This is your chance to visit the museum exhibit, "American Sabor," for which your instructors are guest curators. It is at the Experience Music Project, next to the Space Needle in Seattle Center. You will get a free ticket from your quiz section TA to use for your museum visit.

While you explore the exhibit, keep in mind the assignment below, and take notes so you can write afterwards.

Read the introductory text on the large map at the entrance to the exhibit, with special attention to the three major themes of the exhibit:

1.Youth culture

2. Immigration/migration

3. Expressing an American experience


As you explore the exhibit displays, listening booths, and videos, make notes on some of the genres, artists, or songs that most helped you to understand these themes. For each theme, choose a song, genre, or artist that gave you special insights into that theme and explain why. Your written report should be one to two pages double spaced.

You must meet with your group in advance to compose your corrido. Make sure you also meet to rehearse your corrido. It will be apparent which groups rehearsed and which did not. Refer to the Smithsonian Institution’s website www.corridos.org for more information about corridos. Try have fun and demonstrate what you have learned in class about the place of Latino music in American Culture.

1. Your group will be composed of as many stanzas as are members in your group. Each stanza will consist of four lines. For instance, if you have 4 members in your group, your corrido will be composed of 4 stanzas which equals 16 lines.

2. Go to the www.corridos.org website. Click "Enter". Click "Skip Intro". Then click "Write" menu and follow directions on the process of writing a corrido. You may use the corrido template to compose and practice your corrido.

2. Corridos (or Border Ballads) are distinguished by their narrative structure. In other words, they tell a story, but a story in the context of inequality. In general the narrative structure of a corrido includes:

*Singer’s initial address to the audience
*Location, time and sometimes name of main character/s
*Importance of main character/s
*Message
*Composer’s farewell

Most corridos share the following thematic and structural elements. The subject matter of corridos includes, but is not limited to: social justice issues, betrayed romance, war battles and in the urban corridos—everyday working person. The main character may be heroic, tragic, conflicted, punk. The forces that shape the corrido might include:

*Pursuit (plans, coercion, chase, escape)
*Judgment (reflection, deduction, advise, experience, lamentation)
*Farewell (memory, nostalgia, etc…)

Important: to receive full credit you must turn in a printed copy of your corrido to your T.A. before your performance. Also, list the title of the corrido, your group number, and all the names of your group members. Since this is a group project, you will all receive the same grade.