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.

Presentational Mode

Recently, I read some comments on Twitter about speaking in the presentational mode and it got me thinking.  The commentary was that we don't use presentational speaking in real life and I think this is untrue.  I use presentational speaking on a regular basis and I don't mean in my role as teacher.

Presentational communication is the creation of communication prepared for an audience and rehearsed.  There is opportunity for editing and revision before the presentation.  It is one-way communication that requires interpretation by others without negotiation of meaning.

When I need to speak to my principal about an idea that I have, I plan ahead for that conversation which will eventually be interpersonal.  But I know that my introduction is on my terms and I start out in presentational mode.  Before we talk, I get those thoughts together, I think about the vocabulary that I want to include (identifying some of the buzz words that can draw his attention), I think about the structure of my introduction.  I play a couple different scenarios out in my head first.  I muster up my courage and go for it.  This same thing happens when I have to talk to my spouse, my children, my doctor and when I call customer service.  They all turn into interpersonal, but start out in presentational form.  I saw Joshua Cabral (wlclassroom) give a presentation and pointed out a similar idea that stuck with me.  When preparing to walk into a store, it's in our nature to plan our statement ahead.  However, since our presentational mode tends to be higher than our interpersonal mode, we unconsciously send a message to our audience that we can converse at a higher level and they respond at that level.  The interaction may quickly crumble in this case.  But that does support my idea that we do use presentational mode frequently.

So, in the classroom, presentational mode needs to be a skill that we address.  I think we frequently do, but don't give ourselves credit for it.  It doesn't have to be up and in front of the class.  It's simply defined as communicating to an audience that's not up for negotiation.  That can be to a small group or even to a classmate.  Students have to have this opportunity to focus on form.  Examples that I can think of:

• share and pair
• give one to get one
• describe your picture/interpretation to your group
• create a voki

My colleagues and I offer a daily prompt for students to respond to for their "speaking points" and we've discussed which category to put this in now that we've changed our grading practices.  Our students attack this prompt in different forms and we see it play out differently per the student.  It's neat to see it happen.  Some students write down their answers and memorize it (we don't let them read it).  Some write down a couple words that they want to include and they glance at the paper when needed.  Some don't even read the prompt until we are in proximity and just go for it.  We respond differently to the students based on their individual personalities, readiness and the statement.  Sometimes I can ask a follow-up question, turning the conversation to interpersonal.  Sometimes, I give a statement to show I'm listening.  Sometimes I can say something that is connected to make them smile or laugh and provide them with another interpretive opportunity.  So all these scenarios make the grading category be a legitimate conversation.  For the record, we've decided to put it in the presentational category.