Flipped Classroom: Week 1 Student Resources

I'm working on my curriculum and putting it together nicely for myself and others to use!  I've decided to use my Weebly site for organization.  I'm still working on getting together lesson plans, but I do have a nice webpage completed that students will refer to in order to prepare themselves for class in the "flipped classroom" model.  Essentially, I've given students a preview of what we will be learning the next day, including the vocabulary, the topics we will discuss, and the objectives and activities that will be completed in-class.  I intend to count these activities as part of the "citizenship" objective in my class have most of these activities submitted via EdModo, where I (or Edmodo) can quickly assign and keep track of grades.

Now that I'm actually developing resources and plans and am able to visualize more concrete details, I'm even more excited about flipping my classroom.  This gives me a whole new level of integrating technology into my classroom and opening up opportunities for learning.  In addition, by using various resources, they are able to come to class prepared to contribute, facilitating a classroom where I can be a guide on the side and allow them to share and elaborate on what they already know from resources they can get on their own.  I also feel that this will help students develop the research and other skills necessary to succeed in the future, with particular attention to success in an technology-driven world.

Writing a class Story

NOTE:  This is NOT TPRS!!

We've been trying to figure out activities that might work better for the class I'm subbing in.  By "work better", we mean finding something that they're motivated to do as well as helps them learn something valuable.

In a collaboration between me and the para who's been working with these kids for a while, we came up with an activity we're going to test out this week and I'm really excited about it.  As this is a language lab to support native English speakers with their language arts skills, we're not trying to promote fluency, but rather get them the skills they need to succeed in their regular classes.

Originally, this started as a way to get the kids to buy-in to the paragraph edits that we've been doing with limited success.  The kids just seem like they're in agony over them.  Rather than giving a copied off paragraph activity, we're going to have them work together to write a class story to edit.  Not only do we achieve our original goals, but hopefully we'll do even better by correcting the errors that the students are making while helping develop their creative writing skills.  Even better?  The way we're going to do it will make it so no one knows what the other person wrote.

I've simplified this down to four parts of the story to focus on Monday through Thursday (Setting, Characters, Problem, Solution) and then read the stories and edit them on Friday.  On the first four days, we will discuss that story element and how we can write about it, then the students will write a paragraph about that part consisting of at least 15 words and 5 sentences.  They won't put their names on them, and, after I check that they've been completed satisfactorily, I'll collect the papers.  The next day, we'll do the same thing, except the students will randomly get stories that they haven't written on yet.  Each story will be a surprise effort by four students.  On Friday, I'll pick the best story (based on interest, appropriateness, creativity, and how well it will work for edits) to display on the board and we'll edit it, including grammar rules, clarity, and word choice, etc.  And, no one will have to be worried because no one will know who wrote anything other than their own part!

I'm excited to kick this off today - I'll update about how it goes!

Spanish 1 Materials

I'm still figuring out a way to organize materials for students and anyone else who need to access them.  However, in the meantime, here are the first materials I have to support my Spanish 1 curriculum: A TPR notes handout with the words we will do in order and the master structures list for students to fill in.  That's it for tonight - more coming soon!

Problem-Based Learning in TPRS

A recap of the highlights in my conversation on the MoreTPRS Yahoo! Group, with commentary:

What does problem-based learning look like in foreign language classes,
particularly ones using TPRS?

Could it be as simple as just finding a way to express yourself? Or is there
more?

Better put by Martin Lapworth, here's what I mean:

Jillane simpy seems to be saying: "Problem solving? That sounds like what TPRSstudents are doing [subconsciously] all the time. Do you agree?" - Martin Lapworth

I read a post about problem-based learning
(http://plpnetwork.com/2013/04/19/ultimate-education-reform-messy-learning-probl\
em-solving/) and was intrigued. I was mainly inspired by the idea that
problem-based learning better prepares students for the world. Rather than
teaching students to find the "right" answer and bubble it in, students have to
solve "messy" problems that don't necessarily have one clear answer - much more
similar to the problems we face in the real world. I want to teach and
encourage these problem-solving skills in my own classroom and was thinking
about how I might go about doing so.

But then it occurred to me, isn't that point of TPRS and CI? More traditional
routes of language instruction - and how the classes I took in high school were
taught - ask students to find the "3rd person singular preterite" form of a verb
with one correct answer that we as TPRS teachers know is essentially useless. 
However, we ask our students to use what they know to find a way to comprehend
(i.e. 'I know that "ten..." means "have", so "tenía/tengo/tiene/etc. una casa"
means something along the lines of having a house) what they're hearing and
reading. Eventually they begin to express themselves, starting with simple
one-word answers (i.e. circling and PQA) and eventually stringing together words
and phrases to create more complicated language and (someday, hopefully!)
complete sentences. I'm not at all saying this should be forced output, but
when taken in the context of natural and individual language acquisition and
production, this is one of our big goals.

To me, this seems to naturally fulfill the aspirations in the article about
teaching kids to problem-solve using problem-based learning - due to the organic
nature of language, what they're going to hear and read won't be scripted, and
neither will their own production be. Every time they communicate, there is a
problem to solve.  On a *very* small skill, since language is organic
and cannot be memorized, students are constantly problem-solving every time they
are comprehending and producing unscripted language!

Lake put it simply, comparing old-school language instruction with our new-school TPRS:

"Every time we open our ears or mouths to anotherlanguage, we already have a "problem": How do I communicate? ...Old-school language instruction taught formulas and set dialogues, while weembrace that there is likely no one "right" way to express any idea. That alonebreaks TPRS out of the bubble-filling single-correct-answer education system theauthor is arguing against." - Lake

Janet helped me articulate this idea  a little more clearly, that I'm not trying to "teach" this kind of analysis, bur rather am "trying to figure out if that's the kind of things that happen in their brains."  She went on to describe her own ideas:

As I'm trying to improve my Spanish by reading, I am doing thatkind of thing.  Oh I see "ten", it's have, keep reading, like when I just readover words I don't know, and if the whole paragraph makes sense, I don't needthat word, I'll eventually acquire it because my brain caught the meaningwithout my thinking about it.  I'm thinking about the story, not the words,really, and I trust the process.  The only way I might 'teach' the process isdoing a 'think aloud' with the kids when reading by translation--but if I'mdoing my job, their reading pieces should be totally comprehensible anyway.I hope I understood both posts correctly.

So, let's clarify:  There's a difference between encouraging the process to happen, and teaching the kids about that process.  Because, let's face it, the kids aren't fluent and we're trying to turn "slow-processors" into "fast-processors", but without any conscious effort on their part.  No matter what, language is processed, though we're trying to get them to do it by feeling rather than decoding rules.  On a very small, but very important scale, this essentially fulfills the requirements for PBL!

