Unit: Musica y Baile

Music and Dance

We’ve gone through multiple versions of our dance unit.  We tried to make it culturally focused on dances, but found the students’ interest and engagement was divided.  We decided to focus on creating an authentic task for what our students would really do in their lives.  

This is for our 10th graders, a level 3 Spanish class.  We teach in block schedule (80 min) and meet every other day.

They post everything..so why not have them post about their experience?  Do they have a concert experience?  Some do, some don’t…either way we’ll make a unit that gives them tons of these experiences! So we didn’t lose culture…we are focusing on pop culture and we know they love music! We're going to fill their brains with stories and experiences about concerts!  We started many days with Senor Wooly Una Cancion Original but didn't require anything with it...just wanted it to get stuck in their heads!

I am really proud of this unit.  I set up the typical IPA a bit different than normal in the fact that we began with a presentational performance.  However, this is not the beginning of the year, we know our students’ abilities and this is in their performance ability.  We used this text (I’ll admit it’s a slightly modified authentic resource…I’m always aware of our mental and time limits!) as a springboard and I kept asking about it all unit long. 

The PowerPoint for the unit

Task: I can share details about my concert experience.

We share this with the students from the very beginning and remind them on a regular basis when we unpack the daily learning target and how it connects to the big picture.

Overall Plan (* = graded work)

Day 1: Connections to music unit

Day 2: Introduction to Artists * (writing IPA)

Day 3: Justin Bieber story

Day 4: Justin Bieber story * (“vocab” focus)

Day 5: Alvaro Soler La Cintura story

Day 6: Alvaro Soler La Cintura lyrics focus

Day 7: Alvaro Soler Puebla story

Day 8: Alvaro Soler Puebla point of view * (“grammar” focus)

Day 9: Alvaro Soler Puebla Dance

Day 10: Chino y Nacho Niña Bonita Concert

Day 11: Nacho “Concert” * (Reading IPA)

Day 12: Events and emotions  

Day 13: Beyonce “Concert”

Day 14: Story Ask and Write together (to serve as “review”)

Day 15: Evaluation*

Day 16: Celebration

Cuentos y Leyendas

This is our intro unit for Level 3, 10th Grade.  We make the goal clear from the beginning with our students.  We're doing a unit in which they'll have to retell a story popular in the Hispanic culture at the end at Intermediate Low.  So we created a unit with Backward Design in order to build them towards a successful presentation. We set daily learning targets and try to hold the students accountable each day with closure in regards to that goal.