Scavenger Hunt - Get students up and moving!

May seemed like the perfect month to create an activity for my students that would require them to get up and moving in order to read and answer questions. I wrote a basic story, Marcos se quejó mucho and then created the scavenger hunt based on the story. 

The overarching purpose was to familiarize the students with the verb QUEJARSE before watching the Sr. Wooly video, La Dentista. The previous day I had used PQA (personalized questions and answers) based  on what students, teachers, and others complain about and then asked students if they complained about various things the previous day. That class conversation paved the way for this activity.

The story is about a boy that goes to school on Friday and complained about quizzes, a teacher not being in the room to get help, an overdue library fine, and other reasons. Each place that Marcos went in the story and complained are the locations that I posted questions that students had to answer. Some questions were directly related to the story and others could be answered without the story.

Below are the instructions I handed out to the students.

Scavenger hunt

Goal:

a. to answer the 8 questions correctly in order to...

b. ...get the words for the secret questions, and

c. to unscramble the words to make a question

It should take you 15 minutes or less to find the 8 questions throughout the school, answer the questions, and return to the room to get the last WORD for the question.

1. Read the story Marcos se quejó mucho. (The locations that Marcos goes to in the story is where you will find the questions!)

He complains about 8 different things in the school. In order to know where to find the 8 posted questions, read the story and go to the 8 different places mentioned in the story.

2. Answer the questions posted throughout the school. Write the words that are written in CAPITAL LETTERS after the correct answer to the question. (Remember: you need to answer the questions correctly in order to have the correct 8 words/phrases to unscramble and form a question!)

3. After you have the 8 different words/phrases, return to Profe Hitz's class to get the 9th word.

4. With your partner/group, unscramble the question and hand it to Profe Hitz.

The two screenshots below are from the activity. The first one has a question NOT based directly on the story. The second screenshot is a question based directly on the story about Marcos.

Ideas to make this activity run smoothly:

1. Tell the students the expectations for their behavior in the hall. Email your colleagues and let them know your students will be in the halls and at what time they will be moving throughout the school.

2. Before class, I highlighted one of the 8 places on 8 different papers so students didn't all have the same starting point.

3. I put students in pairs or groups of 3.

4. I distributed the paper to group 1, which had "biblioteca" highlighted because it is the first location that Marcos visits. I told them to leave the classroom and go to the location highlighted on the paper and then continue with the story in that order.

I gave group 2 their paper, with "la clase de Inglés" highlighted and told them to start there.

For my class of 29, after I had given papers to the first 8 groups, I then gave group 9 a paper that started them at the library. It helped keep groups from all going to the same place to start. If I had extended the story to 2 or 3 more locations, that would have been even better!

5. I wrote the last word "PREFIERES" on the board after all groups had left my room. When they returned to my classroom, I directed them to look at the board and start unscrambling the words to make a question.

The story is pictured below. The directions and accompanying questions are  available HERE.  (Hopefully the link works for you!)

Story Scripts & Preloading Vocabulary

 

I'm a few days away from starting the novel "El escape cubano" written by Mira Canion. In my classroom, it's all about front loading the vocabulary before opening the pages of a novel so students sail through the reading with ease, making the reading more enjoyable.

For several years I've been using the story "La novia se queda en el ascensor". This year, with the need to revamp the formats of my story scripts in order to make the material available to those four different groups that meet at the SAME TIME each day: (1) those that are in my class on A/B days, (2) those learning at home on A/B days, (3) the 100% synchronous students, and (4) for those students in the classroom every day. 

Here is an outline of how I presented the story and provided extension activities for the story "La novia se queda en el ascensor".

1. Using a document camera so students at home can see and projecting onto my board for students at school to see, students and I filled in the vocabulary sheet below. Students already KNOW most of the words. The new words are the ones I highlighted in yellow. This shows the students that they already know most of the word, plus they are introduced to the new ones in the upcoming story.