Jeff Klamka had a few ideas for how to engage in PBL using TPRS more explicitly:

I'm looking at the summary of "problem-based learning" and it strikes me asquite simply a list of PQA topics for advanced-level classes. (Actually, theycould make for some fascinating discussions).--How should we respond to climate change?--How should the government be spending our tax dollars?--How should education be reformed?Or even, brought down to the level of the students:--How much time spent online is too much?--Should junk food be sold in the cafeteria?--If you were in charge of the school budget, what would you cut to balance thebudget and why?
Important questions with emotional impact. By focusing on a couple of keyphrases, it could make for great PQA. - Jeff Klamka

Pat Barrett had another PBL PQA question:

One that elicited output, unforced, was, “Should we close the campus” i.e.put a fence around it and keep kids on campus during lunch?Pat Barrett

I love all these PQA questions!  Many of them have basic structures that are taught as low as Spanish 1, while a few would be excellent in teaching higher-level structures!  I wonder if students would focus more on the meaning as they get excited to discuss their ideas. Moreover, I came across a great post about putting this into action while teaching structures to discuss illegal immigration.  Lake made an interesting point, though:

Though I do agree that the idea to incorporate some of the author's "messyquestions" into the classroom could be interesting, it seems to be creating"problems" on top of "problems" and the examples are a little cognitivelyadvanced for the level of proficiency.
I think it's "messy" enough just to think "How do I say that?" (even if it's notabout a big life question like the importance of education or the economy orwhatever) because language is inherently messy. There are a multitude ofdifferent ways to say the same thing. - Lake

Which made me think that maybe I'll save "real" problems for higher level kids, if ever. 
One thing I assume we all run into are kids that have something they want to
say, but they haven't yet figured out the skill of simplifying it down to what
they can say. I can see this happening if I were to use questions that they are
likely to be opinionated on. Asking "What color of shirt should she buy?"
doesn't provoke the same sort of opinionated responses that students might want
to express and defend with "real" problems.

So... lots of great ideas!  In sum, TPRS promotes the ideals of PBL simply by being what it is and teaching students to communicate in an organic manner that has countless possibilities, a VERY "messy" question!  If we do want to address other problems, PQA may be a good place to do so, but with caution and making sure students are set up for success :)

Flipping my TPRS classroom

This is an idea I've been letting fester in my head for a long time, and the other day I cam across a cool graphic shared on Twitter that really got me going (see below).  Being the "idea" person that I am, I'm very intrigued on the idea of a flipped classroom, and I think it's very possible with TPRS.  Why might I want to do this?  I think that by flipping the TPRS classroom, I will have more time to engage students with more authentic and organic CI.  Essentially, if I can give students basic CI before class begins, I can provide more advanced CI when they're with me to practice!  With my students, they won't get the kind of practice (Including correct modeling) they can with me anywhere else - but I believe they can receive basic CI if done properly on their own - so I'd like to make the most of the time they have with me.  I would really like to give this a shot this upcoming year.  Luckily, I have a few advantages when it comes to some of the barriers that most teachers run into.

First and foremost, I've got time on my side right now to plan this all out.  One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in flipping your classroom is making sure students have the materials they'd need in order to come to class prepared.  Given that I'm subbing now, am only committed from 3-5pm each day during the summer, and don't have a lot of other things to attend to (like a kid), I'm sure I'll be able to come up with the resources I need for next year.  Plus, I can be a little obsessive over stuff like this (i.e. my class haha).

Second, many educators are concerned about students having access to technology at home to study.  I don't think that will be a problem at Somerset :)

So how am I going to do it?

1. What am I going to teach? Given that I want to take advantage of all the time I have now, I need to have a clear idea of what I'm going to teach during the year.  I just finished writing all my structures and am pretty happy with them!
2. How Am I going to teach it? This will determine the types of materials that will best prepare my students for class each day.  I know that I'm going to have a rough weekly outline of doing PQA, storytelling, and reading - with some other stuff like culture and novel-reading mixed in.
3. What materials will my students need?  This is the big one - and what I'm going to focus on now.  In order to flip my classroom, students will need to get CI, CI, CI - at home without a native speaker.  They can't just take notes, and I won't just do a Youtube lecture.  Rather, here are my initial plans:
• Before PQA:
• List the structures for that lesson with their translation (possibly hidden for them to bring up), as well as an audio clip so students can hear how they sound.
• Provide the PQA questions with possible appropriate responses.  Give them the opportunity to create their own responses (which they can send to me through Edmodo).
• Based on what they send me, I'll know how well they comprehended the vocabulary and where I'll need to start with them.
• Before storytelling:
• Give them a very short and simple short reading (with audio) to do - on Inkelwriter!
• I also want to create storytelling videos that students can hear and see the video. (Since these basically achieve the same goal, students could choose which format they like best?)
• Since I'll be writing "skeleton" stories as part of my lesson planning to guide my storytelling, I could just provide these to my students!
• Based on the reading, they can give me a brief summary showing how well they understood this "skeleton" story.
• Based on how well they comprehend the story, I know whether I need to re-teach or if they're ready to move into full-fledged story-telling.
• After storytelling:
• Students can write a summary of the class story to me in Spanish (they can use their notes and simply "fill-in-the-blank" - one that I'll edit and bring in for reading and discussion the next day.
• For speaking, we could even use Google Voice for students to record themselves telling the story!  Of course, we'd only do that when students were ready to start practicing speaking.
• Before extended reading:
• Students can read a similar story (with audio) and write a summary to demonstrate comprehension.
• Update: Embedded readings would be great!
• Before culture:
• Students can research the culture topic we'll be working on and bring their newfound knowledge to class to share.  This also facilitates preparing students for the future by using their resources to teach themselves!

Some of those ideas wrote themselves as I was creating this post.  I'm very excited to start creating all these support materials.  I imagine this will all come together as a website with everything on it - allowing students to go back and review/catch up as well as move ahead if they so desire.  Plus, maybe my husband will finally learn Spanish! - If I do this correctly, motivated students should realistically be able to teach themselves Spanish, using class time to elaborate, engage, and personalize.  And don't worry - I'll update when I get these going!

Check out this cool graphic about flipping your classroom:

A child's Imagination Lost

I came across this thought-provoking piece just now on Twitter and wanted to post it before I go to bed: A Child's Imagination Lost.

For me, this simply reaffirms what we do in TPRS.  We ask students to use their imaginations and play - both with the language and their behaviors as we get a little silly and act out our stories.  Playing and imagining are such beautiful and wonderful things!

Behavior Plan

I'm currently doing a long-term subbing assignment until just about the end of the year.  It's with a great school in the Extended Resource Room.  I'm working with the kids that are "integrated", but come to this reading lab to help with their reading and comprehension skills as well as work on homework from other classes in a supportive environment.

