A common criticism of teaching with storytelling is that our students are really good at retelling stories from the 3rd person perspective but have trouble when it comes time to conjugate those pesky verbs in real life. Remember: what goes in is what comes out, so it makes sense that if the majority of their input in the 3rd person, that’s what they’ll produce.

Of course, there are lots of ways to give them input in the other forms, like Star of the Day and telling them stories about you and your life but this year I’ve made an intentional change to our Clip Chat routine. After each Clip Chat, write Write & Discuss from a particular character’s point of view and it’s been the missing puzzle piece.

This year, more than ever, my Spanish 1 Little Darlings are internalizing the importance of the verb endings and how manipulating them changes the WHO and the WHEN. Are they using them perfectly? Of course not- they’re novices! But they are playing around with their verb endings in their writing and speaking and that is a very good first step! Just look at these beauties, taken from their most recent Celebrations of Knowledge:

Here’s what I’ve been playing with this year: after every Clip Chat, I tell them that we’ll write out the story from one of the character’s points of view. We brainstorm the characters and decide which they want to choose. (It’s not exactly a democratic process, I make sure each class chooses a different character🤣) Then we do all the usual Write & Discuss goodness: discussing what happens next and collaboratively writing it together, while keeping it comprehensible, and referring often to the super simplified verb endings posted at the front of my classroom. (During the actual Clip Chat, I narrate the story and ask questions about the characters; it’s not until we’re sitting down to write it out that we change the perspective and it seems that the Write & Discuss format really gives them a chance to hone in on how the endings affect the meaning of the verbs.)

This year I’ve got four sections of Spanish 1, so after any Clip Chat, I’ve got four different versions of the same story just begging to be turned into an easy reading assessment! (You know me- there’s nothing I love more than assessments that are easy for me to create AND correct AND give them more input!🤩)

I dropped all their versions into one document. Any student will recognize one version (because we wrote it together in class) and the other three versions will be new. For the quiz, students read all four versions, decide who’s telling each version, then read them again looking for specific statements to highlight. They feel good because they feel successful and I feel good because it took me very little time to create and my dear TA can grade and alphabetize them for me. Can we all just take a minute to thank the Good Lord for Good TAs?!

The one above is based on Buster the Boxer and feel free to grab a copy of it here to take a look at or use with your own Little Darlings. Here’s our very first perspectives quiz based on the Wildebeest Clip Chat that we did waaaay back in September.

Hope you’re doing well! Are you also asking yourself “how on earth is it already March?!”

How on earth is it already March!?!☘️☘️☘️