2. I told the story using illustrations on Google Slides for visual support for both students in class and at home.

3. After telling the story, we read the story script. (page one shown below)

4. Then I asked 10 True/False questions. They listened to the questions and to go over the questions I projected the questions on the board.

5. I projected six slides, (one is shown below), in which students read the sentences and had to say if the sentence described picture A, B, or X - neither A nor B.

6. I uploaded the student copy of the story. It included title page (where students wrote their names so in my google drive it was clear on page one who completed the work); slide 2 had the directions; slides 3-5 had the story (but it was a jpg image of the story so they couldn't copy and paste the sentences); and slides 6-24, BUT...the illustrations were not in the correct order. The students had to order the slides by reading the story, and then they had to type one sentence (only one per slide) from the story for each slide.

7. Somewhere in there, we had read the story script again.

8. We played FLIP THE SCRIPT explained HERE.

Those activities flowed well together and were a nice balance of listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and writing.

Next, I'm working on making a digital file for the riddle I usually use before reading "El escape cubano". I'll share that on a future post.

If you are interested in the google slide presentation you can email me at cynthiaunderscorehitzatyahoodotcom    OR leave a comment below with your email.

Flip the Script - A New Game for the WL Classroom

 

It's a good day when you create a new game and it goes over well with each class that you play it. I created and played FLIP THE SCRIPT with three of my Spanish 2 classes today and since it worked so well I wanted to share it with others.

I'm preparing my students to read "El escape cubano" by Mira Canion, which will be their first novel that they read this year. Before we read this novel, I usually tell a story that I wrote about a bride and groom that encounter a problem when they go to their wedding reception. The goal is to provide a "boatload" of comprehensible input for the words se escapa and se queda, which are words found in the first few chapters.  

FLIP THE SCRIPT explanation

1. You need a story script in which the students are familiar.

The story I used is titled: La novia se queda en el ascensor. I've read the story with my students and they participated in other writing and listening tasks using the same story script before playing FLIP THE SCRIPT.

2. Choose words/phrases in the text for students to translate from English to the TL and change those words to another color.  Assign point values to the words/phrases with higher point values for the more challenging words/phrases. 

Notice in the photo below, that some words are worth 1 point. The one point words are those that are used elsewhere in the text; the two points are ones that are not used in the text but I felt confident most teams would know them. There are some 3-point, 4-point, even a 6-point words.

3. Depending on your class size, tell students to form groups of 2-4. Three works best; 4 is probably too many because it makes it too easy for one of the group members to not participate.

4. Groups take turns. The first group chooses any word/phrases in parenthesis. They discuss the answer in their group, then one of the members writes the answer on a mini-whiteboard. If they are correct, they earn the points listed for that word/phrase. If they are wrong, their turn is over and the next group chooses a word to translate.

It is NOT a race. The teams take turns and that same rotation continues until all the words have been translated to Spanish.

The letters on the side are there so students identify the paragraph with the letter and then say which word they in English they translated to Spanish before showing me their whiteboard.

Advantages of FLIP THE SCRIPT:

- Students discussed the answers

- For many sentences the students had to read the full sentence to know WHO is doing the action

- Students stayed focused whether working on the word they chose or glancing at what other groups wrote

- There is strategy involved; there were some groups that were leading with points that chose a 1 point word of which they were sure instead of choosing one they were not sure of.

- No pressure - teams can earn points each time when choosing the easier words - slow and steady wins the race (as what happened in one of my classes today).

Disadvantage of FLIP THE SCRIPT:

- The students in school played the game while students at home did another assignment. I'm not sure how to include the students at home without them having the advantage of looking up the words. 

 

¿QUÉ TE GUSTA? Lesson Idea for levels 1 & 2

Today I'm sharing a lesson that will engage students and provide you, the teacher, with a load of possibilities to comprehensible input related to the students' responses. My example is today's lesson with repetitions of the verb GUSTAR, but you can switch out the vocabulary and keep the same type of format for any structures. 