However, given the nature of the class and the students in it, we've been running into some issues - on an academic level but also on the behavior level.  Students have 3-4 pages of work that need to be completed each day.  The students receive their week packet on Monday (with different activities) and I list the pages students need to work on, then support them as they make their way through at their own pace.  Each should only take about 5-10 minutes (in a 45-minute class), so students should generally be able to complete the work and have time left over.  For some students, it's working great.  For other students, not so much - and they're making it harder for the students who would be getting their work done otherwise.

Some of the problems we are having on the academic level is a lack of comprehension and, though the class is small, I cannot attend to the quiet, struggling student sufficiently because I'm dealing with the behavior problems.  The behavior problems are general off-task issues, which are usually fairly disruptive and distracting to me and the other students.  We need some sort of solution that motivates students to behave properly and do their work, but also one that allows me to give students more support to make sure they're actually understanding the work (which not being able to understand is part of the behavior problem!).

In trying to figure out a viable solution - especially since I'm only here four more weeks - I recalled a strategy that I had read about on the MoreTPRS Yahoo! group and then also experienced in a few elementary-school classes.  Moreover, my supervising teacher began using it in his classroom and loves it.

The basic principle is to award students points for good behavior/work, leading up to a certain goal.  What makes it powerful is how it's customized for a class.

In this class, I'm thinking of setting a timer for 10  minutes and starting it after I explain the worksheet.  Every student who finishes their work with a B or better within that time will get a point for their class and have the remainder of the 10 minutes to choose what they do (within reasonable limits, of course).  When the timer goes off, I'll collect all papers - completed or not - and hand out the next activity.  When students reach a certain number of points, they get a reward (in this class, it'd be a "free day").  This allows me to make sure students are actually with me to hear my instructions and work on the proper worksheet that I've just explained with help - and a motiviation to get it done!

In the future, I want to use this in a class to motivate students to stay in Spanish.  I can have a designated student be the "timer" who starts the timer for 8 minutes.  If anyone speaks in English without permission (including me!), the timer restarts.  If we make it the entire 8 minutes, we get a marble in a jar!  Once the jar fills up, it's reward day!  I'll let students pick their rewards, but it'll be something along the lines of a "kindergarten day", movie, etc. - it'll be educational, but fun and relaxing.  This is what my supervising teacher is doing, and he says it's made a huge difference in his class!

LICT Attempt 1

I've decided to go in a similar, but new direction with the LICT series and am starting fresh with my structures.  However, you can still find the link for the stories I've already created here:

1.1.1: Descriptions

1.1.2: Tiny the Elephant

1.1.3: The Dragon's Suit

1.2.1: Balooga the Whale

1.3.1: The Diamond Necklace

2.1.1: Blue Fish for Debbie

2.2.1: Lady Gaga's Puppy

2.3.1: Britney Learns to Sing

3.1.1: Magical Charlie

New Focus

I've had a few insights over the past few days that have given me new focus for how I want to develop my curriculum:

First, I was reminded of one of the things I learned during my first week of student teaching:
LU+R=S  which means Listening and Understanding + Repetition = Spanish

With more educator-type terms, I can rephrase this to say:
CI+R=A i.e. Comprehensible Input + Repetition = Acquisition

How did this help?  Because, while I've been focusing on comprehensible input, I forgot to account for repetition.  I was getting frustrated trying to pull structures directly from the Pobre Ana novels because, while they have plenty of repetition, it isn't presented in a format that is simplified or repetitive enough to foster language acquisition like I want to.  There is a step missing between learning new vocabulary and being able to apply it in that more complex context.

I've found that step by going back to using the LICT extended stories.  These stories are built upon one another, structure by structure.  Through reading them, students receive the repetition and spiraled material that fosters acquisition.  However, the teachers guide unfortunately doesn't match up with the readings as well as I'd like, so I'm back to developing structures and stories for LICT that I can use and really feel like my students are getting what they need.

So then that leaves me to decide how I'm going to incorporate my novellas into my curriculum - though, in my last post, I discussed that to quite an extent.  Simply put, I'm going to reserve the last two weeks of the semester for reading novels, which works quite well into the other things I have planned.  In a nutshell, I'm going to design my curriculum like this:

• 7 weeks of TPRS and culture instruction, including all assessments, based on the LICT extended stories and structures pulled from them.
• 2 weeks of novella reading, during which I collect notebooks for grading (since students won't be using them!) and finalize everything before the end of the quarter

It seems simple enough to me, and I'm almost done developing my structures.  Once that's done, the next step will be writing stories, developing PQA questions, and creating materials (I can't wait to make more Inklewriter stories!)  During all of this, I'm creating an Interactive Notebook that corresponds with my curriculum as an example for students and for me to really think it through.  Things are starting to really come together!

The why and how of novel reading: One approach

I received a great response on the MoreTPRS Yahoo group to my post about reading Pobre Ana with students that haven't ever had Spanish instruction before.  This unexpected experience and subsequent comments have given me a few great insights!

First, I was able to clarify why I want to read novels in class.  What is my goal?  Mainly, I want students to be able to simply read and understand stories.  I want students to enjoy reading.  And, most importantly, I want them to experience success.  In describing her approach to reading novels, Susan Gross hit the nail on the head:

"I was ONLY aiming to make the kids love reading the book." - Susan Gross

That begs the question: What fosters this love of reading and what does not?  Susan continues...

"That means the oNLY thing I was worried about was making sure they understood the story. Period. I was NOT trying to build vocabulary! I did not care that adjective placement is different or that this is an interesting idiom." - Susan Gross

"We did not do any enrichment or projects or quizzes or activities. The first few years of doing novels I did a whole bunch of experiments doing projects and clever little assignments for each chapter, stuff like that. And I had a comparison with just reading as much and as fast as we could (keeping it enjoyable and talking about things that sparked an interest in the class, but only a couple of minutes here and there.) I tried as hard as I could to make it like my own pleasure reading: I NEVER stop to think of a title for each chapter or try to match characters with dialog or take a quiz! I just read because I enjoy the book. That was my goal with the novels: reading for fluency. That means no evaluations, no quizzes, just read it and enjoy it!" - Susan Gross 

So, did this actually achieve her goals?

