El muñeco viviente - the living doll (revised)

Last year I briefly mentioned a mini-unit that dealt with muñecas.

In the mini-unit, I wanted to spice things up and tell a story based on real life about a guy named Justin who has gone through body modification.

This is the second year I've used this presentation. I think it could work out great in a unit on body image and talking about how if kids are comfortable with their body. I don't really organize things that way quite yet, but I could see it being something to talk to kids about depending on your relationship with them and/or maturity/class level.

I like it because most of the kids don't know who he is and they really find the presentation fascinating and want to know what's going on.  So it makes for compelling and comprehensible (if we did our jobs right) input.

I want to share last year's presentation and this year's.  You might notice I revised the presentation and added a few different words. I made some language slightly more compex using various forms of dar (to give) to expose my kids more to the indirect objects (to me, to you, to him/her). Thus far they get that "le means to him or to her" (said in a southern accent).

But what I want is to make it so next year in Spanish 2, when the emphasis is more on grammar, these things will make more sense because of all the front-loaded contextualized and comprehensible language.

Here's the original presentation. you'll notice there was one version and it was a day long presentation + quiz. I also had some TPR to get them moving and scaffold some words (mixed new with old).



Here is the new one. You'll notice I made it into an embedded reading (to keep pushing my kids to read). Version 1 was the first day after some TPR* (and other class activities).  Version 2 will be with a partner (on day 1 or day 2 depending on time). And version 3 will be as a class. There is also a part in version three where we can get up and move around to vote on our opinions (movement is crucial in my class as a brain break and just something different).



Click here to see version 2 if you wanted to see the progression.

Let me know what you think!  It's one of my favorite stories in the year because one year a student was adamant about how much they hated silly stories. It made me realize that we have to mix things up with real stuff too!

*the first 3 TPR terms are from our last spoken story. "le da" is a review and for some reason this year, I never got to "el cuerpo" (the body) so I added it in and "piensa" (s/he thinks) will be great as we start expressing our opinions more with it instead of "en mi/tu/su opinión" (in my/your/his/her opinion).