Growing Up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda

Title: Growing Up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda

Author: Gwendolyn Zepeda
Illustrator: April Ward 
Spanish translator: Gabriela Baeza Ventura

 


Lexile Level: 480L

Recommended for:
Age: 3-7 Years
Grade: Preschool to Second Grade

Summary:

The book titled Growing Up With Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda. This text is Gabriela is a bilingual text, both in English and Spanish It was translated into Spanish by Baeza Ventura and illustrated by April Ward. 

The book focuses on a six-year old girl named Ana, who looks forward to growing older, because she wants to have more responsibilities in helping her family make tamales for Christmas. A tamale is a traditional Mexican dish that is made out of dough from cornmeal that chopped meat is added into the dough. The dough is wrapped in a corn husk and is tied, before it is steamed.

Ana is the narrator and she tells the audience what she can do at different ages and what responsible she can have at that age. The ages that is described within this book includes at ages 6 years old, 8, 10 and 12. 

Learning Standards

"5. Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action."

"7. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot."

"11. Make connections between self, text, and the world around them (text, media, social interaction)."

(Reading Standards for Literature K–5; Grade 2).

"2.3.2   Consider diverse and global perspectives in drawing conclusions." (AASL).


Learning Goals

• Students will identify the story elements of the text (e.g. setting, plot, characters) and discuss the importance of the sequence of events in the process of learning to make tamales. 
• Students will identify and compare the responsibilities that Ana and her sister Lidia, gain as they grow older.
•  Students will be introduced to multiplication by learning to count in twos.

Learning Objectives

•       Students will identify story elements  (e.g. setting, plot, characters) from the text titled Growing up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda. (Cognitive)

•     Students will identify the ages represented in the story are multiplicatives of 2,    

 through the text. (Cognitive)

Learning Activity

This activity will focus on students identifying story elements. The ages that is described within this book includes Ana at ages 6 years old, 8, 10 and 12. In addition, students will learn words that are used for comparison such as "too thick and not too thin.”(Zepeda 4). This displays counting in twos, which will be utlized to introduce the introduction of multiplication. Students will use handouts that will possess visuals, in which. A rubric will be used to assess this activity.

Learning Outcome

Students will gain knowledge in basic multiplication, comparison words through vocabulary, and successfully identify the story elements in the book titled Growing up with Tamales by: Gwendolyn Zepeda.

Selling Tool

Poster

References

AASL. (2017, May 12). Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Retrieved October 2, 2017, from http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/guidelinesandstandards/learningstandards/AASL_Learning_Standards_2007.pdf

Zepeda, G., Ward, A., & Ventura, G. B. (2008). Growing up with tamales = Los tamales de Ana [PDF version]. Retrieved October 05, 2017, from https://mhls.overdrive.com/mhls-eastfishkill/kids/media/553902

Mid-Hudson Library System --Growing up with Tamales. (n.d.). Retrieved October 2, 2017, from http://search.midhudsonlibraries.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1848585__Sgrowing%20up%20with%20tamales__Orightresult__U__X7?lang=eng&suite=cobaltt

New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2017, from https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-p-12-common-core-learning-standards-for-english-language-arts-and-literacy