In this inventive lesson plan, students will break up into groups of three, with each group member taking on the role of either photographer, recorder or reporter. Each group will be given one camera and serveral days with which to photograph people and buildings in their community. These photos will be used to create collages illustrating every day life and must be accompanied by a simple explanation written in Spanish describing the scene. Students will then compare the images of their community to images of communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, found on the TIDES website, describing the differences and similarities between both.
This lesson will be most useful after units teaching basic descriptive adjectives, the forms of the verb ser in the present tense, and community and school vocabulary.
Created by Kim Fryman, August 2007
TEKS §114.22. Levels I and II - Novice Progress Checkpoint
TEKS §114.24. Levels V, VI and VII - Advanced Progress Checkpoint
(c) Knowledge and skills.
(1) Communication. The student communicates in a language other than English using the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The student is expected to:
- engage in oral and written exchanges of learned material to socialize and to provide and obtain information;
- demonstrate understanding of simple, clearly spoken and written language such as simple stories, high-frequency commands, and brief instructions when dealing with familiar topics; and
- present information using familiar words, phrases, and sentences to listeners and readers.
(2) Cultures. The student gains knowledge and understanding of other cultures. The student is expected to:
- demonstrate an understanding of the practices (what people do) and how they are related to the perspectives (how people perceive things) of the cultures studied.
(4) Comparisons. The student develops insight into the nature of language and culture by comparing the student's own language and culture to another. The student is expected to:
- demonstrate an understanding of the nature of language through comparisons of the student's own language and the language studied;
- demonstrate an understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the student's own culture and the cultures studied.
(5) Communities. The student participates in communities at home and around the world by using languages other than English. The student is expected to:
- use the language both within and beyond the school setting through activities such as participating in cultural events and using technology to communicate.
Break the students into groups of three. Have yearbooks available to each group. Allow the students to look at the yearbooks and discuss how they take a snapshot of school-community life. Remove the yearbooks before the lesson begins, so as to avoid distractions. Explain that the students are about to take snapshots of their community life, and compare it with the community of Oaxaca, Mexico.
- Each group of three should choose roles – photographer, recorder, and reporter.
- Give each group a camera and ask them to take pictures of people and buildings in the community. Direct them to take pictures of people and students at work and at play. Give the students several school days to complete the photography. The students will then turn in their cameras to be developed by the teacher.
- When the film is ready, return the pictures to the groups and provide each group with poster board, glue and scissors. Each group will then design a collage, leaving space below each picture for a written explanation. The explanation should be a simple sentence describing the picture.
- Example - La escuela es pequeña. Los estudiantes son inteligentes. La pelicula es comica. La tienda es grande.
- When the students complete their collages they should share them and display them.
- After the groups have shared their work, the teacher will present the cultural component of the lesson by presenting the PowerPoint of the Oaxaca images found on the TIDES site.
- The teacher will guide the discussion of the contrasts between the East Texas community and Oaxaca.
- The teacher may wish to record sentences on the board or on a poster board in Spanish to show the contrasts and expand student vocabulary.
- Examples - Los estudiantes llevan uniformes. Los estudiantes comen frutas.
Evaluation:
This activity lends itself to be a six weeks project with several evaluation components including neatness, participation of group members, and correct use of grammar and vocabulary. A grading rubric is attached.
Extension:
Advanced learners should research differences between Mexican schools and U.S. schools and use their findings to create a PowerPoint presentation. This presentation can be used in future classes when appropriate.
The teacher may wish to provide struggling learners with a vocabulary bank of nouns, adjectives and forms of the verb ser. The teacher can then help students generate sentences calling attention to subject verb agreement and number and gender agreement of adjectives.