"The results of many experiments always came out the same: Reading for pleasure beat every single activity or enrichment. So why would I want to work so hard? Why would I want to give kids quizzes? Heck, let's just read the book and laugh our fools heads off. Kids so fell in love with reading that they used to check out books fro my French library all of the time! Not just for free reading in class time, but to take home and read! Even kids who were 'non-readers' who swore that they hated reading wound up checking out books to read over the weekend." - Susan Gross

That sounds like exactly what I want to achieve!  As a kid, I was able to develop a love for reading and believe my language skills are a direct result of that.  If students are able to simply love what they're  doing and be successful, they'll continue to learn more beyond my classroom!  If not, then we are fighting a losing battle:

"Remember, my ONLY concern is getting kids to fall in love with French. And I used the novels to make them fall in love with reading French. Writing words on the board, making charts and lists of words, fill in blanks, put events in order, stuff like that does not contribute to reading enjoyment. If it did, then I would do those things every time I pick up a novel here at home. All the extraneous things that teachers do to books are "teacher things." They are not reading and they do not make kids WANT to read. We never do stuff like that at my book club, and I tried to make class as much like my book club as possible!  Keep your focus on just that one thing and you will get it going right." - Susan Gross

Scott Benedict echoed this sentiment:

"I never did well with all of those reading activities and treating these books as literature. I read them for the cultural content and for language acquisition. If we continue to make reading a chore, we will continue to be a nation of non-readers. We must change this! " - Scott Benedict

So what activities and clarification do work?  Susan describes when she would step in:

"When something came up that needed clarification, I clarified. NOT because I was the fount of knowledge, NOT because I wanted them to stop enjoying the story to look at vocab, NOT because of anything other than 'This needs to be clarified in order to understand what is going on and to enjoy the story!'" - Susan Gross

Expanding on this some, I do believe that class discussion of the book is beneficial and powerful, but only as it adds authentic meaning and clarification to the book, rather than an imposition of a meaningless "here's what you need to get from this" activity.  Susan suggested what this type of discussion might look like:

"As for discussion, try to discuss in Spanish. But if what you have to say is too complicated, then do it in English. Or ask a question in English and in Spanish like this "Do any of you know a person like Ana?" "¿Conocen Uds. a una persona como Ana?" The kids will answer in English most likely but if it can be put into comprehensible Spanish, then do so. The important thing is to enjoy the story and to laugh about it. So maybe you ask if Barney the Dinosaur is like Ana. Things like that. Make it fun and then get back to reading the book." - Susan Gross

Mira Canion identified why teaching background information leading up to the book and continued discussion of these things while reading plays a critical role in reading novels:

"Reading a novel in a second language is different than reading a simple short story that was created by a class. There are layers of meaning. Background knowledge about historical events, cultural references, etc., plays a much bigger role in successful reading of a novel than in reading simple stories. Knowing vocabulary is only part of the comprehension puzzle. Keeping the plot, characters, and background information straight competes with vocabulary recognition. It is important that students be able to visualize what they read. Too much unfamiliar vocabulary and lack of background knowledge can make visualization very difficult. It is very helpful to choose the right level reading. ... So, consider reading a book that is very comprehensible so that all students have a chance at being successful. Then have other readings that explore the themes and background of the novel." - Mira Canion

She also suggested mixing up the format in which we read the novel, and I particularly liked how she described these activities as creating a "shared experience":

"My favorite way to read novels is to help students visualize the plot by acting it out much like a tprs story. I also like to mix in silent readings of the text with a few deep comprehension questions or have the students draw the main action. My students love to be able to read a novel and act it out because reading becomes a shared experience." - Mira Canion 

However, it should be pointed out that, just because you aren't focusing on vocabulary or structures, this doesn't mean students aren't learning them.  In fact, just the opposite - as demonstrated by my experience with the student reading Pobre Ana, she was learning vocabulary and how the language was put together by simply reading it with me and nothing more.  I can't remember where I saw it, but I recently read a quote which indicated that the best way for anyone to acquire incidental vocabulary is through reading - and that's exactly what's happening when we read with our students.

Moreover, students are motivated when we guarantee success.  In reference to my experience with the student I read with, Susan said:

"It is our job to guarantee success. If a child does not know something and we do not provide the meaning of the word, then we are making the kid feel dumb. The kid will eventually retaliate against us with hostility, refusal to go along with our wishes, attempts to do something different, getting off-topic, etc etc etc. When we guarantee success, we invite the kids to show how great they are. We translate for them and just ask them to do the words they know." - Susan Gross

Then, she described how this looks in her classroom and the atmosphere it creates:

"Now can you imagine how it looked in my classroom when one kid was doing a paragraph? Was I looking around for misbehavior? No! I was reading with the kid, just a few words ahead and anytime the kid paused, even just to catch his breath, I was right there, saying the next word for him. He just kept on reading and the whole paragraph was read smoothly, with no hesitation. Whether he paused to swallow or cough or because he didn't know the word was of NO IMPORTANCE. The only thing that mattered was that we were reading and enjoying the story line. Just like when I read for pleasure. I just keep gong even when the author uses a word I am unsure of! So I made that same atmosphere in my classroom." - Susan Gross

She goes on to answer the question that was bound to come up:

"Do I make sure everyone translates? What if a kid does not want to do it? I think you already know the answer, but I will answer the question with a question: Does forcing a kid do something against his will make the novel more interesting/exciting/fun?" - Susan Gross

Powerful words! (Why does it seem that so many teachers are blind to this?)

Both Scott and Susan also had excellent comments on how to to incorporate reading novels in the classroom, and I'm sold.  Susan reiterated the insight I had based on reading Pobre Ana with a student without any Spanish: I don't necessarily need to teach everything necessary for students to read the leveled novella readers on their own - they're already ready to dive right in with proper guidance:

"Students do not need to 'get ready' for it; they can be successful right away in the first quarter." - Susan Gross

So the question would be when to schedule it in along with all the other activities we do.  While the Look, I can talk! teacher guides lay out a plan that includes novel reading once per week, it would take an entire semester to read a book.  That doesn't sit well with me.  Instead, I originally planned on reading a chapter or so each week, completing one novel each quarter, but I can see how that would get pushed aside and dragged out.  As Scott describes:

 "I never liked the read once a week thing as it always drew out the stories too long and both myself and my students lost interest." - Scott Benedict

Another idea would be to read it all at once, which I am coming back to after being dissatisfied with how weekly novella reading was working with my preliminary curriculum planning.  I'd still do one book per quarter, but set aside two weeks for each one.  That's plenty of time to read a chapter or two each day and be very thorough, yet make progress fast enough to experience continuity.  Plus, there are a few extra benefits:

"I used to end each quarter with a novel.  So I taught 7 weeks of TPRS/culture and then two weeks to zoom through a novel.  We just picked up the novel and started translating.  In ten days (two weeks) we were done with the book!  And during those ten days, I made sure that everybody had all of their work made up so I had no catching up to do after the grading period." - Susan Gross

Now, wouldn't that be nice?  Two weeks off of formal teaching for me and my students leading up to the end of the grading period, and more effective in the first place!  It's a match made in heaven - and I think this is the path I want to take.  I also don't have to worry about whether I've taught the structures for the books - students will spend the first 7 weeks acquiring, acquiring, and acquiring more, so they should be able to understand quite a bit of the book on their own no matter what structures we've done. That frees me up to select my structures based on more repetitive materials (I'm going back to the LICT stories) that facilitate acquisition, and then allows students to recognize and apply them in a broader, less repetitive context.