As background, at my school students with last names beginning with A-K on come to school on "A" days and the rest of the students login from home and watch/participate in the lesson synchronously.  The next day students L-Z are at school while the A-K students learn online synchronously. There are a handful of students that are 100% synchronous. What that means, is that everyday I am working simultaneously with students in person and students online. I created this activity so students could participate regardless of their physical location. (For another activity for hybrid classes or for regular classes too, see THIS POST.)

Create the Google Slide Presentation. The title slide is shown above. On the second slide, I created a separate text box with each of the students' names. (I changed the names for this blogpost.) You could have your students do this, but I decided to provide this for the students so the font, size, and color were uniform. 

Don't forget to add your name too!

Then I made several slides that asked students if they liked something and gave them two options (yes, I like.... or no I don't like....). To prevent students from accidentally (or purposefully) clicking on the text boxes and photos on each slide, I saved the slide as a PNG and then uploaded the PNG as a background. 

You can go over the slides before you instruct the students how to respond, but I added some translations to the slides so I wouldn't have to do that.

Share the Google Slide Presentation. I shared the document with the students by placing it on Schoology, our LMS. I shared it so they did NOT have to make a copy because I want all of the students answering on one presentation.

Demonstrate how to add your name to the slides. I demonstrated how to click on my name, press COMMAND + C to copy my name, and then move to another slide to paste their name with COMMAND + V (on a MAC). To add my name to other slides, I continued to press COMMAND + V. 

Then I told the students to do the same and to add their names to the appropriate spot on each slide. Yes, it DID get tricky at times for students to add their names and then move it to the correct side, but everyone managed. For the second class that I had for the day, I told students to go to another slide that wasn't as busy with other students. 

Discussion of the students' answers. After the students at school and at home had added their names to the slides, I asked personalized questions in Spanish about their answers, i.e. What flavor of ice cream do you like? Do you like to swim in the ocean or in a swimming pool? You said you like the city better than the country, what are two cities that you like?

Write and discuss. I asked a student to name one of the students in the class and then we wrote several sentences about that student, and then additional sentences to describe how many students liked or didn't like something on the slides. I split my computer screen with the slide presentation on one side and the paper on which I was writing with the help of the document camera on the other side.

Another use for the Google Slide Presentation. Take screenshots of four slides after the names are added. Put those on one slide and then ask true/false questions about the information as a closing activity. 

The good and the bad: (similar to what Keith Toda does on his blog, Todally Comprehensible, that I really like. He names it "observations".)

- The activity provided both reading input (when they read to answer the questions) and listening input

- With only a few slides, there is a lot of information to work with.

- Students were engaged not only when adding their names to the slides, but also when anticipating that I may ask them about their response.

- It can be tricky when students move their name to one column or the other. Some students may be tempted to delete other's answers or move them.

- After one class's google slide presentation is finished, it was easy to copy the entire presentation and change only the names on slide 2. 

- If group work is possible in your setting, you can assign one slide to a group and working with their group members, they can write additional sentences.

- The students' answers on the slides can be used the following day with short answer questions.

If you want a copy which you can edit, click HERE.

Let's Start the School Year! An Activity that Works for Virtual Classes or In Person or Hybrid Models

 I'm five days away from the first day with students for the 2020-2021 school year. Currently, we are planning on seeing half of our students on alternating days, and the days they are not in school they will login and view the lesson synchronously. I will have several students in each class that are learning 100% synchronously online, and several that are attending school every day.

My goal for my Spanish 2 students was to create a lesson in which students will learn about their classmates (build community) while listening to the conversation that I will have with each student based on the information (photos) that they have provided. I wanted a lesson that would work for both virtual classes and in-person classes because if 2020 has taught us anything, it is that change happens very quickly!

For Spanish 2, I usually do "card talk" in which students sketch a few things about themselves on construction paper and I discuss their sketches while I share it with the class. For my Spanish 4 students, I usually have them send me a photo of them that was taken over the summer and add it to a google doc. My plans for Spanish 4 are only slightly different this year, but Spanish 2 has changed completely.

