Your T.A.s inform me that you want more specific guidelines for the Rigoberta Menchú essay. I will add a few comments, only enough to ensure that in constructing your essays you think through on your own how to synthesize the most significant issues.

The background on Guatemala on this website is useful, simply to orient you. It is not required reading, but should add perspective to your understanding of the book. What follows is not a comprehensive plan for your essay , but rather additional suggestions to guide you. It is up to you to put together what you think are the essential ingredients for a good essay.

Question 1. Please read all instructions carefully. EVERYONE MUST ANSWER QUESTION #1: In answering this question focus on the cultural richness of Mayan peasants and their beliefs and practices. You should discuss their world view (beliefs, values, relationship with nature, etc.) and other important aspects of their culture and its traditions in some depth. I would certainly expect you to contrast the Mayan world view with that of the Ladinos.

Question 2. You MUST CHOOSE EITHER 2 OR 3. To answer #2, you would want to address traditional roles of women and analyze how Rigoberta did or did not fit into this pattern and why. It is essential that somewhere in your essay you deal with the national political context--neglecting this and how it affected Mayan peasant communities would be a serious omission. You should have talked about this background in discussion sections. Explain the strategies Rigoberta and others used in this situation and what YOU think about them being labeled "communists."

Question 3. This question requires you to demonstrate what you know about theories on peasants--functionalist (Chayanov, Foster, Redfield) and marxist (Marx, Wolf). To answer this question you would have to address the Mayans a s agricultural producers, the nature of their communities, and their relationship to the world outside of their communities. You certainly would have to bring in issues of land and the large landowners. To this you should explain how their religious pra ctices fit in. And what do you believe the book demonstrates in terms of peasant struggle?