Classcraft in Spanish: Day 1
Today I am awesome.
I have plenty–PLENTY–of days like my amiga Amy describes, but today? Today was not one of them.
Brace yourself for a lot of typing in capitals.
Today easily 90% of the class was in Spanish. Though I only actually caught about 1/3 of them using 90% target language this time, the rest were really busy, and–looking at the Pasión blog today–really successful!
We set up characters for Classcraft yesterday (more on that process in a future post), and I let them know the lay of the land, but today it was for real. I started giving and taking points today–though really I only had to TAKE points for the misión! (It was really pretty cruel to make them name the artist or title for a ruleta song that we didn’t rehearse…*evil snicker*) I even ended up absolving one student of her penalty because after one QUICK time lesson before the festival, she remembered how to express time correctly (LA una!!)
But seriously, these kids were ON. TASK. Maybe it’s because I said if they got all of the portfolio AND Genius Hour stuff out of the way (due tomorrow and Monday respectively), they could go ahead and knock out tonight’s homework during class. In fact, I’m going to make a new 50 XP reward for getting the week’s work (portfolios and Pasión AKA Genius Hour) done way early–after I go through and make sure they really followed instructions. I ain’t even mad about having to post the next set of assignments early!
Today, kids who have been struggling to break out of Novice Mid proficiency were asking questions–increasingly COMPLEX questions–to get their work done! Several of them were even getting AHEAD on the assignments! YAY PERSONALIZATION!
I also TOTALLY got to do a FOR REAL personalization mini-lesson ONE HUNDRED PERCENT IN SPANISH for the kids who were having trouble finding relevant infographs for their Pasión. And EVERYONE found what they needed by the end! It was so cool, because I just listened for what multiple people were having trouble doing and called anyone who needed it up to meet me at the front with a laptop! Tomorrow, I’m thinking a Livebinders troubleshooting session. Also, in the future, I’m definitely making joining a mini-lesson worth 30 XP (less than a paso de pasión, but enough to make it worthwhile).
Also, I think Genius Hour may have set one of my students on an international career pathway. After class, he wanted help deciding if he should use Chevy México or Chevy Honduras for a resource, because Chevy México has the same models available we do, but Chevy Honduras offers different models, which are interesting, but not familiar. Who HAS these kinds of conversations in Spanish TWO?? Kids who have found meaningful connections with authentic resources, that’s who. (Mind you, it was a conversation in English, but it was also not during class time. He just wanted to keep talking about international Chevy models!)
Remind me of this next week when I’m at school until 5:30 updating Classcraft points for the next day.
(Still worth it.)
