Teaching Tip: Marisol Needs a Family

Name:

Monica Shuler

Economy:

United States

School:

Eastbury Elementary School

Subject:

Foreign Language: Spanish, Grade 5

Tip:

BACKGROUND:

The following project was assigned to students in fifth grade. The majority of the children have been learning Spanish for five years. The students receive Spanish instruction five days a week for fifteen minutes each day.

The study of Spanish in the Glastonbury Public Schools begins in grade one. Our program emphasizes the development of good listening skills, accurate oral reproduction, and beginning reading and writing skills. Audio visual materials, songs, games worksheets and projects are used to reinforce the communication skills being taught. Also taught are the cultural backgrounds of Spanish speaking countries, to develop student awareness of cultures other than their own.

The 5th grade year-long essential question is: Who are the people of the Americas and how do they live in their environment? The students learn the geography of the Americas and its people. The students’ learning focuses on Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Peru.

The project that you are about to see stems from the study of Costa Rica. The students learn about the rain forest and its animals, and also learn about Ernesto en Costa Rica (an imaginary boy). During this unit the students study descriptive words and participate in various activities that help them master the concepts that will enable them to communicate.

¡Marisol necesita una familia! (Marisol Needs a Family!) provides the students with an opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned. On the next pages you’ll see an example of one of the projects from one of my students last year. I plan to have my current fifth graders work on the same project within the next few weeks. I have found that the project is a wonderful assessment tool at the end of the unit.

¡Marisol necesita una familia! (Marisol Needs a Family!)

After learning about Ernesto en Costa Rica the students were given the task of imagining Marisol. The students, as the title suggests, were told that Marisol needed a family. The members of the family were provided, including a pet, but the students had to provide a description for each member.

On page #1 the students were asked to draw a house for Marisol and her family. Each of the members of the family, including Marisol and the pet, is looking out a window in the house.

Having the family drawings helped the students when they had to write the physical descriptions later on.

I found that this was a very important first step in the project. Not only did the students enjoy drawing and coloring, but they used their imagination to create Marisol’s family. Each of the students in the three classes I taught ended up with a wonderful first page.

On page #2 the students had to complete Marisol’s family tree. The students had to provide names for all of the family members and also their ages.

This part of the project was particularly useful to the students. They used the “tree” to organize their writing by following the sequence – oldest to youngest.

It was interesting to see how the students chose different last names for their families. Many of them used last names that were familiar to them through their knowledge of sports. Most of the students were familiar with Hispanic baseball (and other sports) players we have in regional sports teams.

On the day the students worked on this page, they collaboratively identified the first and last names of Hispanic players.

Page #3 provided students with the steps they needed to follow to continue their project. This page also included important verb forms the students would need to use in their descriptions.

In their writing the students needed to include:
1. Location where Marisol’s family lives
2. Description of her house.
3. Description of the family members.
  a. Names of each of the members in the family
  b. How old are they?
  c. What color are their eyes, their hair…?
  d. Are they tall, short?
  e. What is the personality of each of the members in the family like?
4. Description of the family pet.
5. Any other information they wish to include

On page #4 the students used a familiar graphic organizer. In each of the pie pieces they wrote what they thought was important to include in their descriptions.

Starting with this page, I met with the students individually to go over the writing in the wheel. I marked the errors, either by circling words that they needed to change or by drawing a line on a letter that needed to be different.

The students enjoyed working on this page. It helped them organize their ideas and the paragraph(s).
The draft (borrador) starts on page #5 and continues on page #6. The students used their graphic organizers to write their paragraphs. The students had to use a broad range of descriptive words, and they had to apply the grammar points they had learned in class.

Once again, the feedback given to the students was done on a one to one basis. The students had to read aloud what they wrote to see if they could identify mistakes on their own. Once mistakes were identified, the words were circled or the letters to be changed were underlined, and the students made the necessary changes.

I found that reading aloud helped the students find their mistakes much faster than if they had been reading silently.

On pages #7 and #8 the students wrote their final pieces!

Once the projects were finished the children volunteered to read their stories.
Page #9 provided the students with a checklist they used as they wrote their papers.

There was also a rubric, which was discussed in class before the students started working on their projects. This proved to be very important because the students knew what the expectations were.

Link to book sample (PDF format)

https://www.glastonburyus.org/curriculum/foreignlanguage/studentshowcase/projects/documents/marisol.pdf