AP THEME: Families & Communities
CONTEXT: Educational Communities
​These six interpretive reading assessments come to us from the website ​http://www.donquijote.org/. In a unit on School, it is extremely valuable and culturally rich practice to compare not only school schedules and classes but school systems as well. In order to make this segment on school systems in Spain more manageable and comprehensible to students we've divided it up into 6 sections. Use these 6 readings throughout a unit or assign each section to one student in a group and have them share out. Hope they are helpful!

The six readings/sections are as follows:
1. Introduction
2. Preschool
3. Primary School
4. ESO - Secondary School
5. Bachillerato- High School/Secondary School
6. Professional Training and University/Higher Ed

AP THEME: Beauty and Aesthetics
CONTEXT: Defining Beauty
Sometimes I think that we make more work for ourselves by searching for multiple resources to use in different levels. Instead, we can use the same resource and change the task to fit the level of out students. This helps us manage our time and once we have a great resource, why use it only once? Change the activity and reuse the same resource for the same class - the same resource could be the basis for in-class interpersonal conversation, and interpersonal writing activity using a backchat like TodaysMeet while watching a video. Create an interpretive listening task for the video.

I used Videonot.es to write comments and questions as I watched the video. I was thinking about multiple proficiency levels as I took notes because I wanted to maximize my time. Writing prompts and questions for the Novice level should be in English. Once students reach Intermediate levels, prompts and questions may be written in the target language, but we must specify the language of response for the assessment. 

Angélica Dass, a Brazilian born photographer, has done several TEDx talks about her project, Humanae. Humanea is a project that addresses skin tone, art, personal identity, self-esteem, and perceptions of beauty. It is truly an amazing project. Using one of her TEDx talks, I developed two tasks - one for Novice learners and one for Intermediate learners. The theme of this video is more challenging, but with questions at a different level, I believe it is also accessible to lower level students as well. While viewing with students the teacher may need to pause at different times throughout the viewing to give students a chance to answer and ask questions. 

AP THEME: Global Challenges
CONTEXT: Political Conflicts (Social Welfare)
Canal Encuentro, the first TV channel created by Argentina's Ministry of Education, creates and publishes a lot of really incredible videos on YouTube with the purpose of social education for educational use and general society. They had an illustrated documentary series about different Revolutions throughout the world, but it is no longer accessible through their channel (they have a new series about Dictatorships in Latin America as well as a new of for the Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity that look really amazing).

Using videos to create listening/viewing is essential for finding authentic resources, but also challenging when the video you find and develop resources for is removed or no longer accessible where you initially found it. To help alleviate this frustration, there is an extension called savefrom.net that will help you save videos that you are using to create interpretive listening or viewing assessments. 

The Revoluciones videos are amazing, but challenging because they are truly authentic (created by Canal Encuentro). We created a formative assessment in EDpuzzle using the Revolución Boliviana 1952 video. Using Edpuzzle as the formative was great because the narrator in all of the videos is the same, so they are able to get used to his voice and the format of the videos before the summative. Students are able able to rewatch any part of the video as many times as they need to hear an answer. The summative uses the video for La Revolución de Guatemala. When we gave this assessment, we allowed students to view the video three times (the first time without the questions in front of them so they were actually viewing the video and the second/third time viewing with the questions). This is more of a listening assessment however, and on a couple questions students used what they saw in the video to answer a question, which does not correspond directly with what is said, nor what is asked (specifically question #4). 

AP THEME: Science and Technology
CONTEXT: Effects of Technology on Self and Society
This is one of my favorite contexts/themes to teach because it is so relevant to students; everyone can relate. In the interpretive reading assessments below we've copied the information from this article called Así afectan las redes sociales a tu autoestima según tu edad. If you are 1:1 you could definitely have your students visit the website to complete this assessment. If your technology fails, the website changes, or you're not 1:1, we've included a printer-friendly, easy-to-read version of this article. We're not taking any credit for the information in this article, simply copying it for our classroom needs.

This is one of the first Interpretive Reading assessments that we give our AP Spanish Language and Culture students at the beginning of the year. It's relatable, current and touches on two themes- Science and Technology and Personal and Public Identities. In my AP training my instructor discussed the "two-finger" reading technique. Go ahead, picture it...students reading while using their two index fingers to scan the text for the right answer. Well that is not the way AP questions are written. Students have to really, truly, understand the text.  

The questions in this brief multiple choice assessment are not necessarily easy but that is okay. We use these with our students to teach them about AP Interpretive Reading activities. We've included a "where to find the answers" copy of the article that can be used with students as well. It is important for them to understand the questions aren't always "two-finger" questions. They have to actually read and comprehend.

Lastly, our original assessment for this was in a Google Form. Don't forget that using technology is a great way to save you/us time! 

AP THEME: Contemporary Life
CONTEXT: Travel and Leisure/Lifestyles
When traveling abroad, knowing what modes of transportation are available to you and which ones are the best to use is super helpful in getting from one place to another. During our unit on transportation, students have a summative interpretive reading. To help prepare for it, they first do formative reading practice with this activity. The article is from a travel website for Buenos Aires. The website has been updated since I initially made the activity in 2015 - this is one of the reasons we have opted to copy and paste the articles/readings into documents with the questions rather than having the students go to the websites to read. The current website has changed where the information is located (you have to open a different page) or has updated the information. 

The format for the questions is based on Toni Theisen's Interpretive Reading Assessment Template. 

AP THEME: Global Challenges
CONTEXT: Social Context
When looking for a reading based on current events, Newsela provides really wonderful readings in both Spanish and English. It is an easily searchable database. Each article has at least four different reading levels, which makes differentiation way easier. Newsela has also created a quiz appropriate for each level. Once you have created an account, you are able to download and print articles. 

This reading activity is designed for upper level students and focuses on the changes to the term used by the Library of Congress from "illegal aliens" to "undocumented immigrants". After reading the article, the topic could lend itself to a good discussion on the reasons for the change. 

AP THEME: Contemporary Life
CONTEXT: Love and Relationships
I love using short videos in class (cortometrajes). They are really engaging for students and there is so much you can do with them to get students using the target language.  MovieTalk is a teaching strategy that was developed by Dr. Ashley Hastings as part of the FOCAL Skills approach to language instruction. Martina Bex describes the MovieTalk process on her website, but essentially you find a short movie (5 minutes or less) with simple language (or no language), and play the movie in class, pausing frequently to talk with students about what is happening, ask questions, and make predictions. Use your targeted vocabulary and grammar as you talk about the video. 

I used the video El Cerebro Dividido in my Love and Relationships unit. The MovieTalk took the entire 45 minute class. My students weren't quite ready to just answer in Spanish, so I gave them a little time after each question to write their thoughts down before calling on them in order to give them increased processing time. I asked the questions, and then based on the students' answers I circled and discussed what was happening on the screen. They were really engaged and hooked on the video. 

To prep for the MovieTalk, I used www.videonot.es/ to take notes and write the questions I wanted to ask students in class. In VideoNot.es as you watch the video, it records the time that you start writing a question. It really helped me while I was doing the MovieTalk to know when to pause the video and ask a question. I created a Google Slides document with screen shots of the video with the questions I used to guide the discussion in class.