For me, this works particularly well as I'll be grading notebooks (and students won't have their notebooks) at the end of the quarter as well as facilitating any re-takes students want to do.  Instead of worrying about new material, students and I can focus on getting where we need to be with the material we've worked on all quarter/semester, ready to begin a new one.

As Susan mentioned, fostering this love of reading will also encourage to read on their own, which I plan to do through free-choice reading of a set amount of time each week.  Mira touched on this briefly:

"Combine a class novel with student choice. Let students choose their own novel to read independently. They can journal or write about how they connect to the character or plot." - Mira Canion

Yay for collaboration!

The Power of Pobre Ana

I unexpectantly conducted an interesting experiment today that resulted in a powerful learning experience.  I was subbing in a middle school class, and during student "flex" time (they can go to a classroom of their choice to work on thigns), a student didn't have anything to do.  I happened to have my "Pobre Ana" with me, so I said "Let's read a story together.  You're going to read in Spanish."  And with that, I sat down and read "Pobre Ana" with her - I started translating and paused on proper nouns and cognates letting her translate - she was generally translating at least a few words per sentence.  By the end of the chapter, I was also pausing on other frequent words that were completely new to her, like "escuela", "chica", "ropa", and "libro".  Keep in mind, this is a student that hasn't EVER had any Spanish instruction.  She loved it, and can't wait to read more!

For her, this was:
Completely unexpected.
Entirely voluntary.
Engaging enough that she wants to do it again.
A successful experience.

And the kicker?  I'm subbing in the Extended Resource Room and one of the aides informed me later that she was a "particularly low" student.

There are so many things that I took away from this, but one thing in particular stuck out to me:  I've been trying to plan my curriculum for this fall and was having trouble figuring out when my students would be ready to begin the novel.  This experience answered that question for me - they're already ready. The leveled novellas have been so well thought out and written to make our students successful. Of course, students will pick up on and comprehend different things depending on what they've already learned (I even learn things when I read them!), but when it comes down to it, middle and high school students are interested and ready to read them without any prior Spanish experience as long as they have an attentive guide.

Misc Resources

A log of resources I've come across and want to sort through - I'm adding things whenever I come across them to review later :)

Cool website where you can listen to radio stations around the world!
http://multilingualbooks.com/

http://www.mezzoguild.com/2013/04/06/good-and-ugly-perfectionism/

http://edudemic.com/2012/08/50-must-download-apps-for-lifelong-learners/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LoEx134YpGR_vgNfnSHr2b25m9uu115Cm4PLJaumE0I/edit?pli=1

http://blog.calicospanish.com/2013/04/22/best-texts-for-teaching-communicative-proficiency.html

Vocaroo for QR Codes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fglkSWjhZd0

Voice response to writing http://www.mypaperlessclassroom.org/2013/04/why-voice-response-is-so-effective-and.html

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/search/label/Twitter%20tools?&max-results=9

http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/tell-me-about-it/

700 Reasons to Learn a Language

Check this out!  It's organized by subject as well as searchable :)

Authentic Resources and TPRS

Just read a great blog post from Kristy Placido on the use of authentic resources in a TPRS curriculum.    Without repeating too much of what she had to say, I wanted to express my thoughts on the subject.

I believe that authentic resources in a language classroom is important - inasmuch as they are comprehensible.  Bottom line is that students won't learn anything from something they cannot understand.  To promote language acquisition, I use my leveled readers as the core of my curriculum.  This upcoming year, we're going to use the Pobre Ana series along with the New LICT extended readers to form our curriculum.  These contain the most important words and structures need to learn to get started, and giving them materials that they can fully understand - mostly on their own - is a powerful learning experience.  In the end, Spanish is still Spanish, whether it comes from me or an "authentic" material.

Because students are learning the most common and important structures and phrases, they should be able to find them in authentic resources as well.  Ultimately, students should be ready to read and listen to these resources in a comprehensible way.  At first, that may include authentic stories that I present, as Kristy described:

For instance, if I want to discuss a news story, I might show my students an article or a short video about it (in Spanish). However, if the items are incomprehensible, I might use them primarily as a visual and speak about them myself in simpler language, focusing on a small amount of new vocabulary, relying on cognates, visuals, and previously-acquired vocabulary, and using very natural grammar and syntax. For higher-level classes, I might even type up an “embedded reading” in which I simplify the story for reading/discussion prior to delving in to the authentic resource.

I'm lucky enough to be working in a school where students have more than the "usual" amount of Spanish instruction and will be beginning high school with already three years of daily Spanish instruction with a CI curriculum.  I believe this will enable me to take the highest level classes another step forward and use authentic resources as the core of my curriculum, similar to the literature books we used in my college-level classes.  Of course, this will often have some sort of scaffolding to prepare the for the structures and vocabulary used in the material.  It'll be a few years before we have students at that level, but I'm very excited to see where this might lead in the years to come!

Just *little* overwhelmed

My goodness, so many things have happened in the last week!  I found out that I'll be teaching the Latino Culture class for the Boise State TRiO Upward Bound program and am putting together a curriculum for it, am getting ready to move, and accepted a long-term subbing position until the end of the school year at a local middle school.  At least now I'll have some consistency on a daily basis.  It's not Spanish, but I've subbed for the class a few times before and have a good relationship with the kids and other teachers that I'll be working with.  That's one less thing to worry about while I try to get this house sold and work on the curriculum for TWO classes!

Thought it's not until fall, I'm still trying to figure out how I want to go about my curriculum this fall.  At the heart of my curriculum will be my structures - what tools am I going to give my students to communicate?  I think I'm back to pulling my structures from the LICT books because they offer the most repetition and consistently build upon one another.  One of the reasons I love this book is because it uses the most common words and structures.  Moreover, the Pobre Ana series, also written by Blaine Ray, uses many of the same structures, so doing stories based on the LICT extended readers should enable students to read more and more of the Pobre Ana series.  Mostly, I just want my curriculum to be consistent and provide my students CI through repetition and spiraling!

That seems to be the direction I'm going... but I might have to put it on hold for a while I get this house ready to be sold and plan my Latino Culture class!

Finally, after logging into twitter simply to follow #manhunt yesterday for hours straight, I finally decided to get going with this Twitter thing - so good so far!  What an incredible thing technology is :)  Follow me there!

Latino Culture

I just found out I'll be teaching a class titled "Latino Culture" this summer for the TRiO Upward Bound program this summer!  This is a huge program as working with this program as an undergrad is what inspired me to become a teacher. I have a few ideas for where to start, but I'd really like to get ideas and suggestions from others for how to structure this class or activities we can do. I just got my certification this January, so this is my first official class and I'm completely new to planning and implementing my own curriculum! Plus, rather than being a Spanish class (which I'm much more familiar with), this will be taught entirely in English. An overall theme that I'd like to tie the class together is that each country and its culture is unique, but that we are all tied together by common themes and elements.

