Sketches Help Guide Students for Story Retells

"Mónica" in the book, Fiesta Fatal

I've been reading the book Fiesta Fatal, written by Mira Canion, with my Spanish 2 students.  Mira's goal, when writing the book, was to create a book that was level appropriate for second year Spanish students and she succeeded in accomplishing that goal!  If you're looking for a comprehensible level 2 book that has an interesting storyline, this is one book you should strongly consider.

Today we read the last chapter of Fiesta Fatal.  Some students volunteered to read the lines for the main characters in the chapter.  I always look for ways in which students can interact with the text, so after reading, I projected the below sketches onto the board.  We reviewed what happened as students said sentences in Spanish that matched the sketches.  If they were uncertain about what to say, I allowed them to refer to the book. 

Find the download of the worksheet to the left HERE.

After the students were familiar with the sketches I paired them up with a partner and distributed squares of paper that had the same sketches on them and gave them the following instructions:

1. Put the squares on the desk face down.

2. Randomly choose two cards and turn them over.  

3. Decide the order of the two cards.   

4. One partner says a sentence in Spanish to describe the sketch that they decided happened first in the chapter.  The second student says a sentence to describe the second sketch.

5. The students choose a third paper, turn it over, and say a sentence to describe the sketch.  

6. They they decide if that sketch is before the other two, in between the other two, or at the end of the first two sketches.

7. When the 3 sketches are in the correct order, they take turns saying a sentence for each of the sketches. (Student A describes sketch #1, Student B describes sketch #2, Student A describes sketch #3.)

8.  Students continue turning the papers over, one by one, putting the new card in the correct place, and taking turns once again to say a sentence for each sketch.

9. When they were finished, they called me to their desks and I listened to their retell of the story.

To download the two sheets of sketches shown below for the retells, click HERE.  (The sketches on the sheets below are not in any particular order. Feel free to substitute any, or all, sketches that you are able to sketch better than I have done.)