of VII. Panorama histórico. Select one key word and use it to do a computer and/or library search. Document the key words you use, and provide a brief summary of the information you find.

Task 3. Expanded Key Word Search.

12.
Do a computer and/or library search of the same key words but within a broader, related category (for example, music, art, culture, anthropology, architecture). What information did you find and how does it relate to the essayist you are studying, in this case, Castellanos?

Task 4. Personal Research. Find a personal source of information (a professor, instructor, local teacher, friend, graduate student, librarian) who is interested in the genre, the essayist, the topic, or the cultural/ historical perspective of the epoch in which the essayist lived and wrote. Try to expand your knowledge base by talking to that person about the topic(s) of your research. Document your discoveries here.

13.
With whom did you talk?
14.
What did you learn?
15.
What could you do to find out more about the topic?

Strategy 3. Use Textbook as Resource

Task 1. Skim and Scan. Skim Vida y obra in the introduction to Rosario Castellanos (p.409). What kind of information does it provide? Scan the paragraph for answers to the following questions.

16.
What kind of information does this paragraph provide?
17.
Rosario Castellanos was a prolific writer. Name the different literary formats in which she wrote and published.
18.
What are the characteristics and/or themes that dominate Castellanos' writing?

Task 2. Skim and Scan. Skim the second part of the introduction to Castellanos, La autora y su contexto. What kind of information does it offer? Scan the paragraph to answer the following questions.

19.
What kind of information does this paragraph offer?
20.
What early event probably impacted the life and writing of Rosario Castellanos?
21.
What social cause did Castellanos embrace early in her life, and how did that cause manifest in the thematic focus of her works?
22.
Specifically concerning the essay Y las madres, ¿qué opinan?, what do the authors of Aproximaciones say?
23.
Based on what you know so far about Rosarios Castellanos, what might be some characteristics of her writing style? Why do you think so?







AproximacionesOnline Learning Center

Home > El ensayo > VIIIa. Stages and Strategies