An appetizer for Spanish 3
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| Found a neat online picture book version! |
Every teenager has an “And then I knew I was an adult” story, don’t they? By junior or senior year, surely. Right?
I’m having a hard time fitting the whole personal histories idea into my vision of the pre-partum school year, and I had them write me a brief letter the first day. Also, I think it might be a little less intimidating to start off with interpretation, and then from there get into the self expression. Which brings me to “El niño al que se le murió el amigo” by Ana María Matute:
- It is authentic Literature (capital L) from Spain.
- It is about half a page.
- I can easily keep the pre-reading vocabulary list to 15 or fewer.
- Good past tense review
- Relate-able theme?
So tomorrow, I figure I’ll read them the story once through and have them make a mental note of at least 5 familiar words (I did something similar with starting La llaman America in Spanish 2, and it worked rather nicely). Then we’ll go over some unfamiliar vocabulary, first attempting to figure it out from context, perhaps, then turning to dictionaries? With that new knowledge, I’ll have 3 student volunteers read it this time.
Then, I think we’ll break down the preterite words, just to be sure they can still recognize.
After that is where my English ed degree comes in.
“Somebody Wanted But So” is a way to summarize what you’ve read. So I’ve made it “Alguien Queria Pero Entonces.” Basically, the students will finish the phrases started with each of those words (but telling who the someone was instead of just saying someone). We’ll share a few of those, and then they’ll write a journal on the symbols of the story and what they represent, including at least the marbles, the truck, the tin gun, and the broken clock, perhaps the protagonist’s clothes, too.
And then: The Essential Question.
Students will construct timelines of at least 4 possibilities from their lives, conference with me, choose one, and begin writing about it. We’ll conference again, revise, and they’ll type it and upload it to Edmodo.
Think it’ll work?
