Instructional Plan

EDI 431 & 432

Kira Rosol
 Table of Contents

I. Overview

II. Pre-Assessment & Reflection

III. Lesson I & Formative Assessment Reflection

IV. Lesson II & Formative Assessment Reflection

V. Lesson III

VI. Lesson III Summative Assessment Reflection

VII. Post-Assessment & Reflection

VIII. Post Instructional Plan & Reflection

IX. Additional Materials

Learning Environment
● Lowell High School
o Location – 11700 Vergennes St SE, Lowell, MI 49331. The school’s rural
location is surrounded by farmland and two small towns: Ada and Lowell.
o Student Body – At Lowell High School, 47% of the student body is female and
53% of the student body is male. The student body is primarily Caucasian (92%)
with Hispanic students representing 3% of the student body, African-American
students representing 2%, multiracial students representing 1%, Asian students
representing 1%, Pacific Islander students representing 1%, and American
Indian/Alaskan Native students representing less than 1%. The students’ ages
range from 13-18 years, and 25% of the student body are from low-income
households.
o Language and Level – This unit was implemented in a Spanish 2B course.
Lowell High School’s academic calendar is comprised of three terms (trimester
system), and two of those terms consist of a Language A course and a Language
B course. Unfortunately, this means that the students are in a foreign language
course for six months out of the year rather than nine months out of the year. The
high school offers Spanish 1A/1B, Spanish 2A/2B, Spanish 3A/3B, Spanish
4A/4B, and AP Spanish. The Spanish 2B course is the second half of the level 2
language courses, and it begins with Chapter 4 in the Spanish textbook
¡Avancemos! According to the textbook, the goal of this unit is to have the
students 1. “Describe continuing activities in the past,” 2. “Narrate past events
and activities,” 3. “Describe people, places, and things,” 4. “Learn about Mexican
legends.”
o Students in the Class:
▪ Level of Proficiency – Based on the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, my
students are generally at a Novice High proficiency level for speaking,
writing, listening, and writing. In regard to speaking the language, the
students are only able to talk about a few predictable topics and a limited
number of activities and needs. In addition, they rely on a limited number
of learned phrases that they have memorized, and they generally produce
short, and sometimes incomplete, sentences. As for writing, the students
are able to use learned vocabulary and grammar structures to create simple
sentences. When students listen to the Spanish language, students are able
to comprehend basic sentence-length speech in personal and social
contexts. Finally, regarding reading, the students are able to comprehend
short, non-complex Spanish texts.
▪ Prior Knowledge – At the end of their Spanish 2A course, the students
learned about the regular and irregular conjugations of the preterite tense
(past tense). This necessary background knowledge will be reviewed at the
beginning of the unit in order to reinforce these complex conjugations.
 ▪ Students’ Interests – My students have a wide variety of interests
including theater, sports, history, shopping, science, math, music, reading,
food, traveling, art, and architecture.
▪ Students’ Motivation – Because this is a Spanish 2B course, and
therefore a required class, I can assume that many of the students are
extrinsically motivated by the graduation requirements. I can also assume
that a majority of the students will be extrinsically motivated to get good
grades and avoid the negative consequences imposed by their parents if
they get bad grades. However, I do hope that there will be a few students
who are intrinsically motivated by their interest in learning more about the
Spanish language and culture.
▪ Students with Special Needs – There aren’t any students with IEPs or
504 Plans in the classroom. The only student with a special need in the
class is a girl with only one eye. In fact, I didn’t find out about her need
until halfway through the unit when she asked me to make the text on the
projector bigger. I didn’t know about this ahead of time because there is
nothing about her need in the school’s files. I will provide
accommodations for her by ensuring that the text on the projector is big
enough for her to see.
Overview of the Unit
● Title and Duration of Unit
o Mexican Myths and Legends – 2 weeks (10 school days)
● Theme
o Telling Stories – How will students use the Spanish language to describe past
events and experiences?
▪ Vocabulary – Fairy Tale Vocabulary
▪ Grammar – Preterite Tense (Review) & Imperfect Tense (New)
▪ Culture – Mexico: Stories, Legends, Songs, History, & Literature
● Student Objectives
o Listening - Students will be able to identify and understand the chronological
order of past events of a narrative song.
o Reading - Students will be able to read and understand the past events of a
story/myth/legend.
o Speaking - Students will be able to verbally explain personal experiences from
the past.
o Writing - Students will be able to write a story/myth/legend about events that
occurred in the past.
o Culture - Students will be able to describe important historical events as well as
cultural practices and products from Mexico.
● National and State Standards
o 1.1 Interpersonal Communication - Students engage in conversations, provide
and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions.
 ▪ 1.1.A.SL.d Share detailed description and analysis of physical appearance,
