Class Updates from Caroline

Literature: The past few weeks have been busy in Literature and Composition class. The girls finished the final drafts of their mentor essays, took an exam on Tree Girl, and wrote poems about where they are from. We are currently exploring short fiction by authors from Mexico and Guatemala. "Chac Mool", an epistolary story written by Carlos Fuentes and chronicling a Maya statue of the rain god Choc who comes alive, gave us all goose bumps despite reading it at 1 pm in the sunny courtyard of our hostel. Later this week we will start preparing to write "This I Believe" Essays - essays that ask the writer to define his or her personal beliefs and philosophy. We continue to journal daily, and I am continually impressed with the girls’ honesty, creativity and depth of thought. We look ahead in the coming weeks to starting our second novel, a testimonial novel called One Day of Life, and preparing to read, explicate, and recite local poems to the parents during the campus visit.

History: We have wrapped up our unit on pre-Columbian America and the Maya, and have turned our focus to the history of the Zapatista Movement in Chiapas. Using articles and local speakers and presenters, we have begun to weave a story of an indigenous struggle for land and rights that has lasted centuries. The girls have been engaged in class discussions, eager to dig up the roots of the poverty they observe in the countryside and to understand the complexities of the relationship between the different cultures and people of Mexico. After midterms, we will turn our attention back to Guatemala and begin our unit on the civil war that ravaged the country for over three decades. Aided by Jennifer Harbury’s compilation of interviews, Bridge of Courage, we will explore testimony from the indigenous campesinos/nas whose lives were drastically and violently affected by the conflict. Your girls continue to impress me in their ability to make difficult connections, tackle complicated material, and ask profound questions.

Travel Journalism: These past few weeks, Travel Journalism has focused on telling stories through photography. Each student took five photos at Tikal, which attempted to relay an idea to the viewer. Then, they wrote photographer’s statements explaining their aim in each photo. The girls recently completed their first articles; both chose to write about poverty in Guatemala. Annalise told the story through the lens of the Guatemalan City garbage dump, and Kathryn focused on the difficulty rural Maya girls have in obtaining an education and breaking the cycle of poverty. Our midterm project is due next week. The students are creating a newspaper with various types of articles and photos. I will email the final product to Jennifer so she can put it on the blog. In the coming weeks, we will write longer articles in different journalistic styles, and continue to hone our interview and photography skills.