Black Friday story (reflection)

In a previous post, I talked about a story idea for Black Friday.  It really could be for any time of the year, but lends itself to Black Friday because of the craziness that can ensue.

The structures were:

• arrived / got there
• saw the perfect __.*
• bought it for only __.
• it was a bargain!

Here's what I tried out with the story.

It turned out not to be anything earth shattering or groundbreaking. I would chalk that up to my making up the story but not scripting it out well enough.  And my Spanish 2 students aren't always very good yet at playing around in the realm of silliness.

So I had three different people in each class and we narrated when they arrived, what they wanted to buy, and how much they payed. Then we decided if it was a deal. No one wanted to pay with anything other than dollars unfortunately. But that's ok. I'll know better for next year!

Here's what we came up with for our class story and my present tense story.  I decided it might be humorous to have the Incredible Hulk wanting to buy SpongeBob underwear.

viernes negro - Embedded readings

In the subsequent versions I added more vocabulary that we had previously gone over to review in a new context.

Simple story - Black Friday

I was thinking a lot of a Tripp Script that I saw recently on his blog. It is basically for telling after Thanksgiving.

Here are the structures:

• pounds (lbs)
• after eating
• takes a nap

And it lends itself to talking about overeating.  I thought it was nice and clever.  And it lends itself to Spanish 1 and also just a rainy day story to talk about things on these sometimes monotonous days.

But then I had an epiphany for my own storyline.

I thought about Black Friday and how much people tend to spend on that day. Since we're working on compra and some different clothing items (in stores) for vocab, this lends itself to that very easily.

• arrived / got there
• saw the perfect __.*
• bought it for only __.
• it was a bargain!

*this wouldn't be a goal for me, but might work better in your story or replace "found" for "saw"

Super simple version:

John arrived at Target Friday morning. He saw the perfect shirt. He bought it for only two pennies.

It was a bargain!

Simple version:

John went to Target for Black Friday.  John arrived at Target Friday morning at three in the morning. He saw the perfect brown shirt. He bought it for only two pennies.

It was a bargain!

Somewhat simple version:

John went to Target for Black Friday. John was at Target Friday morning at . He saw the perfect brown shirt for his little dog named Fluffinator. He bought it for only two pennies and a kiss.

It was a bargain!

Etc, etc, etc.

*Then you could do a similar reading (but with culture) involving el regateo (bargaining).  And throw that into the mix. Since it's a vocab/cultural idea I am supposed to hit this "unit".

structures:

• arrived / got there
• saw the perfect __.*
• bought it for only __.
• it was a bargain!
• it normally costs
• he haggled with the store clerk

Slightly simple version:

John went to Target for Black Friday. John was at Target Friday morning at . He saw the perfect brown shirt for his little dog named Fluffinator. It normally costs 100 dollars.  He haggled with the store clerk for one hour. He bought it for only two pennies, a kiss and his jeep.

It was a bargain!


And of course, if you're a Spanish teacher and have a Señor Wooly account, you could do a Movietalk and show the "es una ganga" music video as an extension activity in the week!