There are 8 total episodes, each ranging in length, that in the end have been combined to create a seamless movie. When it first streamed, it was interactive. After each episode/segment viewers could vote for what happened next in the story with a "what would you do" question being posed to the audience every time. It would have been very cool to be a part of that voting process!

Why does this appeal to me for AP Spanish? For a variety of reasons! First, like I said, the episodes vary in length, 9-20ish minutes if I remember correctly. That makes it so doable to show in class and develop meaningful resources. Second, the title itself and the "what would you do" scenarios offer a lot of repetition of this valuable phrase. Thematically I think this series will fit great in my Personal & Public Identities unit (Personal Beliefs & Values, Personal Interests, Self-Image/Self-Esteem) but it also ties into several other themes: Families & Communities (Educational Communities, Family Structure, Friendship & Love), Contemporary Life (Lifestyles, Personal Relationships), Global Challenges (Philosophical Thought & Religion). Maybe most importantly the episodes are highly engaging and with a little bit of prep work can be very comprehensible to students. Attached are the resources I've created so far for Chapter 1. Let us know if you have used this web-series before!
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Google Slides Link: Picture Talk (No text)
Google Slides Link: Graphic Novel Chapter 1
Pre-viewing Questions for each chapter​
All photos were taken as screenshots from http://www.rtve.es/playz/sifuerastu/.

If you haven't seen Velvet yet you need to stop reading this, binge-watch it, and come back to this later. SERIOUSLY. It is to die for. Love. Love. Looooove. And yes, it's on Netflix!

​Okay- so I used this show as a carrot and as a reward for my Spanish 2 students this year at the end of our Fashion & Design Unit. See this post about how I've used Class Dojo in my class to establish community and create a healthy competition in my classes. The "reward" during the Fashion & Design unit was watching Velvet. I knew that I wanted them to watch it anyways but this way they thought they were earning something... :)

Velvet takes place in 1950's Spain, in a prestigious fashion house. While the main characters are so easy to love, the supporting characters are even more enchanting. While this year I only showed one episode- hoping they would continue to watch more of it on their own outside of class- I am considering showing several episodes next year during the duration of the unit...or throughout the semester? The good news is that for die-hard Velvet fans, they are still in the process of making/airing season 2 of the spin-off show Velvet Colección. Don't miss that one either!

Attached are the pre-viewing synopsis and character development work my students completed before viewing episode 1 this year. Here is the Google Slides that I used to show the trailer and accompany the worksheets. Stay tuned for chapter resources this year! Do you have any resources for Velvet you'd like to share? Let's collaborate! 

AP THEME: Beauty and Aesthetics
CONTEXT: Visual and Performing Arts
During a unit on Entertainment and Media in Level 2, I was striving to make vocabulary assessment more meaningful (I didn't want to just give them a rote memorization quiz). I thought about how they would use the vocabulary, adjectives to describe movies, in real life, and decided the most authentic use of this set of vocabulary would be done when looking at movies and which movies you would like to see/not see after reading about the movie. I developed an Interpretive Reading activity for students using movie synopses. The vocabulary is given to them, but they have to use a variety of the vocabulary correctly in context to talk about their thoughts on the movies. After students completed the activity we watched the trailers to each of the movies - we did this after and not before because I wanted students to base their vocabulary use on what they were reading, not viewing.