I heard that the new movie La Llorona came out this past weekend, and I thought to myself, welp, there’s my lesson plan for tomorrow!  I mean, come on, the legend  is scary and spooky and compelling and cultural… so awesome on so many levels! And best of all…this was one of those Great Idea No Prep Lessons that was fun for all!

Chalk Talk- Visual Lecture- Storylistening

There are a lot of names for the same thing: using the whiteboard to illustrate as you explain, which aids their comprehension and slows you down (since it takes longer to draw than speak!)

I had a blast sharing the legend of “La Llorona” with my students in slow and comprehensible Spanish.   I did the same activity with my Spanish 1 and my Spanish 4 students, but of course, adjusting my language to be comprehensible to each class. While students listened, they filled out a listening quiz sheet.  (which is why, during the video, you’ll hear me say in my sternest teacher voice, “Your eyes should be on your own paper”.) 

If you’d like to see what it looked like, here you go! If you’re scrambling for a sub plan, you can show this to your kiddos and have them fill out a listening quiz. Easy peesy! 

My fabulous colleague, Amy,  made this even creepier by playing creepy music quietly in the background while telling the story. Brilliant!  LOVE IT AND I’M TOTALLY DOING THIS NEXT YEAR!

Spanish 1:

 

Spanish 4:

 

Write and Discuss

Oh how I love “Write and Discuss” and with my Spanish 1 Little Darlings, we wrote out the story. We’ve been dabbling in the past tense and it makes my CI teacher heart so happy… I remember the days when I stayed strictly in Present Tense in Spanish 1, which now, looking back, felt so confining! Oh the freedom of talking to your kiddos naturally! If you’re looking for a reading of the popular legend that would be good for level 1 or 2, feel free to use ours: La leyenda de la Llorona 

Movie Trailer

So after my little darlings had listened to the story, and then written about it, I showed them the movie trailer. It’s so creepy and jumpy and there were a lot of shrieks and screams coming from my classroom! I have a student who is in charge of asking “¿Qué hora es? once every class period, and during 1st period, he waited until a super tense moment during the trailer and hollered out “¡¿QUÉ HORA ES?!”- Everyone jumped and screamed and then we all nearly died laughing. It was one of those priceless moments that makes me think I have the best job in the world!

We didn’t have time today, but I’m planning on Movie Talking the La Llorona movie trailer next class and creating a textivate challenge with the Llorona reading.

Muévete si

After watching the trailer everyone was feeling a bit jumpy, so we did a bit of Muévete si before transitioning into our next activity. I said statements like…

• Muévete si te gustan las películas de horror
• Muévete si tienes miedo en la noche
• Muévete si saltaste durante el trailer de La Llorona

In the back of my classroom I have a door to the Pasillo misterioso which connects to another Spanish classroom, which is awesome because not only is the teacher an awesome CI teacher, she’s also my former student turned colleague. She just happened to be in the Pasillo misterioso during 7th period and heard me say, “Move if you jumped while watching the trailer”, and so, being the fabulous person that she is, she waited until everyone was quiet and in their seat before opening the door and screaming. The whole class jumped. It was the.best.ever. Is it bad that I get such a thrill out of watching them jump?!

Wanna see more of Classroom sweet Classroom, here’s the tour!

Dreaming in Spanish

The following class, we watch Pablo’s version of La Llorona. While students watched, they listened for similarities and differences between the two versions of La Llorona.  Then they filled out a Double Bubble Thinking Map to compare and contrast.

Until next time, friends!