I started Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto at the beginning of the month in level 1, but due to snow days/delays and other cancellations, I have only seen my students four times so far. If you are interested in how I teach novels, you can check out this post here. My students have been enjoying the unit so far, but I wish that we have had some time for a few extra activities. I wanted to share some of the resources that I have made for the book so far.
- To start, I varied an activity by Eric Curts to have students create their own pirate on Google Slides. Students enjoyed creating a variety of pirates then uploading them to Seesaw. Seesaw allowed the students to add comments to each others’ pirates as well.
- I have also created a brainstorm list for each chapter. After listening to Retrieval Practice, I have my students close the book and write down as much as they remember in Spanish or English after each chapter or the beginning of the next class. I also encourage them to write down any words that they learned in Spanish.
- After chapter 1, we did a collaborative mural a la Martina Bex. This is one of my favorite activities! I have students upload the mural to Seesaw, then they can discuss it there.
- I love using Quizizz. If you haven’t checked it out- do so! It is a self-paced Kahoot, and it also gives you great feedback on each question. You can also add questions from anyone else’s Quizizz. I can assemble a Quizizz game and tailor it to my class in about 5 minutes! I put together this Quizizz (based on others’ games!) for chapters 1-2.
- Before chapter 3, I noticed that a few students were struggling with “querer.” I could also highlight capturar and pistola. We watched the video Carrot Crazy on YouTube. I created this outline to help my students. While I ask many questions while they are watching, I have found that having the key vocabulary in front of them and highlighting a few questions helps to focus my students.
- After the end of these chapters, I am introducing these Puedos a la Laura Sexton. I am going to use these to propel an interpersonal conversation. (If you have any other suggestions for questions, let me know!)
- I also want to work digital storytelling into my day, but we haven’t had a lot of time! Here is how I used digital storytelling with the story Billy y las botas (and Snapchat!)
Share your favorite activity to do with books or with Piratas!
Maris Hawkins 
How do you do the reading? do they read a chapter for homework? Read aloud in class? Silent sustained reading for a chapter? What is your pacing? One chapter a day? One chapter a week? I am SUPER struggling with just how to do a class novel. Sigh!
Hello! I alternate between whole reading as a class and individual reading using a reading guide. I believe that it becomes a bit monotonous to always just read as a class. I also will have students answer questions on PearDeck if we read as a class, too. I typically don’t assign it for homework. I try to move about the pace of one chapter a day, but every few days, I will have other activities. Let me know if you have any other questions! It took me a few years before really feeling comfortable with whole class novels.
Also! I forgot to include this post, too! https://fluencymatters.com/best-teach-comprehension-based-reader/
Maris – I’m kind of struggling with how you are incorporating whole novel reading into the standards/benchmarks for your state. (Sorry, not sure what you are in either!) I can’t imagine trying to tie these in to a very practical usage set of standards. Is this supplemental that you do to keep the kids engaged? Or are you able to tie these in somehow? Also – I teach High School so wondering if these are more for the upper elementary/Middle School arena?
Hi Deb! So I teach at an independent school and I have a lot of leeway over my curriculum. My department chair (actually a Latin teacher who uses a lot of novels and CI as well) is very supportive of using novels and has bought me several class sets. However, I got my certification in Virginia and am used to their standards. Teaching a novel is helping students acquire language to make both their written and spoken output stronger. For example, on the Virginia SOL standard I.3, it states that students will understand simple spoken and written Spanish presented through a variety of media and based on familiar topics. Also we use the novel topics to do both interpersonal speaking and presentational writing. Another standard that I address with using this novel is SI.5- The student will present information orally and in writing in Spanish, using a variety of familiar vocabulary, phrases, and structural patterns. Novels as a whole contain a lot of either historical or cultural information which also ties in with those standards. Are these standards similar in your state? Hopefully this helps! 🙂