Alamo Images - Learning Activity

Introduction

This lesson was designed for use with elementary, middle or high school students who have viewed the exhibit "Alamo Images." Its purpose is to give students an understanding of the unique style of architecture created as the Spanish missions were built in the New World. The student activity has a drawing component.

Directions for the Teacher

1. Activity Overview

Students will use information on Spanish mission architecture to identify and reproduce selected architectural elements in drawings. The lesson contains a lesson focus, vocabulary, three student activity pages, extension activities, and the TEKS that correlate with the lesson.

2. Lesson Focus

When Spanish missionaries came to the New World, they brought with them many elements of their European culture, including very specific architectural characteristics. In the Spanish missions, these architectural elements served the missions well and became part of a permanent architectural style in the United States, i.e., Spanish Mission Architecture.

The building we now know as the Alamo was originally the chapel or church in Mission San Antonio de Valero, built sometime (historians don’t agree upon a single date) in the early 1700’s. Over the years, however, many different changes have taken place in the Alamo’s use and appearance. The Alamo served as a fort during the Texas Revolution and was later used as quarters for transient immigrants, a supply depot for the U.S. Army in the 1840’s and ’50’s, and as part of a shopping complex built in 1877. Today it is designated as a secular shrine and is missing certain architectural elements that would mark it as an ecclesiastical structure.

In the student activity, students will identify the three architectural elements of the Spanish Mission style of architecture in drawings of selected Texas missions and will draw two of the missing elements onto a drawing of the Alamo building.

3. Vocabulary

• mission - complex of buildings built to serve Catholic priests in the New World and to help them convert the local Native Americans to Christianity.

• chapel - a church: always the first structure built in the Spanish missions, the chapel was the center of religious activity in the missions

• architectural style - certain identifiable physical characteristics common to a group of buildings

• crucifix - a cross which symbolizes Christianity

• belfry - a bell tower; in the Spanish missions, bells were used to call mission inhabitants to work and prayers

• Roman arch - a powerful and aesthetically pleasing architectural device designed by the ancient Romans to bear great structural weight

• parapet - low wall around a roof

4. Extension Activities

Collect photos or drawings of Spanish missions in Texas. Categorize them by building materials (adobe, rock, wood), area of Texas in which they were built, and tribes of Indians served by them.

The Alamo is a historic building which has been used for many different purposes since its creation. Have students research another historic building in their community and discover its many past uses.

Research the process used by the Texas Historical Commission to designate buildings as historical sites. Visit the THC web site at www.thc.state.tx.us for more information. * Take a field trip to the Alamo. Have different groups of students research different aspects of the Alamo complex. While in San Antonio, have students record downtown streets named after Alamo heroes.

Have students pretend they are present at the Battle of the Alamo. Have them record three examples of each of the following:

a) sounds they hear

b) odors they smell

c) sights they see

d) emotions they feel

Then have the students share their imagined accounts with the class.

For further information, have the class look the following website:

Alamo Chronology

http://hotx.com/drtl/public _html/webchro1.html

[A Website published by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo; the story of the mission, fortress, and shrine, well illustrated.]

5. Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)

Listed here are 7th grade social studies and fine arts TEKS. Similar TEKS exist for elementary and high school grades.

Social Studies
History

7.1 Understand traditional historical points of reference
7.2 Understand how individuals, events and issues shaped the history of Texas

7. 19 Understand diversity within unity in Texas

7.21 Apply critical-thinking skills to organize and use information from a variety of sources
7.22 Communicate in visual form

7.1 Perception
7.2 Creative expression
7.3 Historical/cultural heritage