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Introduction:
My family comes from a small municipal ( preferable a small village ) called
Tamazulapam Mixe in Oaxaca, Mexico, and I have always been interested in their
government, and when so I made the decision to make the government from
Tamazulapam the main focus for this project. Tama, for short, is not well known
because it’s small and hidden (in a way), and so my intention was for people to know
more about it, and for me to learn more too. The goal that I created for this project was
to make a visual representation of the government of Tamazulapam, using a flat board
(not a trifold), with several pop outs, showing the different positions within the
government and how our culture/traditions are involved. A collage of photos was also
included to give the audience a view of how the town looks like. The 3 ATL skills that I
picked were: researching, self-management, and thinking skills, because the project
overall required a lot of research to be done, and it also required a lot of time and
organization for everything to be completed on time. Aside from the 3 ATL skills, the
global context that I thought was suitable for this project was the one about personal
and cultural expression because it’s something personal and cultural that I am teaching
to the audience. For supervisor, I chose Mr.Walker because he is a really cool teacher
and he gives good advice to do better.

Add more info Investigation:

My parents come from Tamazulapam Mixe Oaxaca, and the culture has been a
big part in my life, from the festivities to the government too. Almost everyday our talks
between my parents, uncles and I involve the government, and what’s happening, and it
can get a little bit confusing. So when we were told that we can base our personal
project on whatever topic, I knew that mine was going to be based on Tamazulapam in
some way so that I can get a better understanding if I decided to live there in the future
because it will come in handy. I created a SMART goal for this specific topic which was:
to make a 38in x 27in flat board in which I described the several positions that there are
in the government of Tamazulapam by February 17th. My SMART goal was highly
challenging for me because it required for me to do a lot of research and to be creative
because a 38in x 27in flat board is big to me. Another reason to why it was challenging
to me was because since I went through many fails, the February 17th was kind of a
short time for me. Both my goal and global context relate by the fact that it’s cultural
based, because my goal is about the government from where my family comes from
and the global context is personal and cultural expression, and so
_______________________.
Before starting on my personal project, I had some relevant information about the
government and what happens there. For example, I already knew that there has been
a lot of assemblies held because of problems between two different rancherias, and I
also knew that __________________________________. My mom, dad, aunt and
cousin-in-law were my sources that I used for this project, and they were vital. My aunt
lives in Tama, and so I would ask her how it is there and how the government is and so
she would tell me. Even though my aunt and I live far away, I know that she is a reliable
key source because she lives there and she is a witness in some way and since it’s a
small town, everything is known there. Both my mom and dad lived there for 20 years,
and since the time they left the government is kind of structured the same. When they
lived there they had a first point of view of how it runs and they are informed by my
uncles and aunts that live there, and since they are my parents, I strongly believe that
they won’t give me false information. My cousin-in-law comes from Tamazulapam too,
and she is a student at UABJO, and she has strong information about the government,
and so I strongly feel that since she is a student and is a close family member, she is
reliable and credible. I didn’t use a lot of sources from the internet because there’s
almost no information about Tama in there, because as I had mentioned earlier, it is
small, hidden, and people don’t know a lot about it and so there’s no way that there is
going to be concrete information on the internet. Through them (my sources), I was able
to discover more information and it surprised me and confused me at the same time.
Tamazulapam is the municipal, and consists of one president, a treasurer, municipal
syndicate, communal goods, teacher of education and more. The municipal is like
Madison, which consists of of many rancherias like; Santa Rosa, Tierra Blanca, Cuatro
Palos, Las Penas, Tierra Caliente, Duraznal, and more, and each rancheria has it’s own
small government too. For example, each rancheria has it’s own mayor, sindico,
president of the band, municipal police officer, and it’s representative. The president is
in charge of the municipal as a whole, including the rancherias _______________.
What really confused and amazed me was that the president and the other authorities
(treasurer, mayor, etc) only last for one year, like in the U.S the president serves for 4 or
8 years, but in Tamazulapam, the president and all of the other authorities only serve for
1 year, with elections held in August.

