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https://newsela.com/text-sets/173407/reading-strategies-central-idea

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We started to explore Newsela in our district this past year, but I have not dived too deep. I love the organizational features and the ability to differentiate for learners.

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How to best help our staff realize and engage in the potential of this resource.

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there are lots of great texts available and that they are leveled and connect to current events

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how to best utilize Newsela in my school with all teachers

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There are great articles for students that can be differentiated by lexile level.

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A variety of Nonfiction articles to differentiate reading which I use with my students in small groups so we can all discuss the topics. Interesting and relevant current event articles which we use summarize at our own levels!

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NEWSELA is a great resource that allows students to choose what interests them and helps teachers differentiate.

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Newsela allows us to monitor student Lexile levels and provide the same, timely, content at multiple levels.

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I know that Newsela allows for you yo personalize student reading at a level that is appropriate for the student.

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Newsela gives my students choices and real time feedback to us!

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This looks like it has some potential as a primary source. The article was originally from Texas Register in 1836. Would be interesting to compare to other historical accounts.

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Newsela Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the March 24, 1836, edition of the Telegraph and Texas Register, published in San Felipe, Texas. It was the first article in print about the fall of the Alamo and is considered to be the most influential account of the battle.
That event, so lamentable, and yet so glorious to Texas, is of such deep interest and excites so much our feelings that we shall never cease to celebrate it, and regret that we are not acquainted with the names of those who fell in that fort, that we might publish them, and thus consecrate to future ages the memory of our heroes who perished at the Thermopylae of Texas. Such examples are bright ones, and should be held up as mirrors, that by reflection we may catch the spirit and learn to fashion our own behavior. The list of names inserted below, was furnished by Mr. John W. Smith, and Mr. Navon, and as we obtain more we will publish them. To Mr. Smith, who has rendered good service to Texas, and to Judge Ponton are we indebted for the particulars, as communicated to them by Mrs. Dickinson, who was in the Alamo during the siege and assault.

At daybreak of the 6th inst. the enemy surrounded the fort with their infantry, with the cavalry forming a circle outside to prevent escape on the part of the garrison; the number consisted of at least 4000 against 140! General Santa Ana commanded in person, assisted by four generals and a formidable train of artillery. Our men had been previously much fatigued and harassed by night watching and incessant toils, having experienced some days past, a heavy bombardment and several real and feigned attacks. But American valor and American love of liberty displayed themselves to the last: they were never more conspicuous: twice did the enemy apply to the walls their scaling ladders, and, twice did they receive a check: for our men were determined to verify the words of the immortal Travis, "to make the victory worse to the enemy than a defeat." A pause ensued after the second attack, which was renewed on the third time, owing to the exertions of Santa Ana and his officers: they then poured in over the walls, "like sheep:" the struggle, however, did not even there cease - unable from the crowd and for want of time to load their guns and rifles, our men made use of the butt ends of the latter and continued to fight and to resist, until life ran out through their numberless wounds and the enemy had conquered the fort, but not its brave, its matchless defenders: they perished, but they yielded not, only one (Warner) remained to ask for quarter, which was denied by the relenting enemy -- total extermination succeeded, and the darkness of death occupied the memorable Alamo, but recently so teeming with gallant spirits and filled with deeds of never-failing remembrance. We envy not the feelings of the victors, for they must have been bitter and galling: not proud ones. Who would not be rather one of the Alamo heroes, than of the living of the merciless victors? Spirits of the mighty, though fallen! Honors and rest are with ye: the spark of immortality which animated your forms, shall brighten into a flame, and Texas, the whole world, shall hail ye like demigods of old, as founders of new actions, and as patterns for imitation!

From the commencement to its close, the storming lasted less than an hour. Major Evans, master of ordnance, was killed when in the act of setting fire to the powder magazine, agreeably to the previous orders from Travis. The end of David Crockett of Tennessee, the great hunter of the west, was as glorious as his career through life had been useful. He and his companions were found surrounded by piles of assailants, whom they had immolated on the altar of Texas liberties. The countenance of Crockett was unchanged: he had in death that freshness of hue, which his exercise of pursuing the beasts of the forest and the prairie had imparted to him. Texas places him, exhultingly, amongst the martyrs in her cause. Col. Travis stood on the walls cheering his men, exclaiming "Hurra, my boys" till he received a second shot, and fell; it is stated that a Mexican general, (Mora) then rushed upon him, and lifted his sword to destroy his victim, who, collecting all his last expiring energies, directed a thrust at the former, which changed their relative positions; for the victim became the victor, and the remains of both descended to eternal sleep; but not alike to everlasting fame.

Travis's Negro was spared, because as the enemy said, "his master had behaved like a brave man;" words which of themselves form an epitaph: they are already engraved on the hearts of Texans, and should be inscribed on his tomb. Col. James Bowie, who had for several days been sick, was murdered in his bed: his remains were mutilated. Humanity shudders at describing these scenes, and the pen, as if a living thing, stops to gain fresh force that sensibility may give way to duty.

Suspended animation has returned to the instrument of our narration, and we continue. Mrs. Dickinson and her child, and a negro of Bowie's and as before said, Travis's were spared.

Our dead were denied the right of Christian burial: being stripped and thrown into a pile, and burned. Would that we could gather up their ashes and place them in urns!

It is stated that about fifteen hundred of the enemy were killed and wounded in the last and previous attacks.

Colonels. W.B. Travis, Commandant,

James Bowie

David Crocket, of Tenn.

Captains. Forsyth, of the regular army

Harrison of Tenn. Wm. Blazeby, N.O. Grays,

Baker, Miss. volunteers,

Evans,

Carey, militia of Texas,

S.C. Blair, volunteer militia,

Lieut's. John Jones, N.O. Grays,

J. G. Baugh, N.O. Grays

Rob't. Evans, mast. ord. Ireland,

Williamson, sergt. Major,

Dr. Micheson,

" Pollard, surgeon.

" Thompson, Tenn.

Chas. Despalier,

Eliel Melton, quarter master

Anderson, assist't qr. Mast.

Burnell, " "

Privates. Nelson,

Nelson, (cl'k. of Austin, mer.)

William Smith, Nacogdoches,

Lewis Johnson. Trinity,

E.P. Mitchel, Georgia

F. Desanque, of Philadelphia,

John, (cl'k in Desanque's store,)

Thurstof,

Moore,

Christopher Parker, Natchez,

Hewkill,

Rose, of Nacogdoches,

Blair, "

David Wilson, "

John M. Hays, Tenn.

Stuart,

Simpson,

W.D. Sutherland, Navidad, Tex.

Doctor Howell, N.O.

Butler, "

Charles Smith,

McGregor, Scotland,

Rusk,

Hawkins, Ireland,

Holloway,

Browne,

Smith,

Browne, Philadelphia,

Kedeson,

Wm. Wells, Tenn.

Wm. Cummings, Penn.

Voluntine, "

Cockran, "

R.W. Valentine,

S. Holloway,

Issac White,

Day,

Robt. Muselman, N. O.

Robt. Crossman, "

Richard Starr, England,

J. G. Ganett, N. O.

James Dinkin, England

Robt. B. Moore, N. O.

Wm. Linn, Boston

Hutchinson,

Wm. Johnson, Philadelphia,

Nelson, Charleston, S.C.

