Robo en la noche - ch 11, 12, & 13

The  last few days my students have read chapters 11, 12, and 13 in the TPRS Publishing, Inc, book, Robo en la noche, by Kristy Placido (@placido on Twitter). 

Chapter 11
1. We read the chapter together; some classes read it in small groups.
2. I chose a student to be the "all-time artist". 
3. The other students formed groups of 3-4.  Each group had a marker, a mini-marker board, and an eraser.
4. I had prepared a pack of index cards.  On each card I wrote a sentence from chapter 11 (in the TL). Many of the sentences were long so I chose a number from 3-7, wrote it at the top right of the card, and circled it.  
5. The artist sketched the sentence on the board and the groups had to look for the sentence in the book.  I wrote the circled number on the board and that represented how many words they needed to write in the sentence. (I didn't want to spend time on the students writing long sentences.)
6. To keep the activity moving, after I thought the artist had provided sufficient information in the sketch, I started a timer on the iPad for 1 minute. When the timer went off, I told students to hold up their marker boards and checked for the correct sentence.  Spelling and punctuation counted in this activity since they were copying from the book. It also helped to keep everyone in the group involved because they didn't want someone in their group copying incorrectly from the book.

Because we are going through Keystone Testing for two weeks, it means my 1st period class is 2 hours and the second class is 26 minutes. They rotate each day so the instruction time is not uneven at the end of the two weeks.  I felt I needed a review activity for several of the chapters, so I also created the activity with the sketches (seen at top of the post) and the sheet with statements to be matched to the sketches for chapter 11.  

I used the same sketches and made a short video using ExplainEverything and then exported the movie to my Dropbox.  I now have this available to post on Edmodo for students that were absent.

Other possible activities to use with the sketches:
- Don't distribute the statement sheet, but rather have the students look for the statements in the book.
- The teacher can say a statement and students determine which sketch matches it.
- The teacher can retell the chapter, using the sketches as a guide.
- Students can retell the chapter to a partner or in small groups, using the sketches as a guide.
- Ask students to say as many sentences as possible about each sketch.
- Put the sketches in random order on a smartboard program such as Notebook.  Students order the sketches. (It may be best to break the sketches into two groups to make it easier to work with the sketches.)
- Put the sketches on a smartboard program and let the students guess what happens in the chapter BEFORE they read the chapter.

Chapter 12
1. I wrote 12 comprehension questions about information on chapter 12.  After students read the chapter, I uploaded the questions to Textivate. 
2. The first activity on Textivate the students completed was MultiMatch.
3. The second and third activity they did on Textivate was the Memory 6 (as a practice) and Memory 12.

Chapter 13
Order of activities before and after chapter 13 of "Robo en la noche":  
Preview of chapter 13 
1. Several days before reading chapter 13, choose 9 sentences from the chapter that will be easy to illustrate and tells the events of the chapter.
2. Give the sentences to 9 different students. They will sketch them on a small (less than 1/6 sheet) piece of paper.
3. Collect sketches and hold onto them until you are ready to read chapter 13.
4. Put sketches under a document camera. Students describe the sketch in the TL.
5. Put sketches in order. (Remember that this is before you have read the chapter w/ the students.) Teacher chooses the first sketch of the chapter and another one (make it obvious that is happens somewhere other than the first 1/2 of the chapter.
6. Ask students which sketch they think is first in the chapter.
7. After they decide which is first, choose two other sketches and ask which they think is first.
8. Continue until the 9 sketches are in the correct order.
In this way, the students basically knew what happened in the chapter which made it (even more) comprehensible to all the students.

Reading and After Reading 
1. As you read, you can leave the sketches under the document camera and students raise their hand or stand up when we read a sentence that they think matches with the sketch.
2. As soon as you finish chapter 13, instruct all students to close books.
3. Ask which students have seen the following movies: Money Ball, Secretariat, Remember the Titans, etc. Discuss the epilogue that describes what the characters of the story are doing now.
4. Put students in groups of two and tell them to write an epilogue that would be appropriate to play at the end of a movie. 
Since they didn't read the last two chapters yet, they will need to use their imaginations
I used the following 5 characters:  Makenna, el Dr. David Parker, Inés, Cecilio, and Juan Carlos.
5. Collect the student-written epilogues. Read them to the class going through all the Makenna scripts first, then el Dr. Parker, etc. Correct the mistakes on the spot which makes students shine.

I did the epilogue activity with two of my classes.  The more creative the students were the better they liked the activity. I instructed them to be creative but to write logical scenarios.  One of my favorites was that Juan Carlos stopped working for the MINAE and decided to enter the Lucha Libre culture as a fighter with the name "El ave".  It was nice to hear they remembered that information from when I shared stories that included the culture of Mexico.