I wanted to make their work as easy as possible so I created a Google Slides presentation, shared it with students, and students have an assignment to add photos on their slide before the first class.  I could have given them instructions and have them write their name, but, again, I was going for super easy, so I created all the slides, copied the directions on each slide, and completed a slide of myself as a model.

I know many of you have already started school, in fact tonight in my Spanish class for Spanish Teachers, taught by Adriana Ramirez 🙂,one of the teachers said he was already on his third week with students! But even if you have already started school, maybe this activity will still be useful for you or it may spark a new idea for something you can do with your students that centers around them AND provides a great deal of opportunities for comprehensible input.

Slide 1 - TITLE SLIDE

SLIDE 2 - with instructions

Slide 3 - My example to model what students should do.

When I discuss my slide with the students, I will tell them my name, that I have a farm, which involves a lot of work, that I like to travel, and, No, I don't want a zebra. I want to go somewhere to see them in their natural habitat. COVID-19 destroyed my plans for doing that this summer, but I'm hopeful it will happen next year.)

Slides 4-?, one for each student with instructions for students. 

10 Uses for Revista Literal: A FREE Spanish Resource

If you're a Spanish teacher and you haven't heard about Revista Literal yet, then I'm here to introduce you to this incredible resource.  Revista Literal is the brainchild of Martina Bex, a language curriculum specialist and also the founder of The Comprehensible Classroom, the SOMOS curriculum, Garbanzo language website, and creator/writer of endless resources on TeachersPayTeachers (not to mention a national presenter and keynote speaker.  I stated above, it is a FREE resource. According to the Revista Literal website, "Revista Literal is a monthly publication for beginning Spanish language learners written by Spanish language learners. Each month, readers submit short, original stories for publication." 

After students submit their stories, Martina invites native Spanish speakers to proof the stories and then she adds glossaries for the stories and volunteers add the English translations to the glossaries. After the stories are proofed and have glossaries, Martina places the stories in an online format, creates a title page listing the stories for the month, and adds graphics to the stories. She credits the writers of the stories using the students' first name and town and state, and credits the volunteer proofers and glossary writers. Then she publishes the stories online as a free resource for Spanish teachers. 

Then, voila, you have a free resource that comes to you each month to use with your students. Some of the stories are written in the present tense and others in the past.

Here are 10 ways to add the stories to your lesson plans.

1. Partner Reading. Students pair up with a partner and read the stories to each other for X number of minutes. This even works for your novice readers because of those beautiful glossaries for each story.

2. Extra Reading Resources. If you have students or parents asking what is available for a student that is struggling, or on the other end of the spectrum, a student that wants to continue learning beyond the classroom, tell them about Revista Literal. I download the resource (yes, you can download it if you prefer to read it on paper) and add it to our learning managagement system so it is always available to students.

3. Bell-ringer. Project a story from Revista Literal and ask comprehension questions for students to answer. Last week I projected the story "EL LABORATORIO" and alongside where it was projected I wrote the following questions for my Spanish 1 students to answer in English.

ANSWER IN ENGLISH:
1. Write 2 descriptions for Dave.
2. Write 3 facts about his job.
3. List 4 things about Karen.

Although I only asked for 2 descriptions for Dave, when I went over the answers with the class and a student responded with 2 of the descriptions, I asked what other descriptions were mentioned. I did the same with #2 and #2, Then we read the end of the story together.

4. Sub Plans! Use your imagination on how you can make your life easier when you need to be absent from work. Revista Literal will continue to provide comprehensible input to your students during your absence.

5. Running Dictation. Read Martina's explanation of Running Dictation here. If you want to put a new spin onto running dictation, use an online crossword puzzle creator and make a crossword puzzle of information from the story. You'll get double-whammy of reading out of the story because students read the story from Revista Literal (in the hall or wherever you have it posted) and then have to read the crossword clues at their "home base" in the classroom. 