George Tumlinson,

Wm. Deardorf,

Dan'l. Bourne, England,

Ingram, England

Lewis, Wales

Chas. Zanco, Denmark,

James Ewing,

Robert Cunningham,

Burns, Ireland

George Neggin

Maj. G. B. Jamieson

Col. J. B. Bonham, Ala.

Capt. White,

Robinson, Scotland,

Sewell, shoemaker,

Harris of Ky.

Devault, of Mo. plasterer,

Jonathan Lindley, of Illinois,

Tapley Holland,

Dewell, blacksmith, N.Y.

James Kinney,

Cane,

Warner,

John Garvin, Mo

Wornel,

Robbins, Ky.

Jno. Flanders,

Issac Ryan, Opelonas,

Jackson, Ireland

Capt. A. Dickinson, Gonzalez,

Geo. C. Kimball, "

James, George, "

Dolphin, Floyd, "

Thomas, Jackson, "

Jacob, Durst, "

George W. Cottle, "

Andrew Kent, "

Thos. R. Miller, "

Issac Baker, "

Wm. King, "

Jessee McKoy, "

Claiborn Wright, "

William Fishback, "

Millsap, "

Galby Fugun "

John Davis, "

Albert Martin, "

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Time Machine (1836): The Battle of the Alamo

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Newsela Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the March 24, 1836, edition of the Telegraph and Texas Register, published in San Felipe, Texas. It was the first article in print about the fall of the Alamo and is considered to be the most influential account of the battle.

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How to work Newsela into our existing ELA frameworks.

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There are different news articles/current events that can narrowed by lexile.

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How I can further expand my use of Newsela in my classroom help to help with blended learning. I also want to be able to share this with other teachers.

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I wonder how I will after today be able to incorporate Newsela into daily or weekly teaching practices and build student knowledge of research skills.

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That I have a few teachers who use Newsela and they love it! I know that you can level the reading of texts, I know that the texts are current and relative to our students for the most part.

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What assistive technology settings could be made available to help students with special needs? ie, text to speech in the articles and quizzes  I also wonder what features exist in Newsela that I'm not aware of at this time.

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how to better use My Binder and Annotations.

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the varying lexile levels of texts, as well as the many categories available to use across almost all subject areas.

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How Newsela can be utilized in HS

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How I can support all of my teachers to best use this resource. The difference between a free and a pro account.

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what features I am unaware of...

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I know... the texts are leveled. There is a way you can store texts and send them to Google Classroom. The materials are current. 

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I know... the texts are leveled. There is a way you can store texts and send them to Google Classroom. The materials are current. 

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I wonder if the access has any chat student to student or anonymous response features that would make it difficult to approve with our tech. dept. due to CIPA and COPPA

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I wonder if the access has any chat student to student or anonymous response features that would make it difficult to approve with our tech. dept. due to CIPA and COPPA

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how I can better utilize NEWSELA to help all students.

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BONN, Germany - From now on the whole world will "Remember the Alamo." The United Nations has recently declared the famed building a world heritage site. It means "The Alamo" is a place of international historical importance that is worth permanently preserving and protecting.

The Alamo is one of a group of five Spanish Roman Catholic sites known as the San Antonio Missions. Situated in present-day Texas, the missions were churches with small settlements around them. All five were selected this week by the U.N.'s world heritage site committee.

Susan Snow is an archaeologist for San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, where four of the missions are located. The Texas site is a perfect example of the state's mixture of different cultures, she said.

"These Missions are a living example of the interchange of cultures," Snow said. They bring together the Native American, Spanish, Mexican and other influences "that form South Texas today."

From Battle Cry To World Heritage

The Missions were built in the 18th century in and around what is now the city of San Antonio. They were established to introduce Native Americans to Catholicism and make them Spanish subjects.

The best known of the missions is The Alamo, which was the site of a famous battle. In 1836 an outnumbered band of Texas settlers staged a courageous last stand there. In the end, they fell to General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his Mexican forces, who seized the mission. During the Battle of San Jacinto several weeks later, then-victorious Texas soldiers shouted, "Remember the Alamo!" The phrase became famous and is still often heard today.

The Missions were the only places in the United States proposed as possible world heritage sites this year. Other famous American sites already on the list include the Statue of Liberty and the Grand Canyon.

Japan, South Korea Agree On Site

Japan also has new heritage sites this year. The U.N. selected a collection of almost two dozen Japanese sites that together illustrate the country's industrial revolution during the 19th century. During that period Japan quickly modernized its technology, allowing it to compete with the West.

The selection of the Japanese sites was approved only after Japan and South Korea settled a dispute over the sites' history of wartime forced labor. South Korea has been most concerned with the fortress island Gunkanjima.

Gunkanjim is also known as Battleship Island. It was key to Japan's rapid development during the 1868-1912 era of the Meiji Emperor. The emperor wanted Japan to catch up with Western countries as quickly as possible.

Until recently, South Korea strongly objected to the idea of listing Gunkanjima as a world heritage site. It had said it would only accept that proposal on one condition: if Japan formally admitted that Korean prisoners were forced to work on the island during World War II.

Japan has now recognized that such forced labor did occur. A large number of Koreans and others were brought to Gunkanjimi and other sites against their will during the 1940s, Japanese officials said following the U.N.'s decision. The prisoners were "forced to work under harsh conditions," the officials said.

Other Asian, European, Middle Eastern Sites Chosen

The United Nations has also chosen more than a dozen other places around the globe to become world heritage sites.

In the Middle East, the U.N. selected Iran's Ardeshir's palace, together with nearby archeological mounds. Known as Susa, the Iranian site was continuously settled from the 5th century B.C. until the 13th century. Other Middle Eastern sites chosen include a spot in Jordan where Jesus is said to have been baptized. Israel's Necropolis of Beth She'arim was picked as well. Beth She'arim is a series of catacombs built from the 2nd century B.C. onward, which served as a Jewish burial place. It features inscriptions in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew.

European sites include an 18th-century Lutheran church settlement known as Christiansfeld, located in the South Jutland region of Denmark. In Italy, Sicilian churches and palaces dating back to the island's 12th-century Norman rule were selected. Their design reflects both Arab and Byzantine culture.

In Asia, the U.N. selected Singapore's Botanical Gardens, which were created in 1859. Mongolia's sacred Great Burkhan Khaldun Mountain was selected as well. According to tradition, the mountain is the place where the fierce warrior and empire-builder Genghis Khan was born and buried.

Mexican Canal System Recognized

Sites from many other parts of the world were also selected this year. Among them are Mexico's Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque Hydraulic System. Dating back to the 16th century, this Mexican canal system was conceived by a Franciscan friar. It combines Roman water engineering and traditional Native American construction methods.

Also picked were the Blue and John Crow Mountains, Jamaica's first world heritage site. Located on the southeast of the island of Jamaica, the mountains became a refuge for native people and escaped African slaves during colonial times. Today they are home to many rare and endangered plant and animal species.

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New world heritage site members include The Alamo, Singapore gardens

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BONN, Germany - From now on the whole world will "Remember the Alamo." The United Nations has recently declared the famed building a world heritage site. It means "The Alamo" is a place of international historical importance that is worth permanently preserving and protecting.

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I do not know a lot about Newsela, other than what I've read online in the last week

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I do not know a lot about Newsela, other than what I've read online in the last week

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Deconstruction of the Alamo

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I wonder if this will be a good fit for our district

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I wonder if this will be a good fit for our district

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Can you filter by F and P level and if not is that a feature you are looking to add?

