Gonzalo
Coronado’s Shepard Boy
A cross curricular book study
Note to the Teacher -
This book study provides a framework for either group reading/discussions for formative evaluation and laying a foundation for the historical events of the Coronado expedition, or it can be used for individual reading and summative evaluation of comprehension.
Social Studies standards guiding Fourth Grade study of Arizona are the overarching standards used in the development of these sets of activities. However, you will find that the unit is developed with a concentration on the Reading and Writing Standards and is designed as a cross curricular piece.
These activities were not designed to replace existing historical text of the Coronado Entrada. The novel itself is historical fiction and does contain some inconsistencies and chronological flaws, as many fiction pieces do. Teachers are encouraged to use these materials as supplementary activities.
Activities were designed so that teachers can pick out those activities that support their study of Arizona. We encourage you to review all of the material and select those activities that are most useful to your students and fit within the timeframe you have to devote to this section of Arizona history.
Social Studies standards are:
SS04S1C3PO 1: Describe the reasons for early Spanish exploration of Mexico and the Southwestern region of the United States by:
a.Cabeza de Vaca
b.Estevan
c.Fray Marcos de Niza
d.Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
SS04S1C3PO 3: Describe the locationand cultural characteristics of Native American tribes (e.g., O’odham, Apache, Hopi) during the Spanish period.
SS04S2C5PO 1: Describe the reasons (e.g., trade routes, gold) for Spanish and Portuguese explorations of the Americas.
Writing Standards are:
PO 3. Write a response that demonstrates an understanding of a literary selection, and depending on the selection, includes:
a.evidence from the text
b.personal experience
c.comparison to other text/media
While there is not an overt connection to the Native People is mentioned in the story and the many Native People that live in Arizona today, many questions are designed to lay the foundation of and open the discussion about the cultural diversity of our Arizona citizens today and how many cultures have contributed to that diversity. The Social Studies Standard to which this pertains is:
SS04S3C1PO 4. Describe the varied backgrounds of people living in Arizona:
a.shared principles, goals, customs and traditions
b.diversity in one’s school and community
c.benefits and challenges of a diverse population.
(Teachers may also wish to include a discussion about the main character’s mother and her culture which is only mentioned in passing reference throughout the story. Gonzalo’s mother is an Aztec and there are sections in which Gonzalo or his father, reflect on the treatment and attitudes of the Spanish towards her people. This connects to SS04S2C5PO 2: Describe the impact of European explorers’ encounters with the Aztec and Inca/Inka.)
Guided Reading
Notes in italics are additional information that may assist in painting an overall picture of the pieces of this historic puzzle.
Chapter 1:
R04S2C1PO 6: Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to comprehend text.
R04S1C6PO 6: Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to comprehend text.
1)Where and when is this story taking place? The story begins November, 1540, somewhere in the Southwest on the expedition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.
2)Who is the main character? The main character Gonzalo, an eleven year old boy who is the son of an indentured servant.
3) What is the main character doing traveling with Coronado’s expedition? He is helping his father who is herding the flock of sheep that accompanies Coronado’s expedition in search of the Seven Cities of Gold.
4)Why had the main character not experienced cold weather before? Gonzalo is from Mexico and it doesn’t get so cold that it snows where he is from.
5) What did Pedro and his son use to keep warm? They have hats made from wool from the sheep. During the night they huddle together for warmth.
6) What is an indentured servant? An indentured servant is a person who must work for a certain master because, when the servant was free, the master paid for something for that servant (such as the boat passage to the New World or a large debt owed to another person). Indentured servants worked for a certain amount of time to pay off the debt to the master and then were free again. Often indentured contracts lasted between five and seven years, so the author’s indication that Pedro had been indentured since 1524 is probably faulty research, though we have no proof of this.
7) What did the soldiers want to gain by with the expedition? They were searching for the Seven Cities of Gold. They were hoping to find wealth and fame. There were priests on the expedition who were going to convert all the Native peoples to Christianity.
8) What was the weather like when the expedition first left Mexico? The weather was warm because it was about 1,000 miles closer to the equator. They were probably wearing light cotton shirts and pants that were loose-fitting as you wear in the summertime.
9) What is a despoplado? An area where no one lives. It is uninhabited or unpopulated.
10) Why did some Mexicans fight against the soldiers as they marched northward? They did not believe that they were subjects of the King of Spain as the Spanish soldiers were telling them they were.
11) Coronado arrived at Cibola about ten weeks before Don Tristan de Arellano. What happened when Coronado arrived in Cibola? The Zuni people met Coronado outside the walls of the pueblo. They did not want Coronado to come into their village so a fight broke out between the two groups.
