Intermedio MS
Intermedio MS students started their first trimester reading the book Ricitos de Ónix by Puerto Rican writer Laura Rexach Olivencia. Through this book they explored the topics of identity, physical appearance, personality, similarities and differences between family members, among others. They also reviewed the structure of the verb gustar and similar verbs, and the present tense conjugation of reflexive verbs. To conclude this first unit, students created an autobiographical poem and a collage representative of their poem. They also wrote an artist statement for their collage.
The second unit of the trimester centered around the book Quince by Jennifer Degenhardt. With this book students started to discuss the cultural phenomenon that are quinceañeras. They also embarked on a long-term project that they will finish next term. With inspiration from the Mexican telenovela Quinceañera (1987), the celebration of quinceañeras and the book Quince, students will develop their own telenovela concept. This trimester students developed their main characters. They wrote brief profiles for each one, identified iconic objects and iconic lines that represented each one, took posed photographs of them, and mimicking the medium of letters, used in the book, choose one character to write a letter from their perspective.
In addition to our main projects, students also created a virtual ofrenda at home to honor a family member, friend or someone they admire who passed away, to celebrate Día de los Muertos.
Intermedio 1
To start off the year in Intermediate 1, students looked at the infinitive, the gerund and the perfect tense and how to use them together through story-telling. This culminated in the “Mi Comunidad” project, in which students wrote a poem, depicting a formative event in their community. They then had to visually represent their poem. This representation could take the form of a picture, drawing, painting… etc. Finally, student recorded themselves reading their poem, after having spent time working on their pronunciation in Spanish. During Hispanic Heritage Month, students researched different Spanish speaking countries and were tasked with creating infographics compiling all the information they had gathered about the country they had chosen to research. Additionally, the bulk of the trimester was spent learning the past tenses in Spanish (the preterite and imperfect tenses), and using them together. Throughout their study of the novel set in Nicaragua “Soy Lorenzo”, students were asked to identify when and how to use the different past tenses to describe events in the past. This led students to complete an extended reading and written comprehension project, during which they researched different news sites from Nicaragua, and read through many authentic articles, in order for them to create their own Nicaraguan newspaper “front page”, on the topics of their choosing.
Intermedio 2
This trimester in Español Intermedio 2 we grounded our learning in the short novel Problemas en paraíso. This book helped us delve into the vocabulary of traveling. It also allowed us to closely review the preterite and imperfect tenses, the reflexive pronouns and verbs, as well as the different uses of ser and estar. The story takes places in the coastal city of Ixtapa, located in eastern México, where Victoria goes with her son, Tyler, to vacation, but also to attend a conference. In order to broaden the scope of the story’s setting, México, students were each assigned a specific city within this country. Their main project of the trimester consisted of three tasks. First, students wrote travel journal entries. These entries allowed them to use the grammar and vocabulary learned in context, while also encouraging them to research particularities of their specific cities. Secondly, they drew six postcards, each related to one entry and one aspect of their trip. Lastly, students created a Slides presentation to share their work with their peers. In their presentation, in addition to the information they had already researched and written about, students had to include an activity or place that they could do or visit virtually during class. This component of their presentation was meant to showcase some of the virtual traveling we can do during our present times.
In addition to our main project, students also created a virtual ofrenda at home to honor a family member, friend or someone they admire who passed away, to celebrate Día de los Muertos.