América: Framework for Spanish 2?

Page 1 is a perfect review of Spanish 1. It is also a chance to connect literature to each individual student. I hope it can also be the basis for TL conversations about identity and origins.

I’d like to spend a day or two on interpreting the page, a couple of days interviewing each other and having students create their own introductions to themselves, using page 1 as a model. I’d like to say no two people can do the same kind of presentation, but I’m afraid that’s not very realistic. Three weeks seems like a good amount of time for this warming up.

Page 2 has some good context for introducing object pronouns as well as occasion to find Mexican states .We could also discuss the influence of community connections on identity.

I’d like to spend a day or two on maps of the key places. I could bring in some songs with object pronouns to reinforce the grammar. If we could skype with some people from different parts of our own country, even, maybe we could have some meaningful discourse about the effect of place on identity. After a couple of weeks, students might produce a write-up of an interview with someone from a place other than our town–using object pronouns.

Page 3 has some good reflexive pronouns in context, plus a scene of a random shooting to raise discussion about crime, violence gangs–anything! I see spending only a couple of weeks on the reflexive pronouns, again with songs or news articles related to things like the shooting that América witnesses. Depending on what’s going on in the news, we might spend another week on the news, thus ending the first quarter.

Page 4 brings first a dip into the imperfect, reflecting on América’s life before moving, and then the preterite, talking about teachers discussing her legal status the day before. Immigration always makes for some great debating.

I think we’ll take it paragraph by paragraph at this point, dividing the study of the imperfect from the preterite initially. We could talk about what students used to be like compared to how they are now and reasons for that, maybe getting some good debate out of that, too. Students might produce reflections on their own childhoods at the end, maybe bringing in the plate activity I got at my last school (involving baby pictures and collages on one side, descriptions of childhood tendencies on the other).

The context illustrates the difference between the two past tenses very clearly, I think, and, as always, songs to reinforce–the 3rd person singular at least. This might be a good time for a sidetrack with La Princesa de Trujillo for reinforcement too, and then maybe with a little Sandra Cisneros (“Un Sandwich de Arroz” for the teacher shaming the child?). So for this page, probably a total of 6 weeks? That would bring us about to Baby’s due date, meaning students can continue with something kind of familiar when they come back and I don’t, perhaps.

Page 5 conveniently enough brings a reprisal of the reflexives in time for midterm review! It is also when the poet enters the picture, and I hate to miss the poetry, so perhaps students should begin exploring poetry as part of the reinforcement, too, and maybe writing some beforehand too. I think a poetry glog would be nice, perhaps something original plus something by a Latino-American poet (the book lists a few and is written by one!)

Page 6 could probably be lumped in with page 5, as part of the poetry; I didn’t note any structures to highlight in it anyway.

Page 7 has a little preterite, but would probably be better served as an introduction to present progressive. Mi Gato would make a nice diversion/reinforcement tool, too. Discussion topics could relate to parents who “just don’t understand” and future plans: fallback AND dreams, especially if we tie in Page 8, maybe even 9 & 10, as interpretive skills should be picking up by then. They might wrap this up around the time I’m back from maternity leave, in 2-3 weeks.

Page 11 would be good to explore some idioms and wrap it all up, maybe leading up to students writing their own children’s books that they could read to ESL audiences at the local elementary school.

I worry that this will kind of bore kids, stretching out a simple picture book so long, but I suppose if it’s as rich as I think it is, then it might be a good touchstone anyway.