Frida, chapters 2 – 4

This post is called Frida on the fly……   It’s that time of year, and we are all super busy.  However, I wanted to share three activities that I created and used with some success for chapters 2, 3 and 4.  I apologize in advance if these are ideas from other people. I am a scavenger and avid reader of other blogs.  Sometimes those ideas spark my ideas.  I created the following activities, but they may be based on the idea of someone else!!

Chapter 2  Dos Familias

My kids last year ( my first year with the book) found chapter 2  with the two families a bit confusing.  This year I created a family tree document to help them as we read.  It’s not much, and certainly could be added to, but it’s a start.  I had students fill it out with names, birth order/deaths as we were reading. We also drew additional details (like a Smash doodle) that made the chapter more comprehensible and memorable (the night of the death of María and the visit of Wilhelm/Guillermo to Matilde; daughters sent to convent; photography; best friend Cristina, etc.) Chap 2 Family tree of Wilehlm

Chapter 3  Monstruos

This is the chapter in which Frida gets polio. I looked at using some infographics for polio but decided to take a more “physical” approach to helping students to understand what polio is/was.  (Sidenote:  Carrie Toth has a SUPERB activity for the outbreak of polio on her blog!) I took basic information about polio and separated it into individual incomplete sentences.  I printed them on cardstock and posted them in random places around my room.  I had the students find a partner and gave them a paper that had the missing information from the individual sentences.  Once they had all come up with a complete paper, we checked their responses together in class and I had them complete Part II of their paper.  When done correctly, the answer spelled out Pata de Palo, which is the title of Chapter 4! We then immediately discussed what pata de palo is, where they have seen it (movies), and read the chapter! Chap 3 polio search 2017 spells pata de palo

Chapter 2, 3, 4

Somewhere, in the blog world, I read this idea and do NOT remember where.  Please let me know if it was you and I will credit you!  I took key words/events from chapters 2, 3 and 4, printed them on colorful card stock and gave one to each student.  The student had to think about the word/phrase and the connection to those chapters in the novel.  They shared the sentence with a partner, listened to their partner’s sentence and exchanged cards and moved to a new partner. I did allow them to refer to the book when necessary.  It did not appear that the book was frequently used. In two classes, I used Inner/Outer Circles and in the third class I just let them move around freely. It was a great activity to “refresh” our story after Thanksgiving break. Once we had worked with partners, we shared some sentences as I randomly held up one of the cards.  Chap 3 and 4 output information sentences

 

Starting the novel, Frida

This week my Spanish IV classes are starting the novel, Frida by Kristy Placido. I’m posting very quickly (and probably with some errors! :)) how I am beginning it for the second time. I decided that one of the first activities that we would do would be to work with the song, Soy Yo by Bomba Estéreo.  Kara Jacobs has a great unit on her blog for Level I Spanish students with additional materials available on TPT (Sherry Nesbitt also has some materials here.). I took her basic google presentation or powerpoint and revamped it for Spanish IV.  It is available for download (free) below.

Bomba Estereo – Soy yo – revised for blog

Here is my three day plan:

Day 1

1.  I used Kara’s original story and rewrote it for an upper level class. I am not sharing it because it is part of her unit that is available on TPT. Students read it aloud with a partner, answered questions, identified vocabulary. (I had previously assigned them a quizlet with key words from the song).
2. We watched the video.
3. We brainstormed what “belleza” meant.  In groups of three, they had 10 minutes to prepare a powerpoint (as a group) of things/people that are beautiful.  We did a quick gallery walk to view the finished products.  Each group then wrote a definition of beauty.  It is my hope to return to these powerpoints later and see if they would change anything.

Day 2

1.  I used the powerpoint for Soy yo by Bomba Estéreo (Bomba Estereo – Soy yo – revised for blog).  We took the time to discuss the slides throughly.  When we got to slide 6, with the message from the group about the song, “No hay nada mejor que ser tú” I began to tie it into Frida. I referenced a poster of her in my room, and we talked in general terms about when she was born, what was happening in the world during her lifetime, the “unibrow” and facial hair, why she might want to look like that (in historical terms) and what people might say about her.  Slides 9 – 11 were crucial in continuing the discussion.
2. Next, I gave each group of 2 students a set of cut up lyrics (printed on card stock and cut out) soy yo lyric arrange strips  For my own sanity, each set was printed on a different color in case any strips were dropped on the floor (!) they would be easily identified as to what group was missing the strip.  Within the first 10 seconds of the music, students identified how very difficult it was going to be to put the strips in order….but that was a great challenge that they really enjoyed.  I had to play the beginning three times before they got the order correct for the first 4 – 6 strips.  As we did it in sections, we also talked about what the lyrics were saying (quizlet came in handy!). Finally we had the entire first verse and chorus done.  I had them “make meaning” with their partner of the lyrics, and we checked our thoughts.  Then……we tried to “rap” it!  Such a blast!!! We did it several times.
3. We worked with the first part of the Zamba: Excursión al Museo de Bellas Artes, Frida Kahlo. We watched it and shared what we saw and heard. There were MANY questions about it; I encouraged the questions but didn’t give answers yet.
4. Finally, we played quizlet live with our Soy yo lyrics.

