Unit: Comunidades

I LOVE teaching this unit.  It started out from the textbook as En La Ciudad and as I worked to implement IPAs I focused on transportation and it was ok...not compelling though.  Then at ACTFL 2016 I got the inspiration I needed.  Megan and Kara from The Creative Language Class presented about making a meaningful curriculum and they shared this image and I was in!  If I was hooked, I new I'd get my students wanting to talk about this.

Goal Setting & Reflecting

I want my students to 

• know that I set daily targets each day so that our lessons have a purpose.
• reflect on their own learning towards that goal.
• set their own goals for the class and share those goals with me.
• evaluate their own efforts in class.
• create a plan or action steps to meet that goal and I want to hold them accountable to reflect on that.
• let me know what works and doesn't work in my class so I can plan accordingly.  

Therefore, I created a daily "participation" form. 

Unit: Tradiciones Familiares

Our level 5 is tied to a textbook, but we have the power to add/subtract/modify to meet our needs.  I'm very thankful for that.  I really don't like using a textbook, but can appreciate the need to find a common way to tie multiple schools together.  I also believe that textbooks were designed for teachers and schools to use the parts that fit their needs, NOT to do every activity in their.  They are speaking to a national audience and populations vary immensely across the nation.
To take advantage of Day of the Dead, I changed the order and decided to squeeze in more culture with unit 4. I shifted the focus to family traditions.

Unit: Sentir y Vivir / Soy Yo

This is a unit for level 5 students who are returning from summer break and I anticipate the majority to have a baseline of developing Intermediate-Mid.  So as we get back on track to get them to a continuous proficient level of Intermediate-Mid this year, we're starting off with a unit to let them talk about themselves and to finish with creating a Frida-inspired self-portrait that they can describe to an audience.

Let me also tell you that Kara Jacobs has a great unit that could be used for this simliar theme connecting to the AP theme Belleza y Estetica.  She's got free stuff to use...I wanted to use her ideas but have other themes to touch upon so time doesn't allow.

Curriculum

I'm so excited about our unit changes!  We've been making changes to Lead with Culture....because
it's compelling content for the students.  Annnnddd....there's so many #authres that we get A LOT of materials to build around and upon.



So, here's the plan:


Spanish 3 (this is a new prep for me!)

1. Stories
2. Viva el Toro / Bullfighting
3. Musica & Baile
4. Salud (problems/solutions)
5. Rainforest (hoping for $$ for Robo en La Noche)
6. Telenovelas
7. Arte

Spanish 4

1. Amistades  
2. La Llorona de Mazatlan (thank you, NYSAFLT, for the $$ I won!!!!!)
3. Machismo
4. Heroes / Superheroes (Lucha Libre)
5. Guerra Civil de El Salvador
6. Vida y Muerte en la Mara SalvaTrucha

Spanish 5
I have adapted my units to support the textbook that my college course requires.
(in parentheses I'll share my main driving content or #authres)

1. Soy Yo (Pelo Malo, the song Soy Yo and Frida Kahlo)
2. Tradiciones Familiares (Day of the Dead)
3. Comunidad (pobreza, personas sin techo, cancion: La Historia de Juan, macromural)
4.  El Valor de la Idea (arte: Guernica, pelicula: In the Time of the Butterflies, desaparecidos, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, corto: El Ojo en La Nuca)
5. Las Riquezas Naturales de Colombia (Juanes, minas piedras, Living on a Dollar)
6. Inmigracion (peli: De Nadie, soooo many songs, peli: La Misma Luna)
7. Esperanza (I know this is a super easy read, but my goal is that they independently read and culminate in a book discussion which I'll evaluate as their interpersonal speaking)

Updated Rubrics

My department has been working over the last few years to articulate our goals among ourselves and to our students.  We aim for growth, but at the end of the year felt that we were not clearly building in the steps for our students.  So we took our rubrics that were labeled as the proficiency levels and built in steps that lead to the next level.  We built in words that showed they are trying, but not consistently meeting those levels.

We've made them for speaking in both interpersonal and presentational modes.  I can see these working as we consider revamping our writing rubrics as well.

Novice High Level 1
Novice High Level 2
Intermediate Low
Intermediate Mid
Intermediate High

Now....I'm sharing these...but they've not been tested yet!  We're excited about them, though and think they'll be useful in coaching students appropriately in the upcoming school year.

Unit: Perspectivos de Inmigracion

I've decided to use this unit for a presentational goal in mind for the students.  In looking at all the authentic resources to use, I'm overwhelmed by the songs that fall into this theme and I know that I can't use them all...though I want to.  So I will bring many of them into my lessons and ultimately, students will be given a song that they need to present to their classmates.  I'm going to go a little old-school here and have my students present in a "job-fair" format (thanks for Megan Sulewski for the idea) and use *gasp* posters to present!  They can still use QR codes to incorporate technology (audio, visual, etc) but I want them to put a bit more love into their projects than I see them produce in powerpoint.  Also, I want this to be an opportunity for Q&A (interpersonal speaking) and when the audience can see everything (where a PPT advances and previous pages can be forgotten), they serve as prompts for conversation pieces.