Second paragraph (Third lets say) Planning:

To continue, for this project, I had to create a success criteria based on my goal.
For the criteria, I took in consideration what I’m actually going to present on the
showcase, and it helped me develop my criteria. I will be successful when I can make: a
visual representation of the government of Tamazulapam Mixe Oaxaca using a 38in x
27in flat board, along with a collage of photos using a poster measuring 24x28 inches,
creating a tri-fold that will include my success criteria, timeline, goal and global context
for the showcase, including a Youtube video or my own video about Tamazulapam by
using all materials under $20. A 38in x 27 in flat board is big and I need to have a lot of
information and visuals, which makes it hard because I have to fill up the board
completely and make it look really nice and presentable. Looking for a video that shows
how Tama is, is going to be kind of hard because many of the videos are not reliable or
what they try to show is different of what I’m trying to present.
I’m aware that the personal project focused on how we self managed ourselves,
but due to my poor planning, my self-management skills did not really excel because I
changed my topic several times. In the start, the topic/goal was to create a dictionary
about the mixe dialect that my family and I speak, which originates from Tamazulapam,
but when I was about to actually start creating my dictionary, I noticed that it wasn’t
going to turn out as I hoped it would, and so I made the decision to change my topic.
The new topic was creating a book full of translations of poems, song lyrics, and quotes
to the mixe dialect. I was pretty excited for this one because I knew that it was
something new and that it would’ve been really cool to present, but unfortunately, I
wasn’t able to meet with my aunt due to the fact that she blew me off, and at that
moment she was the only person that actually knew how to write mixe because she was
a teacher, and my parents couldn’t help me on that one because they don’t know how to
write in mixe. I was pretty mad, sad and pressured because my project wasn’t turning
how I wanted it to be and the due date was about a month away. I felt that I didn’t want
to do it anymore because I couldn’t think of anything else, but then I decided to do it
about the government of Tamazulapam instead. My focus was still on Tamazulapam
and so I told myself, why not do it about the government. Because of the fact that I
changed it again, it meant changing my goal, SMART goal, success criteria and timeline
too.
My final timeline was set like the following: on January, evidence check #3 was
due and I had to print all of pictures that I would be using for my collage, on February
10, there were mock presentations and the final evidence check #4 was due, and finally
on March 2, the personal project showcase will take place.

Taking Action:
The outcome that I created for this project was to create a visual representation
of the government from Tamazulapam Mixe Oaxaca, outlining the positions that there
are, and how culture/traditions are involved. I also included a collage of photos that
show how Tama and the people are. My SMART goal was to make a 38in x 27in flat
board in which I described the several positions that there are in the government of
Tamazulapam by February 17th. The final outcome reflects my SMART goal by the fact
that I was able to accomplish what I mentioned in my SMART goal. My board ended up
being about 36in x 28 in and I was able to include several government positions by
February 17th. The board detailing the government positions reflects my global context
because even though it’s something governmental it’s really personal because it’s about
where my family comes from and almost nobody knows about it and ____________.
Throughout my whole project I collaborated with my classmates, and supervisor.
Probably I collaborated more with my classmates because we helped each other. For
example, if I was confused on something, I would ask them and they would help, and
they would ask me and I would help them too. With my supervisor I didn’t really ask that
much help because like I felt that I had it and because of the lessons on friday for
personal project, I thought everything was under control. Probably what I was
successful with from this project overall was the board itself and the collage. I feel that
my ATL skills weren’t really successful because I was all over the place and my process
journals were not okay because I would not go in detail of the fact that it wasn’t really
necessary for me to write everything I learned on there. My overall outcome gives new
perspectives of the government from where I come from. Many people can learn of how
different the government from where I come from differentiates from the government
from where they come from or even from here, the U.S. They can see how
culture/traditions is important to the government.

Reflection