Introduction
In this webquest, you will be asked to do tasks that will enlighten and empower you. You will collaborate and teach each other things that you did not know about the world in which you live. Each quest will challenge you to investigate a topic from a historical, literary, and multi-lingual perspective.
Task
Task 1. Investigate Hector Lavoe.
Directions:
Who was Hector Lavoe? What country was he born in? When was he born? When did he die?
The first thing that you will do is find the song La Murga de Panama. Have one of your classmates translate the song into English and explain to you what Hector Lavoe is singing about.
Secondly, investigate the history of Salsa music and find out what year in the history of Salsa that Hector Lavoe fits into.
Third, find a work of fiction or non-fiction about salsa music that mentions Hector Lavoe and give an extremely brief summary of the information that you found.
Finally, create a presentation in any way that your group chooses, but half of the presentation will be presented in Englsih by a native Spanish speaker, and half of the presentation will be presented in Spanish by a native English speaker.
Rationale:
Music is as old as time, and almost as important to the social fabric of Humanity as is anything else. The importance of this task is to investigate this specific artist and his specific influence to his specific culture, and in turn, how his music has helped to shape other cultures.
Process
Task 2: Visit your local Historical/Cultural museum.
Directions: Find and visit any one of your local historical/cultural museums and find one exhibit/installment that represents a culturally significant time/idea/person. Give the name of the exhibit/piece of art, the name of the artist(s), and explain why this piece is significant in 4-5 complete sentences or more. Include any iconography and meaning that you are able ti find within the art piece as well.
Rationale: Every culture has a rich and colorful history and their own way of expressing their unique story. Every culture also has it's own unique icons that they use to communicate those stories with each other. The idea here is to find the importance of an icon(s) for the specific culture that is meant to be represented by it in order to understand some of the history/tradition of that culture.
*add museum links
Evaluation
Task 3: The Spanish History of America.
Directions: Go to Encyclopedia Brittanica and type in 'The Spanish History of America' into the search bar. Use the given links provided by the websearch and come up with three main ideas that support the main idea behind what it is that you had just read. Use you main idea and your three supporting ideas to then write a five paragraph essay that showcases your perspective of the Spanish History of America.
Rationale: America's history is filled with as many diverse peoples as is the current mix of the American populace. While the British history of America is well known and focused on, the Spanish history is just as important and vital to what America has become today. And with Mexican-Americans making up the largest minority class in America, Spanish history is every bit as relevant as any other for the students in this country.
*add links to websites for both the research and writing aspects of this assignment
Conclusion
Task 4: *Spanish proficient students teach English speakers the Spanish alphabet..*
Directions:
Rationale: Spanish language is becoming very influential to the Global Economy, and therefore, becoming more culturally relevant to non-Spanish speaking cultures around the world. Students will need a leg up in this society no matter which direction they choose for themselves, and becoming more familiar with the Spanish language is a step in the right direction.