Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Rarito . . . y un proyecto para español II

Years ago, as in 2011, I made a post about a little project my students were doing in Spanish II to use city vocabulary and preterite tense.  I took pictures of their little books and talked about how it is fun to do creative things from time to time in the classroom.  Here it is, for reference: Libritos Blog Post from November 2011 .

This blog is small and cozy.  I have no ads here and an intimate little group of regulars who come around.  I try to keep things conversational and friendly.  Most of my readers are quiet and few ever leave any comments.  (The one thing I would change, if I could.  I wish people spoke up more often.)

I say all the above because in the last two days I've gotten three comments - almost identical in their wording and all asking for the same thing - the project guidelines and rubric for my Libritos project from nearly four years ago.

Is it just me or is that a bit odd?  I almost never hear from anyone, then suddenly I get three nearly identical requests in the period of a couple days - all for a post that is way out of date and relatively unknown.  In fact, the post has only ever been viewed 450 times since it was put up.  None of the other 447 viewers ever asked for anything.  All the commenters left email addresses too - apparently wanting me to mail the rubric and project guidelines to them instead of coming here to download it.  Is this just a weird coincidence or is this some sort of a weird scam?

Though I do not know the answer to the above questions, I figured I would at least take a moment to provide the information that was requested.

Here are the project guidelines:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jaqmm2n4bwxdogt/Overview%20City%20Trip%20Booklet%20Project%20Karakash.pdf?dl=0 


And here is the project rubric:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ynp67rwfgam4sea/Rubric%20City%20Trip%20Booklet%20Project%20Karakash.pdf?dl=0


The Libritos project was an effort to get kids doing something hands-on and creative with their vocabulary (the city) and the preterite tense.  I asked them to recall a trip they had made to a big city or, barring that, to imagine a trip - maybe even to a Spanish-speaking city.  They had to include six pictures with captions in Spanish.  If the photos were not original, they had to give the URLs where they found them online.  (Sourcing photos in MLA is a little complicated, so I just went with URLs.  I want them to be in the habit of acknowledging the providers of information and images, even if it is technically not in MLA format.  Don't tell the English Department, please.)

Directions are written in English . . . <sigh> . . . helicopter parents et al.

I hope this project and rubric will be of some use to you.  I also hope that, whoever my mystery commenters are, this will be useful to them as well.

Hasta muy pronto, amigos.

--AnneK

9 comments :

ProfeSpain8 said...

That seems a little weird to me. I'd avoid emailing any of the addresses, especially since you posted the guidelines (cute project by the way!). I'll try to leave more comments as I really enjoy your blog. My students loved your osos!

AnneK said...

Hola ProfeSpain8. I am delighted that you stopped by my blog today and that you left me a comment. It feels like a hand of friendship from across the Internet, and that is a good thing! When one feels all alone for too long, strange ideas and doubts begin to surface. :-P

I agree with you completely. I do not intend to email any of those email addresses. I have made this post and put up the information they requested, I have updated the original post to direct people here, and I posted a follow-up comment. That should be enough that anyone can find this information if they really want it.

It is wonderful to hear that your students loved the osos! It just me happy to think of students in other place getting a smile and a laugh to start their class. In 3rd period today the word "respetuoso" came up and some of my students immediately pointed it out and called for a respetu-OSO. I went online during my planning but wasn't able to locate a good picture. I will keep trying though.

Thanks again for stopping by and for joining the conversation. As we say here in the south - Don't be a stranger!

--AnneK <3

Yadira said...

Your blog is awesome! I will be teaching Spanish next year for the first time, so I've been reading so many blogs these days. Honestly, yours is the best. Gracias por compartir no sólo tus trabajos sino también tu experiencía. Es de gran ayuda, especialmente a las novatas como Yo. ¡Lindo día...y continuaré leyendo!

AnneK said...

Muchísimas gracias, Yadira. ¡Qué linda eres! Me alegro much que te hayan sido interesantes mis pensamientos y mi colección de actividades para la clase de español. A veces me siento un poco solita aquí en Internet pero siempre me pongo feliz al leer un comentario como el tuyo.

Te deseo muy buena suerte el año que viene cuando empiezas el nuevo trabajo. Mis consejos para ti son: Sé tú misma, haz las actividades que te gustan a ti (y así les van a gustar a tus estudiantes también), no te olvides de reír, y recuerda siempre las razones que te atrajeron a la profesión. Todo eso con una medida de trabajo duro y tendrás mucho éxito.

~un abrazo grande~

--AnneK

Unknown said...

Hello,

I was one of the three that emailed you about this project and I am not a robot at all! I am teaching the preterite tense and looked on Pinterest to find good and new ideas to practice the tense in new and fun ways and came across your idea. I simply wanted to see what all was included in the project to see if it was something I could use for my classes. Since I didn't see the rubric, I assumed you weren't going to post it and on other blogs I have seen emails left for people to contact with this information. Thank you for the information!

AnneK said...

¡Hola Señorita Shook! I'm so glad to hear from you and I'm very relieved that you are not a robot. :-) Wasn't it a bit odd that two other people asked for that same information in almost the same wording - all within 24 hours of each other?! At any rate, I hope the project rubric and guidelines were useful to you. And thank you so much for visiting my blog. Please drop by any time; I'm always grateful to connect with my fellow Spanish teachers. ~un abrazo~ --AnneK

Dari said...

I know this post is old now, but I love this idea. You could also use this same idea for a "dream vacation" of where you want to go and have your advanced students conjugate the verbs into more complex tenses. Or, what about simplifying it and making your Spanish I students do a "Me gusta" or other simple book. Thanks for inspiring me :).

AnneK said...

Muchas gracias, Dari. I think you're exactly right - there are a lot of things one could do with this project framework. I especially like your "Me gusta" idea as I'm teaching Spanish I again this year and, for the first time in five years, I'm not teaching Spanish II. As for the inspiration, you are very welcome; but honesstly it's you who have inspired me today! :-) AnneK

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing your great ideas! This project will be perfect because we have been learning preterit for past two-three weeks for my Spanish 2s.

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