El Trofeo: 3 Tips for Writing an Effective TPRS Story

My students were laughing out loud and retelling this story in detail almost immediately. I can cite details from the story at any time, even weeks later, and get a giggle out of more than one kiddo every time.

This is bar none the best TPRS story I have written.

I think it worked so well because of three things:

• limiting the personalization
• differentiating familiar structures
• goofy puns and props

Now, I had considered simply recycling “Muy talentoso,” but I wasn’t happy with the non-ending ending, and I didn’t think it really hooked the kids even then. Plus these kids pretty much have puede, hace, and hay down (well, puede and hace–but we did try hay in the last story they did).

So I started my usual story writing process over, focusing on making the ending unexpected, yet funny. (trofeo, potro feo–get it???)

Personalization simplification

Everything was a whole lot easier to remember when there were only 5 elements to the story the students got to choose. I was desperate to go outside on a beautiful day when I first told the story, so I went back to having students make suggestions before it began. Gotta say pausing and using Nearpod to select during the initial telling was much more effective for maintaining engagement (if only we had wifi outside!!)

Still, students only picked

• the progatonist’s name
• the name of the TV show
• the type of costume he wears to win
• the song he sings to win

Different but the same

Keep an eye on TeachersPayTeachers for an updated version of these sliders!

My kids have been trying to use tiene to form the past tense since Spanish I, so I finally decided to GIVE them ha. Back when we were working on self-improvement and reporting steps we had made towards our goals, I made cute little sliders to show how to form the past participle with all of the verbs they were using in their blog posts.

However, kids were still getting ha and tiene confused right and left. Also, several had started using “tiene a” in their writing.

See, both ha and tiene que translate roughly as “has,” so the confusion is understandable. What better solution to straighten them out than CONTEXT?

In fact, to REALLY drive home the context, The whole first paragraph of the story ONLY uses ha for the fill-in verb blanks, and the whole second paragraph ONLY uses tiene que. The patterns are really easy to pick out.

Now I reinforce each structure almost every day with a Nearpod question or assignment on Classroom–and they have a quick reference for how each is supposed to work in context!

Puns and props

Pinto et al, before  feo makeover… way, WAY before.

My theater minor came in really handy when telling this story–I’ll have to record the drama some time. I was not afraid to oversell the drama. And there is NO greater payoff than when a minute after the story has ended, a handful of students start cracking up uncontrollably at the pun you ended on.

It also didn’t hurt that I had literally taped googly eyes to my son’s beloved horsie Pinto–along with index card buck teeth–in order to create my “potro feo”–which I pulled out of a bag just as the judges revealed it to our unlucky contestant.

Had I felt a little less pressed for time, I totally would have kept my own kid in the dark a little longer for students to act out the story with El Potro Feo, or at least pose with him for some selfies and maybe write their reactions as if they were “Juan” or “Derek Shepherd.”

With the time we do have, though, I make sure to award them Potros Bonitos for their portfolio stickers.

That’s right. My Little Pony stickers.

The final product