6. Chronological Order. Pull some sentences out of the story that can easily conform to a timeline and have the students predict the order of the story. Obviously, do not read the story with the students before this. If you want to do this as a group, show (tape to the board) 2 of the sentences and ask students which one is first in the story, then add another sentence and students decide the placement of the third sentence. Add another and continue; students can change the order as new sentences are added and the story order becomes clearer (or they think it becomes clearer). 

7. Find It. Project the story, read it together with the students, then play Find It with flyswatters as explained here. 

8. Mosaic Story(a). Do this before reading the stories with the students. Pull sentences from 3 different stories from Revista Literal and list the sentences on one paper in random order. Write a brief description of each of the stories (brief!-brief!-brief!) in English (don't mention any of the characters in the story by their name in the story), and the students' task is to determine which sentences go with which story.

9. Mosaic Story (b). Again, do not read the story with the students before completing this task. Pull sentences from several stories and have the students create a story using the sentences. You could tell students they can omit X number of sentences and/or you can tell students to add sentences to make the story flow. The Mosaic Story (b) activity will provide your novice high and intermediate students an opportunity to create with the language.

10. Go crazy! Students use any sentences from the entire monthly issue to create a short story. Limit the students to 10 sentences or whatever number works best for you. Come to think of it, THIS would be a good emergency sub plan to have available when you need it. 

Obviously, since Revista Literal has stories, there are a boatload of possibilities. 

Thank you Martina for making teaching a bit easier.  ❤️

The POWER of Daily Warm-ups (bell ringers)

How is it that I've only really experienced the power of daily warm-ups this year, after almost two decades of teaching? 

I've used warm-ups to start class, off and on during my years of teaching, but this year is when everything has come together, along with my determination to prepare daily warm-ups and my mindset on what types of warm-ups to use for students to receive the most benefit from them. 

When the teacher is consistent in providing daily warm-ups it provides a comfortable and structured start of the class for the students. I greet my students at the door and they in turn greet me with that week's password. When they enter the room, they see the warm-up projected on the board. They collect the things they need from their backpacks, grab a clipboard (I have a deskless classroom), go to their seat, and boom, they're immersed in Spanish from the very start of class.

My suggestions for creating warm-ups are:
-be consistent! 
-keep it short 
-always...go over it with the students
-connect it with previous lessons
-personalize it to students
-make sure students will be able to complete it without struggling 
-don't collect it (that's right - don't do that to yourself!)

Some benefits of daily warm-ups are:

- Immediately immerses students in language that is comprehensible: the emphasis is on "comprehensible language",  which puts students at ease and instills them with confidence because they know they can be successful in completing the activity

- Sets the tone for the class: we're going to utilize every minute of the class period in experiences that are designed specifically with the students' success in the language as top priority

- Connects to the students: use sketches that students created, and conversations/photos from previous days; students understand their contributions are important elements of the class and they are appreciated! 

- Creates a familiar setting/comfortable routine: students know the routine and are immediately put at ease as they follow the routine (benefits both the quiet students and those that are filled with energy that we may wish we had 😂)

- Provides quiet time: students that complete the warm-up know they will have a few moments to relax after they complete the activity as classmates finish up the warm-up

- Reviews material from previous day(s): reinforces the material introduced/ discussed in the past, providing additional input

- Informal Formative assessment: as teacher moves throughout classroom and glances at students' work, it gives quick feedback on students' progress 

- Provides time for teacher tasks: take attendance, catch absent students up to date, etc, 

Below are examples of the warm-ups I've used in the last few days

1. One of the classes created this OWI (One Word Image). I used the warm--up for all three of the Spanish 1 classes the following day.

2. I used SpanishPlans' lesson "El Niño quiere un dragon" (free on TPT). This was the warm-up the following day. It's the first time students had to form the sentence from scrambled words so I did not put any extra words in the sentences that were not needed. 

3. I created this warm-up based on the conversation I had with students the previous day. The lesson is from Martina Bex's Somos curriculum, Level 1, Unit 1 (free on TPT).  

