Katie+L.+unit+plan

Unit Plan: Descriptions Class: Spanish 3 Topic: Descriptions, adjectives Dates: 12/8-12/18(ish)


 * Note* Some of these plans are fuzzy because I am pacing it with my mentor and we haven’t gotten quite to the end of the unit, other than discussing the exam. I didn’t have a chance to observe Spanish 3 before starting the tri, but decided to take advantage of the trimester schedule and teach the whole thing with more guidance from my mentor in the beginning.

Topics/pages to cover: Spanish for Mastery, Unidad 1: Personal introductions, “identity” information and descriptions

Language objectives: Students will be able to talk, write, and expand ideas about people by introducing them and describing them physically. They will pull on earlier unit vocabulary and tie in “identity words” such as birthplace, address, etc. Grammar-wise, they will continue to review Spanish two verb conjugation concepts with my mentor in quick bell work-style reviews.


 * Assessment**: As a cumulative unit assignment, students will work in pairs writing a children’s story about an imaginary person (or animal) with crazy or exaggerated looks and personality traits, with a rubric given for specific grammar requirements. They will also take the unit test that coordinates with the book. There will be a mid-way vocab quiz as well.


 * WEEK ONE:**

“What did you do this weekend?” warmup Continuing “A trip down memory lane” verb review packets (my mentor) Review countries, capitals, and nationalities with three-way flash cards Unscrambling nationality adjectives in preparation for Tuesday quiz Homework: Study for quiz
 * Monday**:

Countries/capitals/nationalities quiz Continue “A trip down memory lane” Begin “description” vocabulary: Hand out word list, practice with large visual flashcards Do A-person/B-person describe-and-draw activity with description vocab Homework: Prepare a self-description on a notecard
 * Tuesday**:

Review description vocabulary with flashcards “Memory Lane” Read “Escenas de la Vida” (short story in textbook ft. new vocab); answer comprehension questions Listen to audio of Escenas de la Vida and answer audio questions Do guided dialogues using prompts from book Read anonymous self-descriptions (from hw assignment) aloud; class guesses who wrote it Homework: Follow up Escenas de la Vida with creative writing assignment in workbook
 * Wednesday**:

Choose volunteers to read stories aloud; Think-Pair-Share to check comprehension of classmates’ stories Do a second prompted dialogue Describe celebrities: Short articles with famous people from People en Español will be placed around room. Students must use three descriptive words for each one, and also find out what their profession is (we’ve worked with the same set of celebrities before, looking for nationalities)
 * Thursday**:

Celebrity date game: Students pick an annonymous celebrity for a date based only on a description. (Careful! May be misleading...) Identity is revealed only after the choice is made
 * Friday**:


 * WEEK TWO**:
 * Focus on:** Speaking, ser vs. estar, exam prep, creating children’s stories, testing.


 * Children’s story project:** Students will be asked to create a character with a variety of interesting physical traits. They will randomly be paired with another person in class, and together, they will have to create a story involving both of these characters. The students must follow a rubric and incorporate a specific number of tenses, grammar points and vocabulary.

Does this appear to be proper pacing for Spanish 3 students? I am really struggling right now with determining how much practice the students need and how long learning takes in general, especially because I just started with Spanish 3.
 * Questions**:

I’d also maybe like to find more ways to incorporate some technology and some culture. I chose Latino celebrities (the same set we’ve worked with before), so they can become more familiar with people other than Enrique Iglesias, but I’m not sure how authentic this unit feels.

Katie - This looks like a great unit plan! I really like the children's story project - it looks like a great culminating activity that students will enjoy. I also really like the celebrity dating game - I bet your students will have a blast with that! With regard to your questions, the pacing looks appropriate to me, but without being more familiar with the activities it's hard to say exactly. Something that has helped me is to go through each activity and estimate the time that activity will take. However, I've been teaching Spanish 3 all year so I have a better idea of how to estimate this. One thing I can tell you is that obviously it's better to underestimate than overestimate. That way you'll end up being overplanned instead of underplanned, so you won't end up with extra time and nothing to do. As far as culture, I would say that incorporating it is one of my major struggles so I honestly don't have much advice to give! One idea I have about technology would be doing something with describing pictures or clip-art people. If you have a smartboard in your room, you could do something like make a matching activity and have students drag pictures and descriptions. I hope that sparks some ideas. Let me know if you have other questions or need any other suggestions!! Good luck! user:sarahew