A TEACHER’S
GUIDE FOR THE
2015/2016 CORRIDO
CONTEST
Sponsored by:
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Welcome
For fifteen years, the University of Arizona Poetry Center held a bilingual
Corrido Contest for Arizona high school students. This contest
celebrated student creativity, southwestern culture, and the history of the
border region, and multilingual poetry. Over that time, the contest has
produced a living, musical record of the history of the State of Arizona
documenting the experiences, culture, and lives of our youth. From
“Corrido de las Grandes Amgias” to “El Corrido de Pat Tillman El
Valiente,” teens in this state have shown us the deeply felt political,
social, cultural and familial forces that shape their lives.
The Corrido Contest is now in the hands of the University of Arizona
Mexican American Studies Department (MAS) who is partnering with the
University of Arizona Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The
Confluence Center for Creative Inquiry, and Del Records.
The literary standards set by the Poetry Center will be maintained, while
bringing the rich history of corrido to the forefront. The Mexican
American community is growing, changing and its collective voice has
never been more important.
This Teacher’s Guide outlines tips for incorporating the corrido you’re
your curriculum. It contains information about the history or the corrido,
links to resources, contest guidelines and important dates. We hope you
will choose to include writing of corridos as part of your educational
activities and help us continue the literary, musical, and cultural legacy of
this border art form!
Best of luck!
Anna Ochoa O’Leary, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Head
Department of Mexican American Studies2
http://mas.arizona.edu/
What is a Corrido?
(Adapted from ArtsEdge “Form and Theme in the Traditional Mexican Corrido” lesson plan)
The corrido is a musical form developed in Mexico during the 1800s and originally sung
throughout the country. Although still popular in Mexico, over time it became known as “musica
de la frontera” (border music) because it was especially popular along both sides of the U.S.Mexico border. This musical-poetic form continues to be popular wherever Mexicans and
Mexican Americans live.
Language
The following elements characterize corridos:
•
Corridos are stories, primarily based in fact, told in poetic form and sung to simple, basic
music, much like English ballads.
•
Corridos use common, everyday language.
•
Although traditional corridos were always in Spanish, in recent years some have mixed
both Spanish and English.
•
The audience, if addressed is always addressed politely.
•
The tone can vary from sincere to satirical.
Structure
The stories that corridos tell, mostly based in factual events, must be sung in the vernacular
language of the people in order to be remembered. There is some variation in the poetic form,
but most corridos have the following structure:
•
36 lines (6 stanzas of 6 lines each or 9 stanzas of 4 lines each)
•
7 to 10 syllables per line (sometimes the lines are repeated)
•
Rhyme scheme that varies but most commonly uses an ABCBDB form in a six-line
stanza or ABCB in a four-line stanza. (Sometimes couplets are used: AABB.)
•
By tradition, the first stanza provides a setting for the story by either giving a specific date
or naming a place or person.
Corrido Activities for the Classroom
For School Administrators
We recommend that a school adopting the corrido art form as part of their learning activities
identify 1 or 2 teachers to serve as the lead coordinator(s). Duties for coordinators may include
enlisting fellow teachers to participate and promoting the contest.
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Contest Guidelines
1) All students from the school are eligible;
2) Each student may submit one corrido
3) Corridos are to be submitted electronically through a form on our website:
http://mas.arizona.edu/corrido-contest
4) Winners will be notified by Jan. 20, 2016.
4) Prizes will be awarded for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd best corridos
5) Any questions? Email SBS-UACorrido@email.arizona.edu
Contest Timeline
We recommend announcing and promoting the contest at least a month prior to closing entries
that falls at the end of the semester. Judging will take place over winter break. After the winners
are announced, they will be contacted by the musicians who will work with them to refine their
piece before they are publically presented in April at the awards ceremony.
Contest deadline and dates:
Entries Due: December 7, 2015
Judging Results: January 15, 2016
Winners can look forward prize money, eight weeks of working with musicians/writers on
their corrido (January 15 – March 15, 2016), and having their corrido performed by a Del
Records artist.
Awards Ceremony: April 2016 – Date TBD
Contest Promotion Tips
•
Display flyers in the school library, cafeteria, and hallways. (A template is available in the
supplemental materials.)
•
Send a notice announcing the contest to the school website and/or newsletter.
•
Publicize the contest in the student newspaper.
•
Announce the contest on the PA broadcast and/or at assemblies.
•
Include other teachers in your planning, particularly Spanish and Language Arts teachers.
Ask them to teach the corrido lesson plans and to encourage their students to enter.
Write an article about the contest and ceremony for the PTA newsletter.
•
•
Post about the ceremony on your school’s social media such as Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, and YouTube.
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Resources
Online Resources
The Poetry Center – http://poetry.arizona.edu/
Online archive of winners of the Annual Bilingual Corrido Contest for High School Students
Corridos sin Fronteras – http://www.corridos.org/
A great site that allows you to write lyrics online and perform them to a prepared corrido
melody
Farmworkers Movement – includes history of corrido as part of Cesar Chavez’s farm
workers movement between the 1960’s and 1990’s.
https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/media/voces/index.shtml
ArtsEdge Corrido Interactive including audio files of other student written corridos –
www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/interactives/lessons/corridos/corridos.swf
Books on Corridos
Poetry and violence : The ballad tradition of Mexico's Costa Chica by John H. McDowell. (University of
Illinois Press, 2000.)
With His Pistol in His Hand: A border ballad and its hero by Américo Paredes. (University of Texas
Press, 1998.)
Music Compilations of Corrido
The Mexican Revolution Corridos: about the heros and events 1910-1920 and beyond.
(1996, Arhoolie Productions, Inc.)
Mexican Corridos (1956, Folkways Records).
Heros and Horses: Corridos from the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands (Smithsonian Folkways
Recordings, 2002).
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