Los Maya y el Nagual

Fourth Graders have been learning adjectives to describe their personalities.... artístico, atlético, valiente, musical, etc, paying particular attention to matching the grammatical gender of the adjective to themselves (wow! great job!). In other words, if you are a girl, you would say 'generosA' not 'generosO'. We are now taking this vocabulary and incorporating it into a project in which they are also learning about a Mayan belief centered on one's nagual, or one's spirit creature. In the words of Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, "When we are born, a little creature is born with us. Sometimes that creature is wiser than we are. It's aware of the risks we take, and so it must protect us as it protects itself. You can have a tiger, a lion, a coyote or a bear as a nagual. Or a pig, or a mouse, or a fox. All creatures are beautiful. All animals play their role. All animals are good because they help the earth to exist. Without them, we would cease to exist." (The Girl from Chimel)
Students have chosen an animal they would like to be their nagual and are writing descriptions of themselves and their nagual using our adjectives. ¡Chévere!