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Making reading current and relevant to students engages them more. I know that reading of any content helps boost ACT scores across the board and gets kids more scholarships!! $$$

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Newsela | Expansión y reforma: recordando El Álamo

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Our school recently purchased Newsela and I have learned how to set up teacher classrooms.

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That some of our teachers at my school use Newsela, but I don't know a lot about this program.

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Texas is ending its contract with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to run the Alamo. The San Antonio Express-News is reporting that the move ends the organization's more than 100-year-long management of the landmark.

The change will help "create a bigger, brighter future for this Texas shrine," Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush said in a joint statement with the DRT.

The newspaper reported that the contract with the DRT, which runs through Aug. 31, 2016, will be terminated July 10.

The Land Office plans to launch a nationwide search for a company to manage the Alamo, the newspaper reported.

The Alamo was the scene of a major battle in the Texas Revolution; 180 defenders were killed at the site during a siege by Mexican forces. Texas eventually gained independence from Mexico.

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Texas Ends Contract With Group That Has Run Alamo For More Than A Century

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Texas is ending its contract with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to run the Alamo. The San Antonio Express-News is reporting that the move ends the organization's more than 100-year-long management of the landmark. The change will help "create a bigger, brighter future for this Texas shrine," Texas Land Commissioner George P.

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It is an excellent tool for differentiating!

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How can I best assist my teachers in utilizing this resource into their everyday classroom instruction and not consider it an "extra" thing they must do.

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How to determine if our district needs the PRO version and what the cost would be...

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Students can choose a lexile range for the article they wish to read.  Several students reading the same article at different lexiles..personalized learning!

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and want to learn more about Newsela so that I can help the teachers utilize the resources y'all have to offer.

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https://truewestmagazine.com/how-did-davy-really-die-2/

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Just after midnight, Gen. Santa Anna orders his 2,064 troops to move toward their assault positions.

Select soldados (soldiers) stealthily sneak up on Tejano sentries, who lie in dugouts positioned away from the Alamo, and slit the guards' throats.

Just before sunrise (around 5 a.m.) a soldado from the second column yells out "Viva Santa Anna!" His comrades echo the cry. Furious that he has lost the element of surprise, Santa Anna orders his musicians to sound the attack. A rocket battery fires the signal.

Four Mexican columns surge out of the darkness toward the shadowed walls of the Alamo. Awakened by the shouts, the Texians quickly man their cannons and commence a furious enfilade fire from the church and corral batteries, forcing the attackers coming in from the east to move north.

Musket and cannon fire pour from the walls of the Alamo, and three attacking columns stall at the north wall. The Texians are holding their own and laying down a deadly fire.

Momentum lost, Santa Anna commits his reserves. Grenidiers (grenediers) and zapadores (sappers) charge into the fight and finally succeed in breaching the Texian defense. Meanwhile, the caballeria (cavalry) breaches the Alamo's southwest corner from the west side. The Texians fighting there are quickly overwhelmed and fall back, taking refuge in the adobe apartments, convent and church. Mexican troops pour into the compound unchecked; others seize the abandoned batteries, turn them around and fire at the retreating Texians with their own cannons.

Hand-to-hand combat is fierce. The fighting turns especially bloody as the Mexican troops go room to room, overwhelming each pocket of resistance and shooting and bayoneting everything that moves.

Some 60 defenders break out of the Alamo heading east on Gonzales Road, but Santa Anna's cavalry is waiting and cuts them down.

An hour after the initial attack, Davy Crockett stands alone, still proudly and tenaciously defending his diminished position. A frightful gash angles across his forehead. Holding the barrel of his shattered rifle in his right hand and a Bowie knife dripping with blood in his left, Crockett faces his attackers with the courage of a lion. Twenty dead or dying Mexicans lie beneath his buckskin-clad feet.

The man from Tennessee crouches, daring his attackers to take him. As they move in for the kill, Davy swings wildly until he finally falls, fighting like a tiger until his last dying breath. The fight is over.
Well, Not Exactly
That's how we in the U.S. celebrated the death of the "King of the Wild Frontier" for a good part of the 20th century. Exemplifying the Texas creed that you have no business telling a story unless you can improve it, Davy's death scenario grew each time the story was retold.

Then, in 1955, at the height of the Disney Davy's fame, a diary from Mexico surfaced, claiming Davy had surrendered. For a long time, historians belittled and rebuked José Enrique de la Peña's diary. When they finally looked closely at the corroborating evidence, Davy's dramatic final scene began to change.

Let's take a look at the historical record:
Anglo Accounts
One of the first official reports of the Alamo fight comes from Gen. Sam Houston, writing to the commander at Goliad, March 11, 1836: "After the fort was carried, seven men surrendered and called for Santa Anna and quarter. They were murdered by his order."

Houston doesn't name Crockett, but his report reveals that from the beginning officials knew that a group of Alamo defenders had surrendered.

Here's a condensed version of one of the first news reports, appearing in the Morning Courier & New-York Enquirer on July 9, 1836:

"Six Americans were discovered near the wall yet unconquered. They were surrounded and ordered by General Castrillón to surrender, which they did under a promise
of protection."

One of the six stepped forward with a "bold demeanor." The troops noticed his "firmness and his noble bearing." An undaunted "David Crockett" boldly faced Gen. Santa Anna, looking him "steadfastly in the face."

"Sir, here are six prisoners I have taken alive; how shall I dispose of them?" Manuel Fernandez asked his commander.

Santa Anna fiercely looked at Castrillón, replying, "Have I not told you before how to dispose of them? Why do you bring them to me?"

Several junior officers pulled their swords and lunged at Crockett and the others, plunging their swords into the "bosoms of their defenseless prisoners."
Mexican Accounts
Ramón Martínez Caro, Santa Anna's personal secretary, reports in an 1837 pamphlet published in Mexico that "there were five who were discovered by General Castrillón while the soldiers stepped out of their ranks and set upon the prisoners until they were all killed."

De la Peña's diary offers a somewhat different account: "some seven men had survived the general carnage and, under the protection of General Castrillón, they were brought before Santa Anna. Among them ... was the naturalist David Crockett, well known in North America for his unusual adventures ... Santa Anna answered Castrillón's intervention in Crockett's behalf with a gesture of indignation and, addressing himself to ... the troops closest to him, ordered his execution. The commanders and officers were outraged at this action and did not support the order ... but several officers who were around the president and who, perhaps, had not been present during the moment of danger ... thrust themselves forward ... and with swords in hand, fell upon these unfortunate, defenseless men just as a tiger leaps upon his prey. Though tortured before they were killed, these unfortunates died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers."
Aftermath: Odds & Ends
Although the Davy Crockett surrender scenario remains contentious, especially in Texas, author Dan Kilgore concludes, "Four officers and a sergeant-all of whom participated in the assault and observed the final tragedy-specifically identified Crockett as one of the captives.... Their accounts have come to light over a long period of time, several having surfaced only recently. Any one of them, standing alone, could be subject to question, but considered as a whole, the statements provide stronger documentation than can be claimed for any other incident during the battle."

***

Others believe Davy didn't even die at the Alamo. In 1840, William White's letter, printed in the Austin City Gazette, reported a visit to Guadalajara, Mexico, where a native stated a Texas prisoner had been forced to work in a mine. The enslaved miner was, of course, Davy Crockett. White claimed that Crockett wrote a letter to his family in Tennessee and had asked White to mail it for him. Even though the letter never arrived, Davy's son, John Crockett (a congressman from Tennessee), allegedly went to Mexico to search for his father.

