Assessing Movie Comprehension: I THINK this is an original idea!

"THINK" is in all caps, because I am very careful to claim anything as truly an original idea!  I follow lots of great bloggers and twitter accounts, check out the moretrps digest on yahoo and the iFLT/NTPRS/CI Teaching posts on Facebook.  And I get tons of awesome ideas to use in my own classroom!  At the most, I tweak a little bit or maybe add a creative twist.  

But I THINK I came up with this idea on my own last year.  Now, if you read this post and recognize this idea, please let me know and I'll give credit where credit is due!  

In Spanish IV, we finished up the year reading La Guerra Sucia by Nathaniel Kirby.  While we read the novel, we watched the Argentine movie Cautiva.  It is a great movie about a young girl who has been raised by a wealthy family and then discovers that she is actually the daughter of a couple that was "disappeared" during the Dirty War.  As part of their unit assessment, I wanted to include something about the movie, but not make it too heavy on the writing as they were also going to do a comparison essay between the Dirty War and the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico that occurred in September of 2014. 

So here is what they ended up doing:

The instructions are for students to complete the movie poster.  In the first box, they write just a few words to describe the film.  In the second box, they write a short synopsis. In the box at the bottom, they must pose a question. I told them that it was their job to attract the public to see this film.   It was a very effective and creative way to see students' understanding of the movie and have them express themselves in the target language.  

Here is a link to a full-size copy on a Google doc.

Reader's Theater in Bianca Nieves y los siete toritos

One thing I love to do when reading novels in my class is to act out an interesting or action-packed scene.  I was lucky to see Kristy Placido at an iFLT conference talk about Reader's Theater and she really inspired me to think about possibilities while doing this.   What about background music?  Props? Costumes?  A projected scene on the screen? (Even as I type this post, I am thinking about a few things I could have added to the scene we did below!)

My Spanish IV students just finished reading Carrie Toth's novel Bianca Nieves y los siete toritos, and we had a great time with the Juli vs Sabado bullfight.  The most important elements were the shawls for Salome and Bianca, the traje de luz (purchased at Goodwill for $3), the sword ("borrowed" from my daughters), the montera (a pirate hat turned backwards), the capote (my Feliz Navidad dish towel) and of course the bull (an old bike). Now the fact that the pirate hat and the cape were a little bit small just made for more fun.  And the bike?  What could be more perfect?  What student does not want to ride a bike in the middle of your classroom?  (Or on a short tour down the hall?)

Most of the class was the audience at the bullfight.  Then we assigned specific roles for Salome and Bianca pictured at the back of the video.  El Juli was the star of the show, along with Sábado of course. Here are some clips of the action!

Bianca y Salomé

Here comes Sábado!

Watch out Juli!

Read Dustin Williamson's great tips on Reader's Theater here.  If you have not yet tried Reader's Theater in your classes, give it a shot and really bring the book to life for your students.

Finishing up Bianca Nieves y los siete toritos Like a Pirate!

Last week my Spanish IV class finished up the novel Bianca Nieves y los 7 toritos by Carrie Toth.  Because we spent a lot of time throughout the unit comparing various versions of the the age-old story of Snow White (the classic fairy tale, the incredible 2012 Spanish film Blancanieves, and the novel by Carrie) I wanted to make sure that our final project gave students the chance to do some character analysis across these three stories.

I purchased this Character cell phone activity by Laura Randazzo on teacherspayteachers.com and modified it for use in our class. Students worked in groups of three students (ideally) or 2 depending on class numbers. They could pick either the stepmother, the daughter, the father, or the "friend/prince" and make comparisons across the two stories and movie.  The elements they included on their posters were songs, messages and a cell phone wallpaper image.  All items had to represent the character's personality and/or actions.   Here are some examples below.  

Here is the rubric I used to grade the projects.  

But what does Snow White have to do with a pirate? Well, one of my favorite all-time presenters has to be Dave Burgess.  If you can see him in person, do it!  If not, definitely add his book Teach Like a Pirate to your summer reading list.  Among other things, Dave encourages teachers to make their lessons "experiences."  

I have read about other teachers doing gallery walks in their classes, so we (I currently have a student teacher) created the Galeria Blancanieves.  Although we vaguely mentioned to our students that they would be presenting their projects to their classmates, we did not give any details. When they arrived to class, lights were dimmed, chairs were rearranged, the bulletin board had been resurfaced for the occasion, and soft jazz music was playing in the background. Mark (my student teacher) and I stood out in the hallway, each with a tray of white grape juice in fancy plastic cups as students came down the hall.  We created quite a stir during passing time as our hallway is a busy one.  Our students did not know what to think!  On the way into class, they had to pick up a glass, and a small piece of paper indicating what group they would be in to present.

The group was divided in half, and while one group was presenting their "artwork" the other group mingled and asked them questions.  To facilitate this, Mark had made up a small sheet with some questions to answer.  It was a success! Students were pleased to show off their projects and get deserved attention from their classmates. Engagement was high and they seemed inspired to keep their conversations in Spanish.  And some students really got into the role of "artist" while they talked about their own work.  Here are some pictures of our "Galería."

Note:  Because of the camera flash, the room looks bright.  But the dim lighting and background music really set the scene!

This was a great way to end our novel study!  Can you think of a lesson that you can turn into an experience?