DAY ONE Objective: Students will correctly identify the target vocabulary when they hear it. La Campanada (Bellwork): Students write their responses in complete sentences in Spanish.
- ¿Cuál es tu tienda favorita? - What's your favorite store?
- Describe tu camisa favorita. - Describe your favorite shirt.
- ¿De dónde compras tus pantalones? - From where do you buy your pants?
- ¿Quién compra tus pantalones y tus camisas? - Who buys your pants and shirts?
- Discuss answers as a class.
- I used pants, shirt, and store because my students know those terms. You could use anything (like 'clothes', for example). The translation 'compra - s/he buys' was written on the board because only some of my students would remember that.
Introduce Target Vocabulary
- I followed the steps from my 'Introducing Vocabulary' post to introduce the vocabulary from the story 'Cuesta demasiado'.
Introduce song: "¿Cuánto me cuesta?"
- THIS SONG IS SO AWESOME! It's totally corny to my students, so your presentation of the song is very important! I built it up as a traditional song that is different than what the students would probably choose to listen to, but it's super romantic and cheesy and fabulous!
- Make sure students understand lyrics like "Cuánto tengo que desembolsar/para ser el dueño del lunar/que te adorna a un lado de tu boca" (How much do I have to empty out of my pockets in order to be the owner of the mole/beauty mark that adorns the side of your mouth) because that's what makes them develop the love/hate relationship with the song.
- When you sing it, CROON it!! Use big, sweeping Shakespearean gestures, and muster up all the vibrato that your voice will allow! Tell students that it's only embarrassing if you actually try to sing it well. If you try to sound like an idiot, it's cool!
- The result, for me, was 70 seventh and eighth graders singing along at the top of their voices, gesturing like maniacs, for five days straight. How awesome!!
Review Vocabulary Gestures
- Before the bell rings, make sure to run through the target structures one more time with your students. I do this by soliciting translations, then gestures with eyes open, then gestures with eyes closed. More gesture ideas can be found in my gestures post.
DAY TWO Objective: Students will practice using target terms and use them to interpret the story "Cuesta demasiado".
La Campanada (Bellwork): Students write their responses in complete sentences in Spanish. Reading and Writing Assessment
- Cuando una persona va a la iglesia, ¿qué se pone? - When a person goes to church, what does he or she wear?
- ¿A quién le dices, «¡Te ves muy guapo!» - To whom do you say "You look great!"?
- ¿La ropa de Nordstroms cuesta demasiado? - Do clothes from Nordstroms cost too much?
- ¿Qué colores se ponen los Yankees? - What colors do the Yankees put on?
- Discuss answers as a class.
- For question #1, substitute other places (McDonalds, an elegant restaurant, the beach, an interview, etc.) for "la iglesia". This is a good way to pull in other clothing vocabulary that students don't really need to know but that many would pick up on. Make sure you have a wide range of interesting clothes to support comprehension.
- For question #2, teach the variant "se ve" (s/he looks) and ask if specific celebrities look great (Ex: ¿Justin Bieber se ve muy guapo?)
- For question #3, substitute other places and items for clothes and Nordstroms. Ex: Do hamburgers from Carls' Jr. cost too much? TV's from Best Buy? etc.
- For question #4, use whatever teams your students would recognize--professional and/or local high schools.
Song: ¿Cuánto me cuesta?
Storyasking: Cuesta demasiado
- Write the target terms and translations on the board.
- Practice gestures again.
- Choose actors and begin asking the story.
- As a brain break, play a gestures game somewhere in the middle of the story.
- With five minutes left in class, stop and do an up/down formative listening assessment.
Objective: Students will understand the story "Cuesta demasiado"
La Campanada (Bellwork): Students write their responses in complete sentences in Spanish.
- Escribe las palabras que faltan en los espacios: (Write the words that are missing in the spaces)
- On the board, write a chunk of the story that the class developed yesterday in the target language. Pull out the target vocabulary and one or two key details (location, for example) and have students write down the words that are missing.
- Discuss answers as a class.
Storyasking: Cuesta demasiado
- Project yesterday's script onto the board, as far as you got, and read it aloud.
- As you read, be sure to circle, check for comprehension, and solicit gestures.
- Call up your actors from yesterday and finish the story.
- This is really going to make your students think! It's easy to come up with something positive and something negative, but not very easy to come up with something 'important' or a question for this story...it's pretty straightforward! Help them personalize the story.
- Some questions could be, "What do you do if you want something but don't have enough money?", "Is it ever okay to steal something?", "Do I care about my appearance/clothes? Why?" etc.
Song: ¿Cuánto me cuesta?
DAY FOUR
Objective: Students will be able to apply target vocabulary from "Cuesta demasiado" to a new context.
La Campanada (Bellwork): Students write their responses in complete sentences in Spanish.
- Escribe el cuento "Cuesta demasiado" (Write the story "Cuesta demasiado")
- Have students share their work, one sentence at a time so that many students can participate. You will hopefully come up with a pretty complete re-tell of the story.
Cuesta demasiado re-write
- Decide whether you want students to work individually or in partners. Partner work typically generates more creative work, but students are often less productive. Also, you cannot use the activity as an assessment. Individual work allows you the option to assess the in-process and finished product.
- Project the "Cuesta demasiado retell" storyboard onto your Promethean/other board. If you must, you could make paper copies for students to use.
- Have students write a minimum of two sentences to describe what is happening in each picture. When students finish quickly, have them add an additional sentence to each frame. And another...and another...and another.
- If you are NOT using it as an assessment, you can check students' work and help them make corrections as they write.
Song: ¿Cuánto me cuesta?
DAY FIVE
Objective: Students will demonstrate acquisition of target vocabulary from "Cuesta demasiado"
La Campanada (Bellwork): Students write their responses in complete sentences in Spanish. - Three -four "feelings questions about the story (How does __ feel when s/he tries on __?, How does __ feel when s/he goes to the [event]?, How does __ feel when s/he looks at the price of __?, etc.)
- Discuss answers as a class.
Reading of re-write
- BEFORE CLASS, use pieces from each student's re-write from the storyboard yesterday to create a class story to narrate it. Here is my example: Cuesta demasiado picture retells
- Project the story onto your board and read the story together, circling and checking for comprehension. Show the text from one scene at a time so that students don't get ahead of you. You could also pull in actors if you want!
- Give each student a copy of the assessment: Cuesta demasiado assessment
- The first page is the original assessment; the second page is for re-takes.
- The first part is a reading assessment, and the second (translation) piece can be used as a writing or vocabulary assessment.
Song: ¿Cúanto me cuesta?...for the last time! So sad.