The class is 1.5 hours/day for 24 days, and I have free reign for what I want to do. Moreover, I have a lot of resources at my disposal that I wouldn't usually have in a regular classroom, such as the ability to take students to local restaurants and businesses. For example, I'm hoping to take the students to lunch at a local empanada shop run by this wonderful Mexican and Argentine couple as well as having a day of dance instruction by a ballroom dance studio.  The sky is the limit! If you have any ideas, resources, worksheets, etc. that might be helpful, please let me know!

As I come up with ideas, I'm going to update here to keep this all together.

Materials: I want my students to keep interactive notebooks, though these will be pretty basic.  Here's the structure for as far as I've planned:  They should have a "housekeeping" section in the front where they can put the syllabus, track their grade, etc.  The bulk of their binder will be a section for the countries, with a few pages dedicated to each country.  Finally, I imagine there will be a few things that don't fit into a specific country or civilization, so a "misc" section is appropriate.

Curriculum: 

• Given that my expertise is in Spanish, I think we'll mainly focus on the Spanish-speaking countries and I can pull from much of the material I'm used to teaching.  I think I'll spend the first week giving students an overview, talking about our own cultures (many of the students will likely be Latinos, so this should be interesting!), and covering ancient cultures and general history of Latin America, such as the Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, and Spain's conquest up to where the individual countries started gaining their independence.  From there, I'd like to dedicate each day to a country or cluster of countries that we can talk about in more detail.  Though I think a brief history of the country is appropriate, I'd like to dedicate the majority of the class to modern cultural elements and symbols of the country.
• UPDATE: Another way to structure this would be to choose a "theme" for each day or a few days, such as art, music, food, holidays, and religion, as well as heavier topics like oppression, revolution, and immigration.  I think this would end up being a lot more meaningful for students, especially since there are many themes that are common through all the countries, and, instead of having some repetitious things come up over and over again, using those commonalities to emphasize how much countries do have in common.  Of course, throughout the course, I can point out specific things that stand out from various countries, but I think this structure would be much more powerful and endurance than covering each country in an isolated way.

Evaulation: 

•  Since the general theme of my class will be how each culture is unique but we're all tied together, I think I want my final to be a project or essay demonstrating what students found most meaningful from other countries and how it relates to them.  For example, they could do a poster or essay that shows in-depth knowledge about a (or a few) specific cultural element, and then draw connections and distinctions between it and their own lives, possibly even identifying how it changes how they view their culture and the "new" culture and any ways that might affect them.  (For example, learning about the Day of the Dead had a profound effect on how I want to try and remember my loved ones that have passed on). 
• UPDATE ON FINAL: I want my students to produce a poster showing their culture.  I really like the instructions given here, with a few modifications.  For example, I want them to include some of the themes covered in our class as well as draw connections between their culture and the Latino culture.  Throughout the course, I'll have students reflect in their journals about their own culture as well as similarities and differences between what we discuss in class and their own life.  This should give them a jump start on their final collage.  When they present their cultural collage, I may require them to identify a few things they have in common with Latino cultures.  In fact, they could write a one-page explanation highlighting 5 things, but only identify 2-3 when they present their collage to the class.
• The other main part of their grade will be maintaining a complete and organized notebook, showing evidence of their participation and learning.
• Finally, it would be easy for students to do mini-presentations about countries that they choose on the day that we talk about that country.
• Some questions I want my students to be able to answer:
• What is culture?
• What is my culture?
• What are some similarities and differences between my culture and Latino Culture?

Other resources:

• A general worksheet like this, comparing the similarities and difference of major cultural elements, might be great for students to complete about each country.
• A great breakdown of what culture is and its features.
• A worksheet from the Peace Corps listing many different cultural features encouraging students to evaluate their own culture and another culture.
• Peace Corps resources and lesson plans for educators to teach about culture.
• Naza Naza game, adapted from Bafá Bafá, which teaches about the importance of cultural rules and adaptation to a new culture
• Say what you will about Wikipedia, but it has a great "Latin American" article!

Plan:

1. Intro to class; What is culture?
• Put together interactive notebooks
• Essay Pretest: What is culture?
• Discuss what culture is
• Material v. non-material culture
• KWL for Latino Culture
2. NaZa NaZa game
3. Latinos in the Treasure Valley
• documentary
4. The Latino world
• Countries and capitals
• Languages spoken
• Geography, Weather, and the Environment
5. Pre-Columbian History
• Aztecs
• Mayans
• Incas
6. Conquest and Modern World
• Conquest
• Colonialization and colonial life
• Revolutions and independence
7.  Language
• Spoken Languages
• Dialects and colloquial words
• Indian languages
8.  Religion
9.  Holidays and Festivals
• Día de los muertos
• La Navidad
10. Education
11. Sports
12. Food
13. Communities
• Role of the family
• Education
• Social norms and customs
• Gender Roles
• clothing
14. Government and Oppression
15. Modern Revolutions
16. Immigration
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
17. Art
• Fine Art
• Dramatic Art
• Architecture
18. Music and Dance
19. Dance Instruction
20.  Wealth and Poverty
• Problems
• Drugs
• Products
21. Work Day
22. Work Day
23. Question and Answer presentation - Humberto Fuentes from Hispanic Cultural Center
24. "My Culture" presentations

Syllabus:

• Objective:  After taking this class, students will be able to answer the following:
• What is culture?
• What is my culture?
• What are some features of Latino culture?
• What are some similarities and differences between my culture and Latino culture?
• Topics to be covered: A variety of cultural themes will be discussed and experienced.  In general, each day will have a "theme" and we will explore many aspects of that theme in Latino culture.  In addition to identifying what culture is and why it's important, other topics may include:
• Countries, Geography, Weather, Environment, History, language, holidays and celebrations, religion, sports, food, community features, politics, immigration, music, art, dance, and other topics as they relate to Latino Culture
• Assignments and Grading: 
• Interactive Notebook (50%): You will be required to keep an Interactive Notebook, which we will discuss in class.  Having a complete and organized notebook is a major part of your grade and will enable you to be successful in this class.  Nearly everything from this class will go in this notebook, including any handouts, worksheets, and activities we do.
• Reflections (25%): Each day, you will need to write a reflection in your notebook.  These reflections will compare and contrast your culture with the Latino culture features we discuss that day.  Completing these reflections thoroughly will prepare you for your final project.
• Final project and essay (50%): Your final will consist of two parts.
• Collage (25%): You will create a collage representing your culture and present it to the class on the last day.  More details about this collage will be given in class.
• Culture Essay (25%): You will write a 2-page culture essay and turn it in with your collage.  Your essay must discuss what culture is and why it is important and then  choose 5 features of Latino culture to draw connections between it and your own culture.  Completing your daily reflections will prepare you for this essay.
• Rules and Expectations: The following are the rules I expect you to follow at all times:
1. Follow directions.
2. Be ready to begin when class starts.
3. No put downs, name calling, or hate speech.
4. No swearing.
5. Bring your pencil and notebook every day.
6. Be respectful in the classroom.
7. No electronic devices unless I permit it.