***

"Too much has been made over the details of how David died at the Alamo. Such details are not important. What is important is that he died as he had lived. His life was one of indomitable bravery; his death was a death of intrepid courage. His life was one of whole-hearted dedication to his concepts of liberty. He died staking his life against what he regarded as intolerable tyranny," wrote James A. Shackford in his 1956 book David Crockett.

***

Recommended: How Did Davy Die? by Dan Kilgore, published by Texas A&M University Press; and Eyewitness to the Alamo by Bill Groneman, published by Republic of Texas Press.

Photo Gallery

What do you think?

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How Did Davy Really Die? - True West Magazine

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March 6, 1836 Just after midnight, Gen. Santa Anna orders his 2,064 troops to move toward their assault positions. Select soldados (soldiers) stealthily sneak up on Tejano sentries, who lie in dugouts positioned away from the Alamo, and slit the guards' throats. Just before sunrise (around 5 a.m.)

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How I can get my teachers using this more while integrating! :-)

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I know Newsela offers current events and nonfiction articles relevant to STEAM topics and history.  Students can sign in with Google accounts and read articles assigned to them or find one of their interest.  Articles have comprehension questions and a writing response section.  

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I know Newsela offers current events and nonfiction articles relevant to STEAM topics and history.  Students can sign in with Google accounts and read articles assigned to them or find one of their interest.  Articles have comprehension questions and a writing response section.  

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I know that Newsela offers many great current event articles that can be personalized for individual student reading levels.

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Great relevant informational text collections accessible by students at different levels.

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I did not know that there was such a rich collection of resources for PD in this section of Newsela

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Non-Fiction Text - historical and current events

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Non-Fiction Text - historical and current events

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How can I make this part of our week?

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How I can help my teachers to fully utilize Newsela for their classes.

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How to best align with existing curriculum units.

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Lots of wonderful nonfiction texts that you can level. 

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Lots of wonderful nonfiction texts that you can level. 

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There are a variety of high interest texts for students of all ages. The Lexile of each article can be adjusted and there are quizzes and CR for each article.

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There are a variety of high interest texts for students of all ages. The Lexile of each article can be adjusted and there are quizzes and CR for each article.

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Would it be cost effective me to personally pay for PRO.

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Would it be cost effective me to personally pay for PRO.

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What are some other ways I can use Newsela.

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What are some other ways I can use Newsela.

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that this is a wonderful resource for readers of all skill levels, since it is able to differentiate texts to cater to all students.

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I wonder what the components of the Pro version offers.

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I wonder what the components of the Pro version offers.

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I know that my students really get invested in the text and make requests for articles to be assigned.  

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I know that my students really get invested in the text and make requests for articles to be assigned.  

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Have been a member since 2013 When Dan Cogan sent me an email.

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I wonder about the writing features newsela offers.  I have not had the opportunity to use this 

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I wonder about the writing features newsela offers.  I have not had the opportunity to use this 

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How can Newsela be incorporated into each curriculum area?

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https://newsela.com/articles/alamo-heritage/id/11030/

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That my Reading Specialist LOVE it and I would like more of my staff to use it to help increase reading scores!

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John Lee Hancock's epic re-creation of the 1836 battle between Mexican forces and Texas insurgents casts the massacre in a more historically accurate light

smithsonian.com

Each year some three million visitors, eager to glimpse a fabled American landmark, converge on a tree-shaded section of downtown San Antonio. In this leafy urban neighborhood, many of them,whether from Berlin or Tokyo or Dime Box, Texas, appear lost. The sightseers glance from their guidebooks to a towering Hyatt Hotel, to the historic 1859 Menger Hotel, to the Crockett Hotel-now that, they may tell themselves, sounds promising-all hard by a drug store, a post office, parking lots and a dingy café serving $5.49 chicken-fried steaks. None of this quite squares with their ideas of the place-largely formed by movie images of John Wayne, eternally valiant in the role of Davy Crockett, defending a sprawling fortress on a vast Texas prairie in 1836. ~ Then tourists round a corner to find themselves facing a weathered limestone church, barely 63 feet wide and 33 feet tall at its hallowed hump, that strikes many as some sort of junior-size replica rather than a heart-grabbing monument. "The first impression of so many who come here is, ' This is it?' " says Although the Alamo defenders including Davy Crockett (played by Billy Bob Thornton, leading a charge, above) fought bravely, the mission complex (in a c. 1885 depiction of the garrison) was nearly indefensible. General Santa Anna, commander of the Mexican Army, called it an irregular fortification hardly worthy of the name.. historian Stephen L. Hardin. "Of course, they're looking only at the church, not the entire Alamo," he says of the old Spanish mission that became an unlikely fortress. (The word Alamo means "cottonwood" in Spanish. The mission, established in 1718 and erected on this site in 1724 near the San AntonioRiver, was bordered by stands of poplars.) "It does seem dwarfed by surrounding hotels. I overhear people all the time saying, 'It's so small.' "

Small it may be, but the "shrine to Texas freedom" looms large in the annals of courage. With the release this month of the new movie The Alamo, filmgoers far too young to remember the 1960 epic, an outsize drama showcasing Wayne as the bold frontiersman Crockett-or actor Fess Parker's portrayal of a coonskin-capped Crockett on the 1954-55 Disney television series of that name-may discover anew the dramatic power of a uniquely American saga. In this case, the heroic triumvirate of Alamo defenders-William B. Travis, James Bowie and David (as he called himself) Crockett-are portrayed, respectively, by Patrick Wilson, Jason Patric and Billy Bob Thornton.

By no means a remake of Wayne's histrionic chronicle-"there was hardly a line of historically accurate dialogue in it," says North Carolina State University historian James E. Crisp-the new, $90 million film from Texas-born director John Lee Hancock is a graphic and largely factual rendition of the legendary battle between insurgent Texas settlers and the Mexican Army.

For many Americans, the actual confrontation remains a symbol of the courage of ordinary men placed in extraordinary circumstances. Others see it as emblematic of America's territorial ambitions in an era of Manifest Destiny.

Andres Tijerina, a historian at Austin Community College, recalls the day in 1958 at Edison Junior High in San Angelo, Texas, when his history teacher finished her lesson on the Alamo by glaring at him, a kid who, like countless American youngsters, was hooked on the Fess Parker TV series and longed for a coonskin cap. "You're a Mexican," she said to Tijerina, even though he was a third-generation U.S. citizen. "How do you explain what they did to Davy Crockett?"

"That was the last time," says Tijerina, "that I ever wished for a coonskin cap."

"The Alamo became a hammer for bashing Mexican-Americans in Texas," says Crisp, a Yale-educated Texan. "It was portrayed as a race war" between Mexicans on one side and American settlers thirsting for freedom on the other. But "on that battlefield there were free blacks, slaves, Indians from central Mexico who spoke no Spanish, Tejanos [Mexicans who sided with the Americans], Europeans, including an Italian general . . . It was almost a laboratory in multiculturalism. It was not a race war."