12) How did the people of Cibola act towards Don Tristan’s group when they arrived later? They did not offer to fight against Tristan’s group hoping that they wouldn’t stay long.
Chapter 2 is a flashback to provide information about Cabeza de Vaca and Estavanico. In the middle of page 13 the time shifts back to the Coronado expedition’s encounter with the Zuni.
R04S1C6PO 6: Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to comprehend text.
1) How did Cabeza de Vaca come to travel through what is today called Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico? He was part of an expedition to the Gulf Coastal areas (Florida to Texas). He and three other survivors were shipwrecked and walked over 1,000 miles to get to Mexico City.
2) Why did some of the Native people consider Cabeza de Vaca and the other survivors to be a medicine man? As the survivors traveled through the Southwest, they sometimes met people who were sick. They would pray over the sick people. One time they did this and the man immediately jumped up; healed of his illness. The Native people thought the survivors had magical powers or spirit powers.
3) Why did de Vaca think that the Native Inde villages he heard about were richer than they were? Cabeza de Vaca was from Spain where large cities had buildings with many stories and large churches or cathedrals, and the people who built the cities were rich. The king in Spain was very rich – rich meant someone had a lot of gold, silver, and jewels.
4) Who was Estavanico (Estaban)?He was a black slave who had traveled through the northern areas while trying to get back to Mexico City from an expedition with Cabeza de Vaca.
As you are reading this section it is important to note that de Vaca and the other Spanish survivors of the Narvaez expedition were offered the chance by Viceroy Mendoza to return to the northern areas to map out the route by which they came and to search for the Seven Cities of Gold. They all declined. Dorantes, who owned Estaban or Estivanico in this story, sold the slave to Viceroy Mendoza before returning to Spain with de Vaca and Castillo.
5) Who was Fray Marcos de Niza (Nice, in Italian)? He was a monk who had traveled to South America with the Alvarado in Guatemalaand was going to map out the route to the Seven Cities of Gold. He was made the group leader.
6) How was Estavanico dressed and why was this important to the Native Indians that he met?He was dressed with a deer head with antler head dress, bells tied to his wrist and ankles – this looked like one of their kachinas.
7) What did Estavanico want from the Zunis?He demanded women, gold, turquoise, and food.
8) What did the Zunis do to Estavanico?They killed him.
9) What was Fray Marcos’ reaction to this?He became frightened.
10) What did Fray Marcos do after hearing about Estavanico’s fate?He traveled to just outside the pueblo, gazed upon it – purportedly at sundown which made the walls appear to be golden or covered in gold - and then beat a hasty retreat back to Mexico City.
11) How did the Zuni’s first react to Coronado’s approaching group? Why did they react this way? They came out in a procession with flutes and whistles offering to be friends. The Zuni thought that the conquistadors were half-human monsters because they rode on horses and wore armor.
12) How did Coronado respond? Coronado gave them a few trinkets in return, but then demanded gold and silver. When the Natives refused to lay down their weapons, fighting began.
13) What did Coronado find inside the Zuni pueblo? Coronado did not find gold or riches but did find food.
Historic records tell us that the fight at the Zuni pueblo was more about food than gold at this juncture of the expedition. Their food supplies were depleted and several weeks before they arrived at Zuni, several conquistadors died from trying to eat native plants. The soldiers were starving. While Coronado was gravely disappointed that he found no gold, the control over the food was critical for the group’s survival. At the same time, this was a period of great drought in the region. For about 100 years, the Zunis and other Native peoples were having to devise new ways of cultivating food crops. Food was precious. If they did not protect their food stores, they would surely starve, too.)
Chapter 3
R04S1C6PO 6: Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to comprehend text.
1) Why are Gonzalo’s feet so cold? It snowed in the night and his feet were not protected.
2) What did the soldier find that Pedro and Gonzalo can eat? Corn, beans, squash, pine nuts.
3) What did Gonzalo drink during the journey that tasted sweet? Agave Juice.
4) How was this made? Water collected inside the hollowed out stem of an agave. The water combined with the agave juice and turned sweet. They also were able to eat the pulp of the agave.
5) The Zuni homes had no doors on the first floor – how did the people get in and out of their homes? They climbed ladders and then went in openings in the roof.
6) Why does Gonzalo call the Zuni woman “Tia”? She reminds Gonzalo of his mother, so he called her “Aunt” - “Tia” means “Aunt” in Spanish.