Chapter Glossaries

Many of the novellas from Blaine Ray and TPRS publishing have glossaries in the back.  One interesting feature of these glossaries is that they are often arranged by chapter, enableing teachers and students to review any "new" words before reading the chapters.  Unfortunately, the Pobre Ana does not come with glossaries arranged by chapter - so I'm going to make my own!  Before reading each story, I'll hand out a packet with the chapter glossaries for the entire book, and we can review each chapter's "new words" before reading each time.  I plan to put "fair game" words that may show up in context on future assessments - such as the common "little" words like "todos" (all/everyone) and "cada" (each) - in bold, so students can focus on these first.  This works especially well for me since I can draw attention to the most important words as well as work around structures students should already know.

More curriculum Ideas

I'm trying to figure out what and when I want to do certain structures and readings, and how it will all tie together, so here is my current plan...

Structures:

• Week 1
• Structures:
• había
• era
• quería
• fue
• Reading:
• LICT 1.1
• Week 2:
• Structures:
• vivía
• estaba
• tenía
• Reading:
• LICT 1.3
• Pobre Ana Ch. 1 (pages 1-5)
• Week 3:
• Structures:
• le gustaba
• le dio
• le dijo
• Reading
• LICT 1.2
• Pobre Ana Ch. 2 (pages 6-9)
• Week 4:
• Structures:
• quería tener
• buscó
• elefante con Jacuzzi
• Reading
• LICT 2.1
• Pobre Ana Ch. 3 (pages 10-14)
• Week 5:
• Structures:
• sabía que
• vio a
• lo llevó
• Reading:
• LICT 2.2
• Pobre Ana Ch. 3 (pages 14-18)
• Week 6:
• Structures:
• no sabía hacerlo
• podía
• no hicieron nada
• Reading:
• LICT 2.3
• Pobre Ana Ch. 4 (pages 19-21)
• Week 7:
• Structures:
• tan rápido como
• buscando
• tenía que
• Reading:
• LICT 3.1
• Pobre Ana Ch. 5 (pages 22-25)
• Week 8:
• Structures:
• decidió comprar
• pasaba tanto tiempo
• sabe bailar
• Reading:
• LICT 3.2
• Pobre Ana Ch. 6 (26-29)
• Other:
• directions
• Week 9:
• Structures:
• le parecía
• tenía que
• lo encontró
• Reading:
• LICT 3.3
• Pobre Ana Ch. 7
• Week 10:
• Structures:
• iba a bailar
• para hacerlo para ella
• pensaba mucho en
• Reading:
• LICT 4.1
• Pobre Ana Ch. 8-9

Patricia Va a California

• Week 1:
• Structures:
• creía que debía entrar
• sigieron buscando
• salieron
• Reading:
• LICT 4.2
• PVaC Ch. 1 (p. 1-3)
• Week 2:
• Structures:
• estaba muy preocupada
• había buscado
• llegó
• Reading:
• LICT 4.3
• PVaC Ch. 2 (p. 4-8)
• Week 3:
• Structures:
• tenía que hacer un plan para conocerla
• si tuviera lecciones, podría bailar bien
• si bailara bien, iría a Las Vegas
• Reading:
• LICT 5.1
• PCaC Ch. 3-4 (p. 9-13)
• Week 4:
• Structures:
• se los dio
• le importaba mucho
• volvió
• Reading:
• LICT 5.2
• PVaC Ch. 5 (p. 14-18)
• Week 5:
• Structures:
• iba a costar
• conoció a una chica
• me gustaría comprar
• Reading:
• LICT 5.3
• PVaC Ch. 6 (p. 19-23 )
• Week 6:
• Structures:
• tomó otra decición
• se puso muy contento
• le encantaría
• Reading:
• LICT 6.1
• PVaC Ch. 7 (p. 24-28)
• Week 7:
• Structures:
• se ensució
• lo dejó
• no observaba lo que estaba haciendo
• Reading:
• LICT 6.2
• PVaC Ch. 8 (p. 29-33)
• Week 8:
• Structures:
• no podría venderselo por poco dinero
• volvió a casa
• podría ganar dinero
• Reading:
• LICT 6.3
• PVaC Ch. 9-10 (p. 34-39)
• Week 9:
• Structures:
• None - Review
• Reading:
• PVaC Ch. 11-12 (p. 40-45)

The Importance of PQA

Here's an insight that took me a long time to realize:

Students acquire structures during PQA.  It's easy to "go through the motions" with PQA and move straight into the storytelling (that's what TPR Storytelling is all about, isn't it?), thinking the students will learn the structures as long as you use them and circle them enough within the stories.  However, the stories work best when they're seen more as the application of material already learned through PQA.  Previously, I've primarily focused on the stories and the result was that, while students could tell stories and personalize them, they still couldn't communicate with one another through asking and responding to questions in a conversation format (they also didn't know the structures as well as I wanted them to, which is related but wasn't my main concern.  I was most concerned that, even though they knew all this Spanish, they couldn't carry on a conversation!).  I thought that they would learn the "yo" and "tú" forms through my dialogue with characters during the story but later realized that, if I was doing PQA effectively, they would recognize all the conjugation patterns to some extent before we even got to the story.  Moreover, that's why parallel characters are important - they arise through PQA and we're able to see the same structures in many different ways through the development and description of the parallel characters.  It's a Bloom's Taxonomy-like principle: First the students hear the same fairly isolated structure the same way in the same context (establishing meaning through translating and possibly TPR), then in different ways in the same context while still semi-isolated (circling), then different ways in different context and still semi-isolated (parallel characters, and, finally, in different ways in changing contexts (during the story).

One of my goals this year is to make sure I have my students solid at each step before proceeding to the next step - in other words, I need to make sure my students have the PQA phase of a lesson down before venturing into the storytelling phase.  In fact, I'll be setting aside an entire day for PQA now - it'll be interesting to see the results!

Pobre Ana: Story 9 - A New Family

Structures:

• New Structures:
• podía vivir con una familia mexicana
• le dijo
• no comprendió nada pero sonrío y les dijo "sí"
• Recent Structures:
• Story 8: Making an Impression
• Story 7: Transportation in Africa
• Story 6: A dress for Helga
• Story 5: A boyfriend for Linda
• Story 4: Chucky's Chocolate
• Story 3: Frederick's Marvelous Hat
• Story 2: Tiny the Elephant
• Story 1: Maria the Thief
• TPR Words

Story:

Había una chica que se llamaba Jessica.  Jessica vivía con una familia mexicana y hablaba español.  A Jessica, no le gustaba su familia.  Jessica quería una familia nueva.  Podía vivir con una familia Klingon o una familia de elfos.  Fue a su mamá y le dijo, "¡Adios!"