All kids growing up in 1950s Texas-as I did-were raised on textbooks that omitted or obscured the fact that the Alamo counted among its defenders Spanish-speaking, Mexican-born Tejanos who fought bravely. "They are the people who often get erased from the story of Texas independence," says Crisp, who appeared in a recent PBS documentary on the role of Tejanos in the Texas Revolution. "They had their own reasons to fight for Texas independence. This Anglo-Mexican cooperation was purged from the Alamo myth." Textbooks of the time also neglected to mention that many Alamo heroes, foremost among them Travis and Bowie, had been slaveholders, even slave traders, or that one account of the 12-day Alamo siege, and lightning-quick battle on the 13th day, came from a defender who survived-Travis' slave, a 23-year-old African-American man known to history only as Joe.

"Telling this tale is an awesome responsibility," director Hancock, 47, told me in his trailer during the final days of filming last summer. A graduate of Baylor Law School and a screenwriter, Hancock presided over 101 production days that saw Central Texas temperatures go from 22 degrees in January to 102 degrees in August. "I feel the burden of this film in a good way," he says. "I want to please myself, but I also want to please that 8-year-old in the audience who might make his first trek to the Alamo holding the hand of his grandmother-just as I did."

Hancock says his intention was to convey depth and humanity upon Mexican soldiers while portraying Travis, Bowie and Crockett less as freedom's icons than as mortal, fallible men trying to do their best in a difficult situation. Yet Hancock recoils at the suggestion that the movie might be viewed as an exercise in political correctness. "If I had deliberately set out to tell only 'the Mexican side,' it would have ended up on the editing room floor," he says. "Santa Anna may be the most fascinating guy in the movie, and I can't deny an attempt to convey that a very large Anglo constituency [at the Alamo] was interested in keeping slavery, but ultimately, I looked for those things that would tell the very best story. . . . The facts of the Alamo are far more interesting than the mythology."

Mexico had a marketing problem. Soon after gaining independence from Spain, in 1821, the young republic desperately wanted to populate its northern state, Texas, to solidify its grip on a huge, lawless territory that the Spanish had never effectively colonized. But few "interior" Mexicans south of the Río Grande wanted to move to the Texas province, largely because it was inhabited by Apaches and Comanches, who were not looking for neighbors. So Mexico offered U.S. settlers cheap land-on the condition they swear allegiance to Mexico and convert to Catholicism. (A good many settlers no doubt failed to abide by those conditions.) Ultimately, says historian William C. Davis, "the Anglos would pose a greater threat than ever the Comanches had."

Not only did the Mexican government offer land grants to any person or family who agreed to settle in Texas; it also, under the Mexican Constitution of 1824, guaranteed that newcomers would pay no taxes for at least seven years. And to sweeten the deal, Mexico-despite having abolished slavery in the republic-would allow Anglo settlers to bring along with them any slaves they already held.

Before long, immigrants were arriving from nearly every state east of the Mississippi, as well as from France, Germany, Ireland, Denmark, England and Scotland. Edwin Hoyt, author of The Alamo: An Illustrated History, writes that typical settler Dr. Amos Pollard, a New York City physician with a failing practice, awoke one morning in 1834, read an advertisement for land in Columbia, Texas, and set out almost immediately to claim some for himself. Pollard, who would die at the Alamo, where he had served as doctor, settled alongside blacksmiths and trappers from Tennessee, an Irish artist, a Frenchman who had served as a soldier in Napoleon's army and jailbirds from Alabama. Most of the newcomers, according to Hardin, were "descended from America's first revolutionaries, and many had fought with Andrew Jackson in 1815 at New Orleans" against the British.

Among those headed for the new frontier was Moses Austin, a Connecticut-born mining magnate, judge and slaveholder from the MissouriTerritory who had received permission from Mexican officials in San Antonio to bring 300 families with him. Although he contracted pneumonia and died in 1821 before he could lead settlers to Texas, his son Stephen succeeded in transplanting the first of some 1,500 families. Today, of course, the capital of Texas bears the Austin name.

By 1834, only 31 years after the United States had doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, tens of thousands of Americans had come to Texas, a place portrayed in newspapers back East as a land of milk and honey with boundless forests and "smiling prairies [that] invite the plough." (Understandably, there was no mention of scorching summers or lowlands infested with disease-carrying mosquitoes.)

Some settlers, however, had come to Texas uninvited, and before long, the fledgling republic of Mexico was viewing the newcomers warily: by 1830, Americans in Mexico outnumbered Mexicans almost five to one. Although the Mexican congress prohibited further immigration from the United States in April of that year, squatters continued to pour in. Four years later, Mexico ordered the removal of all illegal settlers and the disarming of Texians, as the Americans called themselves (the term would later be contracted to Texans). The man behind the order was a handsome egotist and power-crazed dictator who called himself the Napoleon of the West: President-General Antonio López de Santa Anna.

Tensions leading to this order had mounted in the preceding year. In 1833, Stephen Austin rode to Mexico City to urge the government there to confer separate statehood, within the Mexican confederation, on Texas. The Mexican government, not surprisingly, evinced little enthusiasm for such an arrangement. Austin then fired off an intemperate letter to friends in San Antonio, telling them to ignore the authority of Mexico City. Austin's letter was intercepted; as a result, he was thrown into jail in Mexico City for 18 months. Austin returned home convinced that his fellow colonists had to resist Santa Anna, who had already developed a reputation as a brutal man who sanctioned rape and mass executions by his soldiers.

Within two years, the Mexican congress had authorized Santa Anna to take up arms against the insurrectionists. On November 12, 1835, Texas chose the brilliant but dissipated Sam Houston, who had served under Jackson and had been former governor of Tennessee, as its commander. Santa Anna, lusting for a fight, departed central Mexico in late December. By January 1836, Texians were hearing rumors that the president-general and some 6,000 men were headed their way to teach them a lesson.

In the year leading up to the battle of the Alamo, a number of small but significant skirmishes between settlers and Mexicans had taken place, one of the most important of which was the Texians' virtually bloodless capture, on December 9, 1835, of the Alamo itself, then a crumbling three-acre mission under the command of Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cós. Says historian Davis, "The Texians kept Mexican arms because they needed them, and allowed Mexican prisoners to go home because they would have been a drain on Texian resources if kept as prisoners."

By early February 1836, Travis, Bowie and Crockett, three volunteer soldiers, had come to San Antonio to join the struggle for independence. Bowie, fleeing his own checkered past, had arrived in Texas from Louisiana in the late 1820s. In league with his brother Rezin (said to have designed the knife that bears the family name), Bowie, a former slave smuggler, had masterminded a complex series of failed Louisiana land swindles; he had hoped to recoup his fortune by speculating in Texas acreage. He was, says Hardin, "a bit of a thug." But Bowie possessed virtues as well: a born leader, he was utterly fearless and he outwitted the enemy from the moment the Texians began skirmishing with Mexican regulars. He spoke and wrote fluent Spanish and maintained close friendships within the Tejano community: in 1831, he had married the daughter of a prominent Tejano family from San Antonio; his young wife had died of cholera in 1834. At the Alamo, Bowie would take command of the volunteer company.

William B. Travis was Bowie's opposite. Bookish, regimented and something of a prig, he had begun to build a law practice in the Texas town of Anahuac. He had acquitted himself well in a clash with the Mexicans in that settlement, participated in the taking of the Alamo and accepted a commission there, assuming responsibility for the formerly enlisted men, or regulars. At the final Alamo battle he would confront the first wave of attackers.