character and personality traits of historical figures and characters in
literature, TV, film and the arts in the target culture.
o 1.2 Interpretive Communication - Students understand and interpret written and
spoken language on a variety of topics.
▪ 1.2.M.L.c Understand main idea and supporting detail, and summarize a
visual media or live presentation (film/DVD, TV shows and commercials,
theatre and musical production).
▪ 1.2.M.L.d Understand main idea and supporting detail, and summarize an
audio presentation (CD, lecture, radio, podcast, songs/music).
▪ 1.2.M.R.b Understand main idea and supporting detail, and summarize
accessible written materials on familiar topics in the target language such
as, textbook content, magazine and newspaper articles/ads,
websites/internet, poetry or stories.
o 1.3 Presentational Communication - Students present information, concepts,
and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.
▪ 1.3.M.W.b Create original compositions or journal entries in the target
language.
o 2.1 Practices and Perspectives - Students demonstrate an understanding of the
relationship between the practices and perspectives of the culture studied.
▪ 2.1.M.G.d Identify additional languages spoken in the country and region.
▪ 2.1.M.G.f Identify the chronology of major historical events and their
impact on the culture.
▪ 2.1.M.H.a Describe specific country or regional practices associated with
civil, religious, and personal/family holidays or celebrations in the target
culture.
o 2.2 Products and Perspectives - Students demonstrate an understanding of the
relationship between the products and perspectives of the culture studied.
▪ 2.2.N.C.b Recognize historic culture icons (arts, music, literature, film,
and the creators of these products as well as natural sites).
▪ 2.2.M.C.a Describe the significance of current cultural and historic icons
(arts, architecture music, literature, film, media, TV, newspapers, and the
creators of these products).
o 3.1 Knowledge - Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other
disciplines through the world language.
▪ 3.1.N.a Reinforce previously learned content knowledge through the
target language.
o 4.1 Comparing Cultures - Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of
culture through comparisons of the cultures studied and their own.
▪ 4.1.N.b Identify basic target culture products and compare them to one’s
own.
o 4.2 Comparing Languages - Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of
language through comparisons of the language studies and their own.
 ▪ 4.2.N.b Identify basic differences and similarities in grammatical
structures between one’s own language and the target language.
● Critical Thinking Skills – These are the critical thinking skills that the students will
develop throughout the unit.
o Remembering – For this unit, the students will recall prior knowledge regarding
the various regular and irregular conjugations of the preterite tense as they learn
the conjugations of the imperfect tense. Then, the students will learn how to
identify and recognize the different conjugations as well as the different functions
of the preterite and imperfect tenses.
o Understanding – The students will interpret and summarize a variety of Mexican
legends, stories, and narrative songs. These authentic sources will be short, but
they will contain a rich amount of Mexican culture and history as well as many
examples of the preterite and imperfect tenses. For example, the students will
listen to and summarize the events of the Mexican corrido, “La Adelita”. The
students will also compare and contrast the Mexican legends, stories, and songs
that they encounter in class to the more familiar legends, stories, and songs from
their own culture.
o Analyzing – In addition to interpreting and summarizing the Mexican legends,
stories, and narrative songs, the students will analyze these authentic sources by
outlining the basic events and deconstructing the story into its basic components
(introduction/exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution).
Afterwards, they will analyze the main message, the audience, and purpose of the
story.
o Evaluating – After creating a rough draft of a legend/fairytale/fable, the students
will critique and evaluate each others’ writing in order to help them produce a
comprehensive story with accurate past tense conjugations. This peer-editing
activity will further develop students’ knowledge of the past tense and critical
thinking skills as they detect errors in their peers’ writing and correct their own
mistakes.
o Creating – At the end of the unit, the students will create a legend/fairytale/fable
utilizing the preterite tense, the imperfect tense, and the fairytale vocabulary from
the unit. In order to accomplish this task, the students will need a competent
understanding of the difference between the preterite and imperfect tenses as well
as a proficient knowledge of the components of a basic plot
(introduction/exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution).
● High Leverage Teaching Practices – Of the many High Leverage Teaching Practices
(HLTPs), I will focus on these five throughout the course of the unit.
o 2. Explaining and modeling content, practices, and strategies – I am a firm
believer that modeling content (imperfect tense), practices (activities that involve
conjugating verbs into the imperfect tense), and strategies (knowing when to use
the imperfect tense) are essential to any instruction. During this unit, I will model