4. New short stories using previous introduced vocabulary. I don't require students write answers in complete sentences at this stage of their acquisition.

5. OWI reading created previous day. I taped the drawing of the OWI on the board next to where this paragraph was projected for students to refer to.

6. Unscramble sentences. Students did a similar warm-up the previous week (see #2 above). The previous day I had a substitute so students listened to the first half of a story I wrote and put on a video, and then read the 2nd half of the story and answered comprehension questions. This warm-up is based on the video & reading from the previous day.

Yes, I create a new warm-up each day, but NO, it doesn't take much time.  

Sub Plans that keep the CI Flowing

One of my least favorite tasks as a teacher is to write substitute plans. I can take the easy way out and have the students watch a movie. Movies have a variety of value: there are movies in the target language that students don't understand, movies in the target language with English subtitles, and movies that are in English but are culturally rich. 

What other options are available? What will keep the CI flowing even when the substitute doesn't speak the language you teach? 

Why not have a Spanish teacher in another part of the United States be your sub? Wait...What? Thanks to teachers that are recording themselves telling stories in the target language and making a concerted effort to keep the information comprehensible, language teachers now have another option for substitute plans. Use the videos of other language teachers telling stories that are on YouTube and Vimeo videos, and voila, that teacher can be your substitute for the day!

As more teachers are sharing their recordings online, I have been replacing old substitute plans with the new ones. Below are a few examples of how to write substitute lesson plans that will keep the CI flowing during your absence. The examples are of Spanish, but you can use the ideas for any language as long as you can find videos in your language.

1. Mike Peto!  @mike_peto on Twitter
Have you seen Mike Peto's videos on Vimeo?  If not, click HERE for his Vimeo account page for a list of his videos. In the videos he tells fables or stories that he wrote using high frequency words. He uses any tense that is needed to tell the story, but no worries - he is a genius at making it comprehensible and he uses his /or actions in the story.  At times, he writes the Spanish word and its English translation on the board.  Some of his videos he recorded during the actual lesson with students, so you can observe his comprehension checks with the students. There are other videos that Mike made without any students in class because he made them specifically for an absence this month.

The story I chose for my substitute plans on Monday (I will be attending my daughter's graduation to see her get her doctorate in physical therapy - yeah! - proud mom here) is "El cuervo tonto".   

First, my sub will hand out a paper with questions (see page 1 of 2 below) so students can read the questions to give them a heads up on the specifics they need to listen for. 

Then my sub will play the video and pause it when Mike instructs the students to sketch each part of the video. Students will answer the short questions during the story and complete the English translations as Mike explains them.

I need to add that I don't always have questions for the students to answer. Two weeks ago I was out and my students watched Mike's video "la señora" and their only task was to listen to the story because we were going to discuss it the following day. When I returned the next day, I drew the same sketches as Mike did and paused throughout to ask students questions about the characters and what happened. So...questions are not necessary, but for some students it helps to keep them focused on the story.

Click HERE if you would like to download the pdf of the questions for the "El cuervo tonto" story - 2 pages of questions/area to sketch and the answer sheets.

2. Pablo Román, @langdreamer on Twitter
Pablo is cranking out videos about Spanish festivals and holidays,  legends, and most recently, interviews with other Spanish speakers at the rate of almost one a day. Click HERE for his YouTube channel and check out his blog, Dreaming Languages. 

In the videos, Pablo is in the bottom corner and the rest of the screen he uses to sketch while he speaks to the listener. At times he inserts video clips to show a few seconds of an event that he is describing.

Below is a sample of how to add reading after viewing a video. This is based on his video "St. Jordi". I used this video on a day when I was NOT absent, but with the paper attached below, you could leave it as a sub plan.

1. Watch the video. I paused the video at the end where you can see all of the sketches, and the students and I discussed and retold the story. If this is your sub plan, skip the retell until the day you return.