Of the three men, Crockett was the most charismatic. "He was probably America's first celebrity," says Hardin of the three-term Tennessee congressman and frontier hero, a renowned marksman and tracker who had served under Jackson in the Creek War of 1813-14, a campaign against Alabama's Indian tribes. "He came into the Alamo, and these hardened men surely stopped and said, 'My God, there's a living legend.' He was the one you'd want to invite over for dinner-sort of a cross between Will Rogers and Daniel Boone."

Born in 1786, Crockett had played hooky from school and run away from his Tennessee home to escape his father. He began his military-political career in his mid 20s and was elected to his first Congressional term in 1827. Within a few short years he would become the subject of tall-tale biographies. Like politicians of today, he penned a memoir that was meant to launch a presidential campaign-against Andrew Jackson in 1836-but that plan was derailed when he lost his bid for a fourth Congressional term in 1835. It was then that he decided to go to Texas, where he would write to friends that he had reached "the garden spot of the world."

"Crockett had real wisdom," says Hardin. "The more you learn about him, the more you like him." Along with a handful of companions-fellow Tennesseans who also had once served under Jackson-Crockett set out for the Alamo looking for adventure. "It was pure chance that brought him there," says Davis. Crockett quickly became a favorite among the men.

On March 2, 1836, some 59 insurgents, Houston among them, convened in Washington-on-the-Brazos and issued a manifesto declaring Texas' independence from Mexico-however unprepared the settlers may have been for the consequences of such an action. "Most people don't realize how disorganized the Texians were," says Crisp. "The ambitions and egos of those would be commanders disrupted any orderly command structure. And this whole independence thing was thrust on them way before they were ready."

In stark contrast to the motley Texians, Santa Anna's cavalry men wore dark blue "coatees" with white metal buttons and blue campaign overalls with a red, leather-reinforced seam stripe, and helmets festooned with a comb of black horsehair. They were armed with lances, sabers, short-barreled infantry muskets and the Pageant carbine, a British surplus rifle.

But the cavalry's sartorial grandeur could not disguise the fact that many of Santa Anna's conscripted soldiers were Indians pulled from their villages for an agonizing march north through the record-setting cold winter of 1836. "Mules and soldiers were freezing to death," says Hardin. The hapless soldiers wrapped rags around their feet and packed grass and hay inside the rags.

When they were not fighting frostbite and disease, the men endured repeated attacks from Comanches, who raided them for muskets, blankets and food. With no idea who they would be battling and no combat experience, these shabby, half-starved peasants hardly inspired fear.

Once they reached San Antonio on February 23, many of Santa Anna's officers were baffled as to why the general seemed so eager to attack, rather than waiting on more artillery. "Santa Anna constantly overplays his hand," says Hardin of a character flaw that even the general himself recognized. "He once said, 'If I were to be made God, I would wish for more.' " Santa Anna ordered the fort bombarded by cannon. Inside, the fewer than 200 Texians grew anxious. Ominously, the general had raised a blood-red flag, signifying that no quarter would be given. Crockett did his best to keep up spirits, playing tunes on his fiddle.

It is doubtful that the music soothed Travis, the garrison's intense 26-year-old commander. "The John Wayne film made Travis out to be sort of foppish and prissy," says Hardin, "but he wasn't that way at all. He didn't drink, which was rare back then, but he would buy everyone else drinks. He just wanted to avoid failure at all costs."

In a letter of February 24, Travis called on the "People of Texas and all Americans in the world" to send reinforcements: "I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna!" he wrote. "I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion [meaning the safety of surrendered men would not be guaranteed], otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due his own honor & that of his country. Victory or Death."

Travis had already appealed to Col. James W. Fannin, a West Point dropout and slave trader who had about 300 men and four cannon, but little ammunition and few horses, at the Spanish presidio at Goliad, some 100 miles away. Fannin set out for San Antonio on February 28, but three wagons broke down almost immediately, and crossing the flooded San AntonioRiver consumed precious time. When the men made camp, they neglected to tie up their oxen and horses, many of which wandered off in the night.

Fannin returned to Goliad, where he ignored additional pleas from Travis. "Fannin was just in over his head," says Crisp. Fannin would later fight bravely and would ultimately die at the hands of Santa Anna's troops. "But he would have been nuts to go to the Alamo," Crisp adds.

Santa Anna must have known the Alamo would be no match for his forces. Built by Spanish priests with Indian labor, the mission was never meant to be a fortress. Lacking extended walls or rifle parapets, it was almost impossible to defend-not because it was too small but because it was too big. Its main plaza, now hidden beneath downtown San Antonio's streets, comprised almost three acres, with nearly a quarter-mile of adobe walls that were scarcely cannon-proof and easily scaled with ladders-an "irregular fortification hardly worthy of the name," sniffed Santa Anna.

The morning of March 3 brought bad news. Travis' trusted subordinate, James Bonham, rode in from Goliad with word that Fannin would not be coming with help. Then, on March 4, one thousand fresh Mexican soldiers arrived from the west. "Take care of my little boy . . . ," Travis wrote to David Ayres, a friend who was keeping his son. "If the country should be lost and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country." Travis also wrote to the insurgent settlers assembled in Washington-on-the-Brazos: "I will. . . . do the best I can under the circumstances . . . and although [my men] may be sacrificed to the vengeance of a Gothic enemy, the victory will cost the enemy dear, that it will be worse for him than defeat."

By March 5, Mexican troops were lashing ladders against the fort's walls in preparation for an assault, and according to the account of Mexican general Vincente Filisola, the besieged men dispatched a woman to propose terms of surrender to Santa Anna. Once again Santa Anna refused to negotiate terms. His decision was purely political, says Hardin. "Militarily, it was stupid: storming the Alamo needlessly sacrificed the lives of hundreds of men. But Santa Anna wanted to be able to write back to Mexico City that he had annihilated the rebels."

Documentary accounts of the final battle, on March 6, are based largely on journals of Mexican officers and the stories of a few noncombatant survivors who had sheltered inside the Alamo. At about 5:30 a.m., some 1,100 of Santa Anna's men moved quietly under patchy bright moonlight to surround the garrison. Some of the general's young soldiers were so excited they could not maintain silence. Viva Santa Anna! they shouted. Viva la Republica! Their cries alerted the Alamo's defenders. "Come on, boys," Travis shouted as he sprinted to the walls, "the Mexicans are upon us, and we'll give them hell!"

The Texians filled their cannons with every available piece of metal-hinges, chains, nails, bits of horseshoes-and sprayed deadly shot over their tightly bunched attackers, who carried axes, crowbars, ladders and muskets fixed with bayonets. The Texians' nine-pound cannonballs inflicted heavy casualties, splattering flesh and jagged bones over soldiers who were not themselves hit. The carnage caused some Mexicans to attempt retreat, but officers forced them back into battle at swordpoint.

The wounded shrieked in agony, some begging to be put out of their misery. "The shouting of those being attacked . . . ," wrote Lt. Col. José Enrique de la Peña, "pierced our ears with desperate, terrible cries of alarm in a language we did not understand. . . . Different groups of soldiers were firing in all directions, on their comrades and on their officers, so that one was as likely to die by a friendly hand as by an enemy's." At the Alamo's 12-foot north wall, the Mexicans felled Travis with a musket ball to the forehead. Then Santa Anna sent in more troops, bringing the assault forces to nearly 1,800. Within about half an hour, the Texians retreated toward the barracks and chapel, hemmed in hopelessly for one last, bloody stand.