7) Why do you think Pedro left Gonzalo with a woman he did not know and who was from a group of people he knew very little about? Answers will vary. Answers may include about how she carried Gonzalo up to the pueblo or how the woman’s daughter was there or that there were no weapons or warriors in the room.
8) What does Tia think about Gonzalo’s shoes? They are too thin for the cold climate where she lives.
9) What was Moni listening to through the window that frightened her? She heard the sheep bleating.
10) Why did the sound frighten her? She had never heard or seen sheep before and they were strange to her. A more complete answer might include that the Spanish came on strange animals. They wore shiny armor and spoke forcefully to the Pueblo people. When the Indians did not do as the Spanish asked, they attacked and killed some of the Pueblo people. She is not sure what these strange creatures might be capable of either.
Chapter 4
R04S1C6PO 4: Use graphic organizers in order to clarify the meaning of the text.
R04S2C1PO 8: Compare (and contrast) the characters, events, and setting in a literary selection.
Make a graphic organizer comparing and contrasting the Spanish/vaqueros to the Pueblo people.
Zuni BothSpanish/Vaqueros
Chapter 5
R04S1C6PO 6: Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to comprehend text.
1) What is a Kiva? A special meeting room only for the men;it was shaped differently and was used for important ceremonies.
2) What story do the pictures inside the Kiva tell? The pictures tell about the worlds before this one – the animals that lived before and how people came to be in the world and how they learned to plant and gather nuts.
3) As Nazo tells Gonzalo the story his people believe about how people first came, he says that the people were blind at first. What ceremony do the fathers now perform because of this story? The fathers hold the new born child up to face the sun.
4) What do Nazo and his people think causes the corn to wilt and rain not to come? Evil spirits that used to live in one of the early worlds sometimes come through to this world and cause the corn to wilt and the rains to not come.
5) What are the Kachinas? These kachinas were men dressed in costumes who danced around at the ceremony Gonzalo saw.
Draw what you think the Kiva pictures looked like. Students should include some of the following descriptions (teachers decide how many details should be included in the rubric for completion):
Pictures in Group One
There were more worlds before this one
Giant lizards and reptiles
Rocks were soft
Some animals left 3-toed tracks
Great forests (animals lived in the forests)
The animals were too big and died
Pictures in Group Two
Long-necked camels
Woolly rhinoceros
Shaggy mammoth
Giant sloth
Bison
People crawled into this second world naked and helpless
The people came out of a mountain nearby. They call it Sipapu
People were blind at first
The rising sun shone on the peoples’ eyes to make them see
Mother earth taught the people to live in harmony
Mother earth taught the people to plant and how to pick nuts
Chapter 6This is a flashback again.
R04S1C6PO 6: Use reading strategies (e.g., drawing conclusions, determining cause and effect, making inferences, sequencing) to comprehend text.
1) Who are Bigotes and Cacique? They were Native leaders who were serving as guides to the Spanish expedition.
2) Captain Alvarado was sent on a side exploration while the army stayed at Cibola. Where did his group explore?This group traveled to Acoma, the Rio GrandeRiver and north to Albuquerque.
3) Bigotes led Alvarado to Cicuye. Why was this an important pueblo to the people who lived in this area? Cicuye was a trade center and many different Native groups would gather to trade their items for things they couldn’t find or make.
4) What could be found at Cicuye? Trade items like buffalo hides, tallow, pemmican, jerky, corn, cotton, turquoise, pottery, baskets, and ornaments could be found at Cicuye.
5) The Turk told Alvarado that Bigotes took something from him. The Turks story will lead to a battle. What is this thing that Bigotes took and why would the Spanish want to see it to have proof it existed? The Turk said that he was from a very wealthy city that had much gold. The item was a gold bracelet that would prove he was telling the truth about this wealthy city. It was important for the Spanish to see the gold bracelet because they were discouraged about not finding gold up to now and this gives them hope that they will still be able to find riches and become wealthy.
Chapter 7
This chapter provides some historical detail to the story. During this chapter students are reminded of the Spaniards’ attitude of superiority over native peoples throughout the New World. Also mentioned during the campfire scene with Casteneda, students will hear of the events with the Turk, Bigotes, and Cacique. (The Turk was a slave in one of the pueblos. He told Coronado about a city to the east that had much gold, a large river, with huge fish, and a great ruler. He said he had proof of this, a gold bracelet he had been wearing when he was captured and made a slave. The Turk said that Bigotes and Cacique had taken his gold bracelet from him. When Bigotes and Cacique denied having a gold bracelet, they were tortured and imprisoned.)