2. Distribute the paper and students will match the sentences to the screenshots of the sketches.

3. Distribute the script below for the students to read.

The documents for this lesson are HERE. 
(To be clear, these lessons were NOT planned in collaboration with anyone, but rather I saw the videos online and then created lessons from the online videos that I can use in class.)

3. Cameron Taylor @Profe_Taylor

Cameron is a Spanish teacher in Japan. His YouTube channel is HERE and his most recent (I think) video is "Habla demasiado". His technique is very similar to Mike Peto's, in that he tells a story and makes it comprehensible due to the vocabulary he chooses and the sketches. Please note that Cameron's purpose of making the videos was to share with others HOW he does "storytelling" with his students. It is was not shared with the intent to have other teachers use it for sub plans, but I quickly saw the possibilities in providing CI for a substitute plan with this, and other of his, videos.

I do not have a specific document created for the story "Habla demasiado", but my students will read the story script after watching the story.

Two variation on the story scripts (the written text)
a. Omit a few details of the story in the script on a document you create and replace it with lines. Then together as a class, you can fill in the missing information and write it on the lines on the document.

b. Ten Errors (or however many you choose). When you write the script, make 10 minor changes to the details. After the students have watched the video and after you have discussed it or acted it out, distribute the document with the 10 errors. The students' task is to find the erroneous information and replace it with the correct information. (i.e. - if the story said he had two dogs, change it to 3 dogs or to 2 cats.)

4. BookBox
BookBox is a website with children's stories in the target language with subtitles. It has many books for Spanish, as well as a few stories for other languages such as French, Italian, Urdu, and more. This website also provides PDFs for you to download. 

I made a very basic story listening document with questions for my students to complete while listening and watching the story online.  (The screenshot does not show the entire document. If you would like the document, click HERE.)

 
OPTION: Instead of having students answer questions, the students could listen to the story one time. As they listen/watch it the second time, have them sketch the story that you can use as a retell using a document camera later in the class or on another day.

These generous teachers, and the Bookbox website, are my new go-to lesson plans for substitute teachers.  Feel free to download any of the documents that may be useful to you. They are available at no cost. HOWEVER, what I would like to ask in return, is if you like these options and create something to be used with a video similar to the story videos above, please share it with me.   :-)

El Escape Cubano, chapters 1-5

After you have introduced your students to Cuba through discussions, photos, and videos, and pre-taught vocabulary that students will encounter in the novel El Escape Cubano, by Mira Canion, you are ready to dive (no pun intended) into the book. (See this post for information on preparing to read a novel and specific ideas for El Escape Cubano.)

Below are a few of the activities I used when reading the novel with my Spanish 2 students. Every teacher has his or her own style of reading a novel with their students - some build entire units around a novel that may take a month or two, and others spend considerably less time. There is not a wrong or right way. Go with what works best for you and your particular group of students.

El Escape Cubano - Chapter 1
I've already mentioned an activity to either introduce or review "se queda" in THIS POST, but the second time I read this book with my students I added another activity:

Explain to the students that one of them (choose one of your students) has a ticket to go to a Beyonce concert and invites another person to go with him, but the night of the concert the invited person does not go along; the invited person stays home. Why? Ask students to brainstorm why a person would not go to a concert and then list the possibilities on the board, each time repeating "(name) se queda en casa porque..." 

When I planned this brainstorm activity, I thought the students would think of 5 or 6, but the list grew to more than 14 ideas, all which they expressed in Spanish.  An alternate option is to let students sketch a reason the person stays at home if they don't know how to say it in Spanish.

El Escape Cubano - Chapters 1 & 2 
Give students a piece of paper and have them fold it into 4 squares and reopen it. In each square of the paper, write one of the following names: Miguel, Yordani, Fabio, and Gloria. The teacher reads chapters 1 and 2 to the students.  As you read, the students will write information they learn about the characters. (I use this novel at the beginning of Spanish 2. The students were taught with TPRS and CI in Spanish I and have read two novels in Spanish I. They have had many experiences with similar listening comprehension activities.) 
Students share their information with each other in small groups or with the entire group.