Podía vivir con una familia de Klingons.  Vivían en la planeta Kronos.  Hablaban Klingon.  Jessica fue a la familia y les dijo, "¡Hola!"  El papá le dijo, "nuqneH", pero Jessica no le comprendió.  La mamá le dijo, "jIajbe," pero Jessica no le comprendió.  El hijo le dijo, "tlhIngan maH!" pero Jessica no le comprendió.  No comprendió nada, pero sonrió y les dijo, "sí."  No podía vivir con una familia Klingons porque no les comprendió.

Podía vivir con una familia de elfos.  Vivían en el centro del mundo.  Hablaban la idioma de los elfos.  Jessica fue a la familia y les dijo, "¡Hola!"  El papá le dijo, "Quel fara", pero Jessica no le comprendió.  La mamá le dijo, "Vanya sulie," pero Jessica no le comprendió.  El hijo le dijo, "Lissenen ar' maska'lalaith tenna' lye omentuva" pero Jessica no le comprendio.  No comprendió nada, pero sonrió y les dijo, "sí."  No podía vivir con una familia de elfos porque no les comprendió.

Fue a su casa.  Fue a la familia y les dijo "¡Hola!".  La familia le dijo "¡Hola!" y Jessica les comprendió.  Podía vivir con una familia mexicana.  Estaba contenta.

Pobre Ana: Story 8 - Making an impression

Structures:

• New Structures
• tenía que hacerlo
• estaba (-a/iendo verb) bien
• estaba sorprendida
• Recent Structures
• Story 7: Transportation in Africa
• Story 6: A dress for Helga
• Story 5: A boyfriend for Linda
• Story 4: Chucky's Chocolate
• Story 3: Frederick's Marvelous Hat
• Story 2: Tiny the Elephant
• Story 1: Maria the Thief
• TPR Words

Story:

Había una chica que se llamaba Isabel.  Quería un novio.  Le gustaba Brad Pitt, pero a Brad Pitt no le gustaba Isabel.  Isabel tenía que hacer algo.

Isabel fue a la casa de Brad Pitt.  A Brad Pitt le gustaban chicas que bailaba.  Isabel nunca bailaba.  Pero, tenía que hacerlo.  Isabel bailó mucho en la casa de Brad Pitt.  Brad Pitt la miró.  Brad Pitt estaba sorprendida porque Isabel estaba bailando en la cabeza.  Isabel no estaba bailando bien.  A Brad Pitt, no le gustaba Isabel.  Isabel estaba triste.  Tenía que hacer algo diferente.

Isabel fue a la casa de Brad Pitt.  A Brad Pitt le gustaban chicas que cantaban.  Isabel nunca cantaba.  Pero, tenía que hacerlo.  Isabel cantó mucho en la casa de Brad Pitt.  Brad Pitt la miró.  Brad Pitt estaba sorprendida porque Isabel estaba cantando como Shakira.  Isabel estaba cantando bien.  A Brad Pitt le gustaba Isabel.  Isabel estaba contenta.  No tenía que hacer algo diferente.

Pobre Ana Series

I just finished reading the Pobre Ana series for Spanish 1! 

I really like the Pobre Ana series for "required" reading that we do as a class because it sticks to common phrases and vocabulary that I can easily teach through telling TPRS stories.  Since they're all about life in general, they stick to the most common words, getting progressively more complex which each level.  Moreover, it brings in a lot of culture - each book takes place somewhere different and has a lot of really good themes we could focus on.  These are books I could easily center a curriculum around!

"Amigos Detectives" is a little different as it focuses on a science and biology theme.  I found myself stopping more frequently to look up words in it more than any of the other books because I didn't know words for animals and other specific vocabulary.  I think it would be a good "extra" book that uses the most frequent vocabulary and structures in new ways.   If we had time, or we just wanted to read a book "for fun" I would use it, but feel that teaching the vocabulary needed to read the book without looking in the glossary often would be difficult.  If it was read out loud as a class, this wouldn't be so much of an issue since I could just translate those words for them, but I feel there's power in reading a book that the students feel they can read without my assistance, especially if it's a central part of our curriculum.  Plus, I will likely want to vary how students are reading, including independent, and I don't want them to get discouraged or frustrated.  Checking the glossary every now and again is ok, but I felt I had to do it so much that it disrupted the flow of the book.

Just my two cents so far.  I'm excited to read the other books - 6 down, 14 to go!

The power is in the logic

I made Inklewriter story one for my Pobre Ana: Story 2 structures and I feel like I finally figured out how to best use it for my needs!

While Inklewriter is brilliantly simple to use, figuring out how to use it to its full potential is quite the learning curve.  I guess this wouldn't be such an issue for most people who are actually writing stories that branch off different directions, but mine frequently give the reader small options that are incorporated into the story, but don't change the story (like names) and it's a hassle to create two parallel stories and keep them straight.  In addition, many of my questions are comprehension questions that incorporate these details, so I have a number of tiny questions before the next part of the story is added.

However, I think I finally have the trick figured out, and the secret lies in the logic functions of Inklewriter.  By adding logic functions to the text, I only have to write one paragraph that can customize itself based on the previous choices of the reader.  In fact, I can even elect to show entire paragraphs based on what decisions have previously been made.

So then, I was having trouble with the options customizing themselves to fit the paragraphs, and having incorrect options loop back to where the correct answer was, especially since the correct answer is sometimes different depending on those decisions.  That is, until I realized I could hide/show the answers just like the paragraphs.  Thus, on one question, I have something to the tune of 12 possible answers for all the possible scenarios at that point (8 wrong, 4 correct), but only 3 will be shown to the reader based on what they've chosen so far (two wrong, one correct).  You can do this by saying to only show the option if choices "X", "Y", and "Z" were made.  There's no "or", but I don't know that you need it because you can also say to only show the option if choices "X", "Y", and "Z" were not made.  Thus, you should be able to logically get the correct options to appear.

At first, I thought this was more of a dichotomy.  For example, you could input:

• If "Choice X", then "Option X", but if not, then "Option Y")

But then, falling back on my discrete math class of which I only ever completed the first lesson, I realized I could use this dichotomy to logically pick one from any number of options.  I tested it out, and it worked!  For instance, you could input:

• If "Choice X", then "Option X", but if not, then if "Choice Y", then "Option Y", but if neither of those, then "Option Z".

Of course, if we really wanted to get complicated, then I could offer 5 choices by inputting: you could input:

• If "Choice X", then "Option X", but if not, then if "Choice Y", then "Option Y", but if none of those, then if "Choice Z", then "Option Z", but if none of those, then if "Choice N", then "Option N", but if none of those, then "Option P".

It's only logical!