to my students how to conjugate verbs into the imperfect tense, how to decide
whether to use the preterite or imperfect tense, as well as how to analyze and
 deconstruct a legend, story, and song. As I model, I will give my students verbal
and written explanations of my thinking processes as I work through these
complex tasks. By demonstrating how I work through the task, the students will
be able to do it independently.
o 10. Building respectful relationships with students – This unit will take place
during the very first week of the third trimester, so it is very important that I get to
know my students and start building relationships with them immediately. I
believe that respectful relationships with students and classroom management
issues have an indirect correlation, meaning the more I build strong relationships
with my students, the less classroom management issues I will have. I will build
these relationships by getting to know my individual students’ interests and
hobbies, by creating a safe classroom environment that will help them feel
comfortable, and by creating engaging lessons that motivate the students to learn.
o 19. Analyzing instruction for the purpose of improving it – Even though it is
time consuming, I believe that it is extremely important to reflect after every
lesson. Throughout the course of this unit, I am going to reflect on the
effectiveness of the unit’s instruction, teaching methods, practices, and authentic
and technological materials in order to get a better understanding of what works
in the classroom and what doesn’t. It is especially important that I reflect on these
lessons because this will be the first time that I am creating and implementing a
full unit. As a result of my analysis, I will be able to improve instruction in
meaningful ways when I teach this unit in the future. Plus, it is a good habit.
● Differentiation – I will differentiate instruction by presenting grammar structures both
orally and visually as I verbally explain the rules and write them on the whiteboard. I will
also have the students read the legends and folk song lyrics with a partner in order to help
the students who might have reading difficulties. Like all differentiation techniques, these
accommodations will not only support the students with learning disabilities, but it will
support the rest of the class as well.
● Material Adaptation – There are quite a few materials from the Spanish 2B textbook,
¡Avancemos!, that I would like to adapt for the unit. I truly believe that there are some
really engaging activities in this textbook that will be beneficial to meeting the standards-
based goals of the unit.
o Textbook: “Una leyenda mazateca: El fuego y el tlacuache” – Within this unit,
the textbook contains an authentic text from the Oaxaca region of Mexico. This
legend is full of cultural and historical references to the Mazatec people and the
Nahuatl language. After the students learn the differences between the preterite
and imperfect tenses, we will use this authentic text to learn how to put the events
in chronological order and analyze the main message of the story. We will do this
through an Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) that involves interpretive
communication, critical thinking, and cultural analysis. This activity will reflect
the Reading and Culture objectives, and it will act as part of the scaffolding
process because the students will use what they learn in this activity to write their
own legend at the end of the unit.
● Authentic Materials
o Mexican corrido: “La Adelita” (3:02) – This Mexican corrido (folk song) is a
great way to present the difference between the preterite and imperfect tenses. It is
also a great way to introduce Mexican culture (el corrido) and history (Mexican
Revolution) to the students. I located this song by searching for Mexican narrative
songs on Google, and when I found “La Adelita,” I knew it was perfect. I will use
the PACE (Presentation, Attention, Co-construction, Extension) method with this
authentic song in order to have the students critically analyze the past tense
conjugations and decipher the functions of the preterite and imperfect tenses.
After I review the preterite tense and teach the students the imperfect tense, I will
commence the Presentation Stage by having the students listen to “La Adelita” as
they try to decipher the song’s mood. Once they finish listening to the song, I will
give the students some background knowledge on the history and significance of
the Mexican corrido. Then, the student will enter the Attention Stage as they
listen to the song again and write down the preterite and imperfect tense verbs that
they hear. Then, I will have the students take a look at the lyrics, underline the
imperfect tense verbs, and circle the preterite tense verbs. I will scaffold the
students’ learning by providing them with the translations of words they may not
know, and I will ask them to carefully read the lyrics. Afterwards, I will give the
class some background knowledge on the history of the Mexican Revolution, and
I will begin a class discussion regarding the plot and main message of the
narrative song. Once we have deconstructed and analyzed the song, I will
commence the Co-construction Stage by having the students work in groups to try
to decipher the difference between the use of the imperfect tense and the use of
the preterite tense. After the students have had sufficient time to think and predict,
we will discuss the students’ conclusions as a class, and I will guide their
