Lesson Plan Five: Letter from the Mesa Verde Puebloan People ( AD 600- AD
1300) or the San Luis 1800’s Hispano Community
San Luis People's Ditch, oldest water right in Colorado
The Puebloan (known also as the Anasazi
or "Ancient Ones") and the Hispano (early Hispanic) people represent
some of our most early and fascinating inhabitants of Colorado. More than1000
years ago, the Puebloan lived in canyons and mesas in what is now known as Mesa
Verde. Scratching out reservoirs with deer horns and sticks, the Puebloan were
able to trap the infrequent rain run-off of the canyons and mesas and create agricultural
meccas that allowed whole communities to exist in this stark, foreboding environment.
The famed cliff dwellings of Mesa Verda were built some time after the reservoirs
dried up.
Ancient Puebloan Far View Reservoir, Mesa Verde National
Park
Following the Los
Caminos Antiguos, or The Ancient Roads, which were pathways traveled
by people living thousands of years ago, immigrants from the newly formed state,
New Mexico, built the first permanent settlement in the San Luis Valley in 1851,
forming the Hispano community. These settlers dug irrigation ditches, or acequias,
by hand in order to farm wheat, beans, and corn in these arid lands. The San Luis
People’s ditch is the oldest working irrigation ditch in Colorado.
In this lesson, students will first discuss the present day drought and its effects
on themselves and their communities. Students will then explore the history and
culture of either the Puebloan or Hispano people through text, photographs, and
virtual tours found on the World Wide Web, using their journals to record historical
community living conditions, including how water was stored and used for home
and farming use.
Once students have compiled their background material, they will compose poems
in the form of a Letter poem, or Epistle poem, modeled after Ezra Pound’s
letter poem, “The River-Merchant’s Wife,” and written in the
voice of an imagined Puebloan or Hispano community member. In these letter poems,
the speaker will give advice on how to live through a drought, drawing on his
or her own ancient methods and experiences.
Navigation
Click for PreWriting Exercises for Your Students
Click for Specific Suggestions on Writing This Poem
Click for Suggestions for more In Depth Science Activities
Navigation