Day 3

1.  I plan to open with a cloze of Soy Yo. Soy yo cloze day 2  The document also contains a space to write a 25 word summary of the message of the song. I’m pretty sure we will have to sing again!
2.  We will work with the Zamba video again. Kara Jacobs has a great activity for this.  Arianne Dowd also has a terrific unit on TPT for Frida and the Zamba video!
3. We will read chapter 1 of Frida

Looking ahead, we will begin working with Caótica Belleza on days 4/5.  See my blog post from last year here. Additionally, I hope to add this song in later chapters: Yo Soy Así by Redimi2 and Funky. I’ve already had it playing in the background and they are very “into” it.  When I get it done, I’ll post it here or on my wikipage.  A sampling of the lyrics:

Acéptame, recházame
pero no quieras cambiarme
Sé que mi estilo de vida
no se parece a tu vida pero
que le puedo hacer
Yo soy así

Yo no voy a hacer
lo que todos hacen
seré diferente
aunque me rechacen
conmigo mis amigos
no se complacen
quieren destruirme
pero no la hacen

Frida and Caótica Belleza

My Spanish IV classes finished the novel Frida, by Kristy Placido right before our Christmas/winter holiday break. It was the culmination to a large art unit that expanded due to the interest of this years’ students.  Originally I had planned to spend just a few days on the art for Día de Muertos, Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso before moving into the novel Frida and a study of some of her art.  However, my students, for the most part, were really interested in Pablo Picasso and Guernica as well as Salvador Dalí and the painting The Hallucinogenic Toreador.  I created many additional materials to go with our study, including two stories that I wrote for them (always keeping comprehensible input in mind!!!) as well as several SMARTboard presentations. What I intended to cover in just over a week morphed into three weeks, really cutting into my time for the novel Frida.

I originally thought that Soy Yo by Bomba Estéreo with great activities from Kara Jacobs was going to be a main focal song for Frida.  I thought that the fierce affirmation of “I am who I am” from that song would go well with the personality of Frida.  I did use the song, but minimally, as I discovered Caótica Belleza by Esteman featuring Natalia Lafourcade, at the end of October, just as I was beginning the art unit.  The song immediately struck a chord with me and my focus changed.  The video is sweeping, beautiful and mesmerizing, and the lyrics are profound. For me, the declaration in the lyrics celebrating diversity, individuality, and Latin American culture simply tied the song to Frida.   “Hoy puedo ver lo que yo fui, de donde soy de donde vengo”  and “Hay cosas en la vida que no se pueden cambiar” just resonated as part of the identity of Frida. Since we started our study of Frida with a discussion and defining of beauty, we were able to carry on that discussion/identification with this song called Chaotic Beauty. Most of my students enjoyed the song and internalized the lyrics. I even placed the song in our “Locura de diciembre” music contest in which it was a semifinalist, losing to the eventual winner, Hasta el amanecer.

Prior to exposure to Caótica Belleza we had briefly worked with the Lasso song “Como te odio” which included the lyric: “hay cosas en que uno se puede superar” (there are things in life that one can overcome)  which we were able to directly compare with the lyric “hay cosas en la vida no se pueden cambiar” (there are things in life that one can’t change) from Caótica Belleza. (The ever wonderful Kara Jacobs created some great things to go with the Lasso song.) Our first activity with Caótica Belleza was a partner organization of the first 10 lines of the song as we listened.  I gave each group of 2/3 a set of sentence strips that they ordered as we listened.  This was a very easy activity. I always run off the strip sets in different colors so that it is easy to match a stray lyric to the proper set.  After the students successfully ordered the lyrics, they worked to apply meaning to the lyrics. By this time they had quite a background knowledge of Frida from the Zamba video as well as the first few chapters in the novel.  The second day that we worked with a traditional cloze and then compared Spanish/English lyrics as well as how the lyrics might apply to Frida. Here is the order activity and the cloze activity, if you are interested: caotica-belleza-cloze-and-sentence-ordering-2  The third activity with the song, a few days later (when many had already downloaded and memorized parts of the lyrics) was another order activity, but as a large group.  I divided the class in half and gave each group a set of individual strips with the lyrics from the last verse.  Each person received at least one strip, some, depending on the size of the class, got two strips.  The groups listened to the song and attempted to create a single file line with their lyrics in order.  This was harder to do as I did not let them talk…only listen and push each other to the proper place 🙂  When they had the order we had a contest to see which group could get the meaning of the lyrics first.  I allowed them 2 minutes to discuss, but then they had to resume their line and each person was responsible for the meaning of the lyric strip that they held.  If that person stumbled, or couldn’t complete the lyric, the “game” passed to the other half of the class.  It took some time to actually get through this, too! I then gave them 30 seconds to memorize the lyric strip that they held.  They had to put it away, and each half of the class attempted to recite the lyrics, in order, in Spanish, with each person responsible for his/her individual strip.  Difficult, but fun, plus it helped to cement the lyrics/ideas/meanings in their heads…..turning it into comprehensible input!  Here are the strips for that activity: caotica-belleza-last-verse-group-ordering

Last item, here is a link to my youtube channel with music for the Frida unit, typically played while working on other things in class!

Overall, the majority of my Spanish IV students found the novel Frida by Kristy Placido an easy, very comprehensible read, and just as important…..they enjoyed it.  I can’t wait to teach it/share it a second time!