"Great God, Sue, the Mexicans are inside our walls!" screamed Capt. Almaron Dickinson to his wife, Susanna. "All is lost! If they spare you, save my child." Susanna and her infant daughter, Angelina, took shelter in the church's sacristy, along with several Tejano women and children, all of whom, in addition to several unidentified Texian slaves, Santa Anna would spare.

In the Alamo's final minutes, the fighting turned to hand-to-hand combat with knives, swords and bayonets. Some Texians tied white cloths to bayonets and thrust them through the broken walls, screaming their wish to surrender in whatever Spanish they could command. Historian Alan Huffines believes as many as 50 defenders, not accounted for in the oft-cited number of 189 killed, fled the Alamo over the low east wall, only to be slaughtered by Mexican lancers positioned outside the fortress. (Stricken by what is now thought to be typhoid pneumonia, delirious and probably near death, Bowie was slain in his bed.)

Finally, using cannons they had captured from the defenders, the Mexicans blasted open the entrance to the chapel and butchered the last defenders, except, many historians believe, for Crockett and perhaps a half dozen of his men, who may have been taken alive. In this scenario, Gen. Manuel Fernandez Castrillón wanted to spare the men. But according to de la Peña's account, when Santa Anna finally entered the Alamo, he ordered their immediate execution. In the end, says Davis, "We don't know where or how Crockett died, and we never will."

Santa Anna ordered the bodies of all the Texians heaped onto grisly pyres, inside and outside the Alamo, and set afire. "The bodies," wrote de la Peña, "with their blackened and bloody faces disfigured by desperate death, their hair and uniforms burning at once, presented a dreadful and truly hellish sight."

Although the idea that the Alamo defenders refused even to contemplate surrender is an article of faith for many people, Crisp says "it is just a myth that they pledged to die no matter what. That's the myth that is pervasive in the Fess Parker and John Wayne versions. But these were brave guys, not stupid [ones]."

In the aftermath of the battle, Texians exaggerated Mexican casualties while Santa Anna underreported them. Historian Thomas Ricks Lindley, author of Alamo Traces, used numerous Mexican sources to conclude that Mexican fatalities were about 145 on March 6, and that 442 Mexicans were wounded during the entire siege. Other research suggests as many as 250 wounded Mexican soldiers eventually died in San Antonio.

As Santa Anna walked among the wounded, many undoubtedly writhing in pain, he is said to have remarked: "These are the chickens. Much blood has been shed, but the battle is over. It was but a small affair."

Santa anna's butchery achieved the effect he had sought. Army Capt. John Sharpe described the reaction in the town of Gonzales, which had sent troops to the Alamo, when news of the massacre arrived: "Not a sound was heard, save the wild shrieks of the women, and the heart-rending screams of the fatherless children." Many Texas families soon pulled up stakes and fled eastward.

Forty-six days after the fall of the Alamo, however, Santa Anna met his match. The general, flush with a second major victory at Goliad, where he slaughtered Fannin and his some 350 men but lost many of his most experienced fighters, marched east with about 700 troops (later reinforced to 1,200) toward present-day Houston. He camped on high ground at San Jacinto.

But Sam Houston and a force of about 900 men had gotten there first. By April 21, Santa Anna's troops were exhausted and hungry from their march. "They had probably gone two days without sleep," says Hardin. "Many just collapsed in a heap."

At about 3:30 p.m., the Texians hurtled through the brush, bellowing, "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!," killing unarmed Mexicans as they screamed, Mi no Alamo! Mi no Goliad! A Mexican drummer boy, pleading for his life, was shot point-blank in the head. "There were atrocities committed every bit as odious as at the Alamo," says Hardin. Houston's official report says the San Jacinto battle lasted a mere 18 minutes and claimed 630 Mexican lives, with 730 taken prisoner. The Texians lost nine men. Santa Anna escaped, disguised as a common soldier, but was captured the next day. The Texians had no idea who he was until some Mexican prisoners addressed him as El Presidente. In a remarkable face-to-face encounter, Sam Houston, who intuited that the dictator was more valuable to the fledgling republic alive than dead, negotiated with him for an entire afternoon. Santa Anna saved his skin by agreeing to sign a treaty guaranteeing Texas' independence from Mexico. He was held in custody-documentation is scanty about the length of his incarceration-and within two years allowed to return to Mexico. Remarkably enough, he would manage to ascend to the presidency three more times.

In the end, says director Hancock, dispelling some of the mythology that has grown up around the Alamo does not demean the men who endured the siege and final assault. "By owning up to these men's pasts, they become more human and their bravery and sacrifice all the more compelling," he says. "I've always been attracted to flawed heroes."

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smithsonian.com Each year some three million visitors, eager to glimpse a fabled American landmark, converge on a tree-shaded section of downtown San Antonio. In this leafy urban neighborhood, many of them,whether from Berlin or Tokyo or Dime Box, Texas, appear lost.

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I wonder how I might use it to challenge my more advanced readers in my class.

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How I can help my teachers in every subject use this amazing tool without overwhelming them with more work!

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I wonder how I can incorporate Newsela into my classroom.

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Hope everyone can stay connected after the workshop by sharing their learning on Twitter with the #prolearning hashtag?

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On the afternoon of June 3, Mayte Lara Ibarra stepped to the podium in front of a cavernous Austin, Texas, auditorium. As valedictorian, Lara was in charge of delivering David Crockett High School's commencement speech.

"Wow. I'm so honored to be standing before you all today," she said, a medal clanking around her neck and a hint of nervousness in her voice. "I thought long and hard about what to say to you."

The 17-year-old said she had spent four years worrying about her speech, jotting down notes and ideas for the day she would finally walk triumphantly across the stage.

But she had spent years worrying about something else.

Lara had a secret.

And after the ceremony was over and she posed for pictures with her proud parents, she decided to share that secret as so many teenagers do nowadays.

On social media.

"Valedictorian, 4.5 GPA, full tuition paid for at UT, 13 cords/medals, nice legs," she wrote on Twitter above three photos of herself and her family clutching celebratory flowers.

Then she added the four words that would cause a firestorm of controversy, not just in Austin but across America.

"Oh and I'm undocumented," she wrote, along with emoji showing a medal, a graduation cap, rock 'n' roll fingers and the Mexican flag.

The reaction was swift.

Some supportive tweets came from friends. Others came from total strangers.

As Lara's tweet went viral, however, it also attracted criticism, including racist memes and threats of deportation.

One person tweeted a screenshot suggesting they had submitted a tip to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As her post approached 10,000 retweets and twice as many "likes," however, Lara began to get uncomfortable.

"Thank you!" she wrote to a friend who congratulated her. "I want all this attention from strangers to stop already though haha."

"I checked your tweet this morning and it BLEW up," the friend responded.

"I know! I didn't think it would do that tbh and it's kinda scary and want it to stop," Lara wrote back, adding a worried emoji face.

Some critics accused Lara of "stealing" the university spot or scholarship of a legal citizen.

Others went so far as to complain to the CVS pharmacy where Lara worked.

"Are you aware that you have an illegal alien working for you and bragging on Twitter about being undocumented," one woman wrote on the pharmacy's Facebook page, according to the San Antonio Express-News. "Do you even check the immigration status of your employees? She is Austin, TX ; Mayte Lara. Google her she is all over the Internet."

Eventually, the backlash became so intense that Lara deactivated her Twitter account.

On Wednesday night, however, the teenager told KVUE that the whole thing was a misunderstanding and that she was not undocumented.