conversation to help them discover the answer. The Extension Stage will
complete this PACE activity as the students use the preterite and imperfect tenses
to write an ending to the song.
● Technology Integration
o YouTube: “La Adelita” & “¿Qué diferencia a los aztecas de los mayas?”
(5:26) – YouTube is an incredible technological resource that gives Spanish
teachers the opportunity to introduce students to authentic songs, films, news
clips, etc. as well as informational videos about history and culture. “La Adelita,”
an authentic source, meets the Cultures objective because it teaches students about
the Mexican Revolution (a historical event) and it introduces students to the
importance of the corrido (a cultural product). This traditional folk song also
meets the Listening objective because it is used to help the students practice
interpretive communication as they identify the preterite and imperfect tenses as
they listen to the song. On the other hand, “¿Qué diferencia a los aztecas de los
mayas?” is an awesome animated, informational video that describes the
differences between the Aztec civilization and the Mayan Civilization. This video
is engaging and fairly easy to understand with the Spanish subtitles. Before
 showing this video to the class, I will create a T-chart on the whiteboard and fill it
in by asking the students what they know about the Aztecs and the Mayans (I
suspect they won’t know much). After writing this prior knowledge on the board,
I will have them watch the video and take notes on what they learn. Then, we will
have a class discussion regarding the differences between the two civilizations,
and I will fill in the rest of the T-chart. This video certainly meets the Cultures
objective as it teaches students about the history and culture of the Aztec and
Mayan civilizations. It also meets the Listening and Reading objectives because
the students will participate in interpretive communication as they listen to the
narrator and read the Spanish subtitles that provide the students with examples of
the preterite and imperfect tenses.
o Storybird – Storybird is an excellent technological resource for foreign language
classrooms because it gives students an engaging way to present their writing.
Storybird is a free website that gives students the opportunity to use a series of
pictures/paintings provided by the website to create picture books (short stories),
longform books (chapter books), and poetry. At the end of the unit, the students
will work in pairs to create a short story/legend/myth by utilizing the preterite and
imperfect tenses accurately. In addition, they will incorporate the unit’s fairytale
vocabulary into their story, and they will use the information they learned about
the components of a plot (introduction/exposition, rising action, climax, falling
action, and resolution) to create an appealing story. Once they are finished with
their final draft, the students will transfer their story onto Storybird. This
technological resource meets the Writing objective by granting students an
engaging medium for writing and displaying their stories as they participate in
presentational communication. For students struggling to come up with ideas for
their plot, the pictures/paintings on Storybird will help spark their creativity.
Note: After discussing this idea with the Spanish department, the Spanish
teachers decided that they wanted to use this as an end of the year project rather
than use it now as a final unit project. While the students still created a legend for
my unit, they did not use Storybird.
● Cultural and Interdisciplinary Connections
o Cultural Connections: Analyzing Stories, Legends, and Songs – The students
will gain cultural understanding as we interpret and analyze the authentic texts of
this unit. For example, the students will gain cultural understanding of Mexico’s
pre-hispanic era as they read the traditional myths and legends (i.e. “Una leyenda
mazateca: El fuego y el tlacuache” and “La leyenda de los dos volcanes”) that not
only reveal Mexico’s complex history but their rich, cultural products, practices,
and perspectives as well. In addition, “La Adelita” will help the students gain
cultural understanding as they learn about the cultural importance of the Mexican
corrido (folk song) and the historical significance of the Mexican Revolution.
These authentic texts are valuable resources because the students gain significant
cultural understanding while practicing their interpretive communication skills.
o Interdisciplinary Connections: Writing Stories and Analyzing Primary
Sources – The students will make interdisciplinary connections between their
English and Spanish classes as they learn about the basic components of a story
(introduction/exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution). For
example, when the students write their stories at the end of the unit, they will
create a plot that includes all of the necessary components of a fully developed
story (i.e. exposition, conflict). The students will also make interdisciplinary
connections between their history and Spanish classes as they learn how to
analyze the primary sources of the unit. For example, as we read the famous
corrido, “La Adelita” and a couple of Mexican legends, we will analyze their
origins, characteristics, main messages, audiences, and purposes as well. In the
end, these practices in the target language will reinforce previously learned
content knowledge from the students’ English and history classes.