AP THEME: Families & Communities
CONTEXT: Human Geography, Family Structure
​CONNECTIONS: Global Challenges/Contemporary Life
In AP® we were a little crunched on time for our Familias & Comunidades unit due to multiple snow days this winter. I also knew that I would be missing three days for professional development so I was working really carefully to choose my next steps. I landed on Cajas de cartón by Francisco Jimenez. I decided reading the short story (chapter 9 of the full book) would give my students and I a good bases to work with despite the lack of face to face time we would be having. On a side note, I purposefully leave Familias & Comunidades and Vida Contemporánea as my last two units before the end of the year and thus the AP® exam because they are the ones that come up the most often in our lower levels and the topics and themes that my students are most familiar with coming into AP®. 

The resources I created below all stemmed from this copy of the short story from Mike McVeigh. So when I reference "Page 3" for example, it is coming from page 3 of the copy linked above. The story can also be found in the textbook/workbook Albums with more footnoted vocabulary so in the future I'll probably use that format instead. 

While you'll see that some of the activities we completed are taken from Mike's guide, I have also included reading tasks for "Page 1" and "Page 3". The "Page 4" read-along photos are perhaps my favorite because the images provide students with so much more input than the text on its own. There are SEVERAL resources for this wonderful text (that's part of the reason that I chose it!). My plan is to show at least part of the documentary Cosecha and hopefully include at least one song study. What are your must-use accompanying resources to go along with Cajas de cartón? 

AP THEME: Personal & Public Identities
CONTEXT: Personal Interests, Self-Image/Self-Esteem
This past fall in my AP® Spanish Language and Culture class I decided to include the short film Alike through the CI strategy known as Movie Talk. Click here for the Alike Google Slides. It tells a beautiful story about a young boy who's creativity is squashed by societal norms and parental expectations. This was the perfect addition to our Personal & Public Identities unit this past fall in the beginning of the school year. 

Although I loved including this directly in my unit it could also be very easily scaffolded for lower levels (like almost all short films!). They are gold minds for providing context and real communication with your students. Here are some examples of personal questions you could use with your students in various levels:

• ¿Tocas un instrument? ¿Has tocado un instrumento por mucho tiempo? ¿Tocabas un instrumento cuando eras niño?
• ¿Participas en clubes o otras actividades? ¿Eres talentoso? ¿Eres musical? 
• ¿Con quién vives? ¿Quién hay en tu vida nuclear? ¿Quién te cuida?
• ¿Dónde trabajan sus padres? ¿Cuales son sus profesiones? ¿Disfrutan sus trabajos? ¿Siempre? 
• ¿Qué quieren tus padres que hagas? ¿Quieren que asistas a una universidad? ¿Quieren que limpies tu dormitorio mucho? ¿Quieren que hagas quehaceres?
• ¿Cuándo te sientes creativo? ¿Eres más creativo en unas clases que en otras?
• ¿A cuáles materias te interesan? ¿Tienes aptitud para algo en particular?
• ¿Quién es tu profesor favorito? ¿Quién ha sido tu profesor favorito y por qué?
• ETC!

Not only did this movie talk allow me to get to know my students, but I was also able to talk about societal issues of conforming and the constant pressure there is to fit in and do what everyone else is doing. Furthermore, it was the first time that I had truly intentionally taken a CI strategy and implemented it into my AP® Spanish Language and Culture class. The outcome was a success. Students loved learning the story and making personal connections all while covering AP themes. What authentic resources would you use to accompany this Movie Talk?

THEME: Families and Communities
CONTEXT: Social Networks
CONNECTIONS: Science and Technology
This set of resources is something I started to develop last year. I initially found the article "Qué hacer para cuidar las relaciones personales" and built questions using the Interpretive Reading Guide for my students in Spanish four. One of the things that we are supposed to be working on and contributing to as a district/school is ACT style questions to help prepare our students for the ACT Aspire and ACT tests that they take in Wisconsin, but I also wanted to prepare them for AP style questions for when they move on to AP Spanish Language and Culture next year. So I wanted to write questions that were somewhat similar to each. I looked at the ACT Science questions to try to generate similar questions in Spanish (typically graph analysis), which I did for the graph entitled, "Cómo influye la tecnología en las relaciones interpersonales".  I linked both of these resources with an infographic, "La comunicación en la era digital. El impacto de las 'redes sociales'."

These three sources are related in their discussion of interpersonal relationships, but they approach them from different perspectives. I used all three of them together as an interpretive summative at the end of our unit on "Love and Interpersonal Relationships," but each resource could also stand alone. 

THEME: Global Challenges
CONTEXT: Environmental Issues
​I was profoundly affected when I read about the destruction that humanity has had on the biodiversity of our planet in the past forty years. How have we been so destructive to the planet we inhabit and what solutions exist to prevent more loss? I wanted my students to think about these questions as they read and then I wanted them to think creatively about solutions that they saw to the problem. I also wanted my AP students to practice the "correo electrónico" section of the exam after they read the article. I am considering reworking the questions in the correo to make them more effective and encourage students to come up with more thoughtful solutions.