Ataque De Las Tarjetas De San Valentín

Give your students some artistic freedom and they will shock and amaze you!  Look at the following picture - evidence that students have ideas and inspiration that are beyond anything you might be thinking about when you create an assignment.  (Yes, that's me being victimized by the "face-eating" valentine.)  :-)

From looking at this, you might think that this was a waste of class time, but I assure you there was a Spanish project behind this image.  There was a rubric, there was a process, there were guidelines, and there were examples given.  And still my student managed to come up with this . . . and I absolutely love it!

Inside this (admittedly unorthodox) valentine card, there is a message in correct Spanish that uses a verb of volition, an example of the subjunctive, and several descriptive adjectives from recent vocabulary lists.  It never would have occurred to me to create a card like this - and that is one of the things I love best about my students.  They are an unending source of amazement and joy for me.

This student and I have a similar sense of humor and an appreciation for the absurd.  (My husband and I celebrated a zombie themed Valentine's Day a few years ago, as a case in point.)

The take away from all of this?  As long as students are doing the Spanish and they are not doing anything inappropriate (or dangerous), give them freedom to be creative.  If we teachers can resist the temptation to micromanage, the results can be spectacular.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK