Pachuca and Seattle, my life here and there

Introduction

Pachuca, formally known as Pachuca de Soto, is the capital of the Mexican state of Hidalgo. It is located in the south-central part of the state. Pachuca de Soto is also the name of the municipality of which the city serves as municipal seat. Pachuca is located about 90 km from Mexico City via Highway 85. Its nickname of “La bella airosa” (Beautiful Airy City) comes from the strong winds that blow into the valley through the canyons to the north of the city. The area had been long inhabited but except for some green obsidian, but the mining that Pachuca is famous for began in the mid-16th century, during Spanish colonial rule. Pachuca remained a major mining center until the mid-20th century, with the city’s fortunes going up and down with the health of the mining sector. In the mid-20th century, a major downturn in mining pushed Pachuca to change its economy to industry, with the revamping of the Universidad Autónoma de Hidalgo. Today, mining is only a fraction of the municipality’s economy.

One cultural aspect that makes Pachuca stand out is the influence that Cornish miners who immigrated here in the 19th century have had. Many of their descendents remain in Pachuca and nearby Real del Monte, as well as two heritages that define the city, soccer and a dish called “pastes.

Seattle is a major coastal seaport and the seat of King County, in the U.S. state of Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of North America and the largest city on the West Coast north of San Francisco. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the United States. The city is situated on a narrow isthmus between Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington, about 114 miles (183 km) south of the Canada–United States border, yet further north than Toronto. In 2010, the container ports in the Seattle metropolitan area (Seattle-Tacoma) were the third busiest in the United States, after Los Angeles–Long Beach and New York–New Jersey, serving as a major gateway for trade with Asia.

The Seattle area had been inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent white settlers.^[10] Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. The settlement was moved to its current site and named "Seattle" in 1853, after Chief Si'ahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes.

Task

You have been keeping an on line diary with all the experiences you have had since your arrival in Seattle. One day you decide to write about your life here (USA) with your life there (Mexico), comparing the places, the people and the things that one can find in USA and in Mexico.

Write a page on your diary comparing the places you have known and the places you knew, the people you have met with your Mexican friends and your house and its furniture in Seattle with those in Mexico (Write at least three comparisons of people, three of places and three of things).

Resources

Below are some sites that will help you accomplish the task.

Websites

• Living in Seattle

http://www.seattle.gov/living

• Everything furniture
  http://www.everythingfurniture.com/
• How to write a diary

http://www.ehow.com/how_2161152_write-a-diary.html

• Describing things in English                                                                                                 http://www.english-at-home.com/grammar/comparisons/ 

Process

1. Visit and study all the notes in the websites.
2. Review the exercises done in class (Hulk is stronger than The Thing…) and the comparisons you made.
3. Open this link http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/comparaison/compsup1.htm, do the exercise, click check button, print the screen and copy it to Word once it has the result you got.
4. Sign up in this website: http://www.deardiaryifeel.com/ (Start My Diary)
5. Write the comparisons on the website.
6. Print the screen, copy it to Word and upload the file to Dropbox.

              

Evaluation

Task completion

3	addresses the writing task effectively
2	some parts of the writing task are not addressed
1	addresses only slight parts of the task

Use of the language

4	displays consistent facility in the use of appropriate language for the task
3	displays facility in the use of language with slight inconsistencies in appropriacy but communication not impaired
2	inconsistent facility with syntax, usage and appropriacy, impairing communication or comprehension
1	serious problems and frequent errors in sentence structure  or usage, obscuring meaning

Form (Organisation)

3	Material well organized
2	Some lack of organization
1	Lack of organisation so severe

Conclusion
 

Upon completion of this project you will have learned how to make comparisons in English.