That caused a reaction from advocates for undocumented students.

"I do hope that she is not lying about her status because being undocumented is not easy, it's not something that you can play with," Edlisa Lopez from UT-Austin's University Leadership Initiative, a program catering to undocumented students, told the television station.

But less than 24 hours later, Lara again reversed course, admitting in a lengthy interview with the Statesman that she is, in fact, undocumented.

Lara told the newspaper that she came to Austin from Mexico illegally when she was about 2 years old, but that she had received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Instituted in 2012 by the Obama administration, the program allows some people who came to the United States illegally as children to request a deportation deferral. The deferrals don't provide lawful status or lead to a path to citizenship, but they do allow recipients to obtain work authorization and can be renewed every two years.

"I do pay taxes, have a DACA which allows me to work and study here, and I have a Social Security number," Lara told the Statesman, adding that she hopes "sooner or later it will open up that path so I can become a permanent resident from the country I was raised in and have lived in my whole life."

"A lot of people think that because I used a Mexican flag emoji, I'm not grateful for the opportunities this country has given me," she continued. "I'm extremely grateful. The only reason I used that emoji was to show that I'm proud of my heritage, and to show that we can do great things."

Adding to the controversy over her tweet was the fact that Lara's school, Crockett High, is named after Davy Crockett, the frontiersman and Texas revolutionary who died fighting the Mexican army at Battle of the Alamo.

As for her full ride, although undocumented immigrants cannot legally receive federally funded student financial aid such as loans, grants and scholarships, they can receive financial aid from the state of Texas.

"In accordance with state law, Texas universities - including the University of Texas schools - have for decades granted two-semester tuition waivers to valedictorians of Texas public high schools, without regard to their residency status," UT Austin spokesperson Kylie Fitzpatrick told KXAN. "State law also does not distinguish between documented and undocumented graduates of Texas high schools in admissions and financial aid decisions. University policies reflect that law."

Lara admitted that she should have been more "cautious" about her tweet and that she may not return to Twitter since "social media is filled with so many mean people, who always have something to say."

But she also said she wanted to open up about her struggles while inspiring others.

"One of the biggest hardships I've had to overcome was the stereotype of people like me," she told the Statesman. "Many people think that people like me can't be successful. We have all the odds against us, and I think it's important to highlight the fact that anything is possible, regardless of your status. I've accomplished things that most people wouldn't think a person with my background could have, and I'm proud of that."

"The reason I posted that tweet was to show others that you can accomplish anything, regardless of the obstacles you have in front of you," she added. "It is a common trend on Twitter to highlight your success through a tweet like that, and I saw many other students from across the country doing the same and sharing the things they'd overcome, so I thought I'd share mine."

In fact, Lara wasn't the only Texas valedictorian to come out as undocumented.

On the very day Lara divulged her secret on social media, another teenager shared a similar story, but from the podium.

Larissa Martinez used her speech as valedictorian of McKinney Boyd High School in McKinney, Texas, to make a stunning announcement.

"I am one of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows of the United States," she said.

Like Lara, Martinez had long agonized over how and when to reveal her status. Her mother brought her to Texas in 2010 after fleeing an abusive and alcoholic husband.

"We just flew over here with luggage and a lot of dreams," Martinez told WFAA.

And like Lara, Martinez is doing everything possible to become a citizen.

Unlike Lara, however, Martinez dove into politics in her speech by challenging presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

"America can be great again without the construction of a wall built on hatred and prejudice," she said before receiving a standing ovation.

There was little hint of Lara's immigration status, or her intention to divulge it, during her speech.

As valedictorian, the senior with straight hair and studious-looking black glasses was charged with leading her class in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Few in the Frank Erwin Center appear to have known, however, that Lara was not actually an American citizen.

Half way through the ceremony, Lara took the stage again for her speech. Principal Sissy Camacho asked - in English and Spanish - for Lara's parents to stand and be recognized.

In her speech, Lara said she had ultimately decided to ignore the copious notes she had made over the years for her speech.

"As I rummaged through my notes, I realized that my younger self is not the same person that I am today," she said.

"Look back with pride on a job well done," she said at the end of her six-minute speech. "Look forward with excitement to what lies ahead. Celebrate this moment because it's yours to enjoy. And remember: What is coming is better than what is gone."

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Texas valedictorian's tweet draws deportation threats

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On the afternoon of June 3, Mayte Lara Ibarra stepped to the podium in front of a cavernous Austin, Texas, auditorium. As valedictorian, Lara was in charge of delivering David Crockett High School's commencement speech. "Wow. I'm so honored to be standing before you all today," she said, a medal clanking around her neck and a hint of nervousness in her voice.

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Good collection of text sets.

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what new features are added for the next school year?

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I love encouraging staff to use Newsela. Love the opportunity to change the Lexile for student learning. 

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I love encouraging staff to use Newsela. Love the opportunity to change the Lexile for student learning. 

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Updated 10:11 am, Tuesday, June 20, 2017

The crowd standing outside La Panadería Monday afternoon had their eyes locked on an unmistakable sight: the frosted tips of Food Network superstar Guy Fieri.

The "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Guy's Grocery Games" star strolled along Houston Street with a film crew making stops at the recently opened bakery and Euro American Fine Arts before touring the Alamo with his sons, Hunter and Ryder.
RELATED: Photos: Guy Fieri films around S.A., visits multiple restaurants, catches Pitbull show
Fieri has stopped in several destinations in the Southwest United States in recent weeks, posting about the adventures on social media using the hashtag #GuysFamilyRoadTrip.

pstephen@express-news.net

Twitter: @pjbites

Instagram: @pjstephen

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Food Network star Guy Fieri visits San Antonio restaurants, the Alamo

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The crowd standing outside La Panadería Monday afternoon had their eyes locked on an unmistakable sight: the frosted tips of Food Network superstar Guy Fieri. The "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Guy's Grocery Games" star strolled along Houston Street with a film crew making stops at the recently opened bakery and Euro American Fine Arts before touring the Alamo with his sons, Hunter and Ryder.

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I'm wondering about different ways to use Newsela that I don't know about. 

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I'm wondering about different ways to use Newsela that I don't know about. 

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how to use text sets, assign them to students, etc.

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Do you have a document that outlines free vs. pro features?
lotzej@hudsonraiders.org

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I learned how to really dive into using Newsela in my classroom!

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I learned how to really dive into using Newsela in my classroom!

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As a librarian, I want to know how to help support my teachers use of Newsela. How can I get my teachers using it?

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a couple of great ways to incorporate annotations and how to modify text sets.

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It was great getting to see all of the ways you can look at and interact with student work

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I love the ability to switch NewsELA articles into English/Spanish when needed. It is also high interest for my students.

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how as a writing teacher I can incorporate NewsELA more for my students to push them both as readers and writers.

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That you can change the Lexile level for the text.

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I can change the Lexile level based on the needs of my students.

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I have worked with various teachers who use it (have helped them get set up) and they love it.

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I have worked with various teachers who use it (have helped them get set up) and they love it.

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On a personal level, returning to classroom and looking forward to finding ways to use it in my tech classes.

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On a personal level, returning to classroom and looking forward to finding ways to use it in my tech classes.

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I know Newsela is GREAT for Socratic seminars!

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Ducksters

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Kids learn about the the Battle of the Alamo fought between the Republic of Texas and Mexico including what led up to the battle, the leaders, the fort, the Texas Revolution, and facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.