Vocabulary
Based on its use in the text, what is a spare?
Why would it be important to build a spare?
Spare means to have an extra, incase the first one fails
In what ways did the building of the chinampas in Lake Texcoco make the land more habitable?
The chinampas provided a source of fish and other food that helped them survive year round.
Why did the Aztec need freshwater?
Salt water, which filled the lake, is not suitable for drinking.
What evidence can we find on pages 36 and 37 to support the claim that Tenochtitlán was a “well-planned city”?
it was well organized(marketplace), they had back ups (clay pipes), they cleaned (clay pipes), the picture
The author uses a metaphor in the sentence, “Its religious and ceremonial center was located at the heart of the city.” Why does the author compare the religious and ceremonial center to a heart?
Answers may vary, but could include the following ideas: The heart of an animal plays an essential and life-supporting role in the body, making it possible for the animal to live and function. The temple is just and important to the city.
The Latin Root "aqua" mean what?
water
What does the author tell us formed the pattern of squares that make up the grid of Tenochtitlán?
the streets and canals
What forces of nature do you think “rattle the earth or release hot lava from the mountains” refers to?
Earthquakes and volcanoes.
What did each type of education prepare them to do?
Noble boys education trained them to be future leaders; boys from lower classes learned trades.
What were some geographical features of the area where the Aztec settled?
The valley was fertile. Swampy islands int he middle of the lake
The author uses the word habitable, which is similar to the word habitat. Habitable and habitat share the Latin root habit, which means “to live."
What does habitable mean?
Habitable means fit to live in and habitat means the place where an animal or plant lives and grows.
The author tells us that the aqueduct consisted of two pipes.
How were the two pipes used?
One transported fresh water, the send was used when the first one needed to be cleaned
The author tells us that the two swampy islands in the middle of Lake Texcoco may seem like an unlikely choice. In what ways did this turn out to be a good place to settle?
There was plentiful wildlife to hunt for food; the Aztec built gardens and grew crops; and they could grow crops throughout the year in the tropical climate.
Based on the text, why was Tenochtitlán an important place?
Tenochtitlán was the capital of the Aztec Empire in the 14th and 15th centeturies.
What was the first step to building chinampas?
Scooping mud from the bottom of the lake
One meaning of the word dominate is “to be the most important part of something.”
What might it mean that the Great Temple, or Templo Mayor, dominated the space inside the walls of the Sacred Precinct?
It was very big and important to the way the Aztecs lived in their city. It honored their two most important gods.
How were the religious and ceremonial centers in Tenochtitlán different from the Maya centers?
Tenochtitlán’s pyramid-temple complexes were much larger than the pyramidtemple complexes of the Maya.
The text tells us that many groups were competing for space in Mexico’s fertile valley.
Why might they have been competing to live in this particular place?
Teacher Discretion: Fertile shows that it was a good place to grow food and survive.
People were already living there and established.
What is one example of the Aztec belief that gods, humans, and nature worked together?
They believed that “if the people angered the gods, the gods might rattle the earth or release hot lava from the mountains.”
Boys got education on specific things to their class, what did girls do?
Girls were educated separately. They learned the arts of cooking, sewing, and weaving.
The author uses words and phrases to signal comparisons between the Maya and Aztec civilizations.
What words and phrases compared these two civilizations?
Like the Maya (three times)
Also uses a question to guide the reader to compare the ball games.
Tenochtitlán was built on a lake and surrounded by water. Why was it necessary to have aqueducts?
Even though the city was surrounded by a lake, and its canals were filled with water, the water was salt water. They needed the aqueducts to bring freshwater from the springs on the mainland.
Compare and contrast the types of education boys of different social classes received.
All boys trained for battle from an early age. Noble boys were taught by priests in the temples; boys from lower social ranks attended schools. Noble boys learned to read and write, and learned about religion, medicine, law, and astronomy; boys from lower social ranks learned a trade, such as building roads or repairing temples.
You read the word trade earlier in this Reader. In that case it was used in a statement about a marketplace and meant “to give something in exchange for something else.” Trade has a different meaning in this context. When trade is used as a noun, it means “a job that requires special training or skills.”
What jobs are listed as trades in the text? (page 39)
Building roads and repairing temples.
What factors led to the success of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán? If students have difficulty answering this question, direct them back into the chapter to find examples within the text.
Answers may vary, but could include: the Aztec built gardens called chinampas from the lake bed where a variety of crops could be grown; creating habitable land allowed the city to grow in size.