(note: I need to create a document for this listening activity before I read this novel with a new group of students.)

El Escape Cubano - Chapter 2
A listening review to provide input of the YO form in context:  
Choose 2 students that are comfortable reading in front of the class. Give each of them a copy of the paper to the right. (The document pictured has the answers highlighted.) Tell the class that the two students in the front are Miguel and that you are going to interview him. Students listen to the two answers and write the letter (a or b) of the correct answer. 

 

El Escape Cubano - Review of Ch1&2
To the right is a powerpoint slide that I use the following day if I want to refresh the students' memories about the main character, Miguel. The students tell me information about Miguel and I write it directly on the board as the slide is projected.

To emphasize what Cubans went through to find a motor for their crafts used to cross the 90 miles to the US, I show the below short clip to after reading chapter 2.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/movies/in-una-noche-teenagers-flee-cuba.html   

El Escape Cubano - Chapter 3
For those interested in additional repetitions of the YO form, the document to the right is a more traditional paper with questions addressed to Miguel.  Students answer as if they were Miguel, referring to the text as needed.

El Escape Cubano - Chapter 4 - TIME TO ACT!!! 
The setting and action in chapter 4 are perfect for Reader's Theater.  
props
- a boat shape (borrowed from my church's props)
- a blue sheet with two students holding each end and waving the material to imitate waves in the ocean

How do you bump Reader's Theater up a notch? Include sound effects and lighting!
- I turned off the main lights in the room and turned on a small lamp that I have in the back of the room. This scene takes place at night so I wanted to similate that. (For the photo I had to turn on the lights.)
- I used THIS LINK to play the sound of ocean waves in the background.

The students had fun acting and watching the acting for this chapter. When the text says a big wave pushes the mother back towards the shore, the two students stretch out the sheet out that was the wave and "pushed" the mother away from the raft. (just wait until you see the student prop for the chapter with the shark!)

A big MUST for Reader's Theater is to coach the actors.  Don't settle for mediocre acting! If it says the father yelled, then the actor needs to talk in a loud voice and don't continue until the actor delivers the line appropriately. When I need actors for Reader's Theater, I ask for volunteers. Sometimes the class "voluntold" their friends, but I always check to make sure the students is ok with being an actor. When you find someone that hams it up when acting, your job providing compelling, comprehensible input becomes easy in a snap. After acting, we applaud each of the actors as I say their name. They should be recognized for their contribution to your class!

Predictions - Ask students what are problems that Miguel and the others may encounter while they are on the raft. This is a good time to project a map of Cuba and the United States on the board (again) to remind students of the distance. As students gave suggestions, I wrote them on the board, providing an extra opportunity for students to read in Spanish.
My students said things link: no hay comida; la bolsa rompe; olas grandes; la guardia costera, and then I added a few words if necessary to make complete sentences. 

If you haven't told the students any statistics about the number of people that die each year attempting to reach the US in a raft, this would be a great time to introduce that material. I used some facts that Mira had sent me when I was piloting the book. When the teacher's guide becomes available, purchase it - it will save you hours of work!! 

El Escape Cubano - Chapter 5
Students worked with a partner for this assignment. I drew a T-chart on the board, with QUIERO and NO QUIERO, and told students to put themselves in Miguel's place and write his thoughts related to what he wants or doesn't want.
After they had a minimum of 4 thoughts on their T-charts, I asked students to share their answers and I wrote them on the board. 

Then I handed them the paper on the right and they chose one of the answers on the board, or one they had on their paper, and copied it into the bubbles on the paper.

You can expand the possible answers by not requiring students to use the words QUIERO/NO QUIERO.

I will upload the links to the documents mentioned in this post in the near future when my internet connection is being less contrary. Maybe the mid March snowstorm has something to do with the finicky connection. :/

More to come...
In the next few days I'll share some of my activities for the second half of the novel.