Unit theme: I have chosen the story "Lola" by Junot Diaz. The book deals with a classroom of students who are assigned the task of drawing their place of origin. Seeing as this would be told to students, I think they could take interest in the book because they might be able to identify with the characters more. Also, it kind of deals with being different and learning to take pride, so I think it sends a good message to the students and might even help some find comfort. The main character of the book of from the Dominican Republic, so it goes into a lot of detail about the beauties of the Dominican Republic and their culture. There are several grammar structures presented in this book, but I chose to review ser and estar.

For my travel unit students will be exploring a number of authentic resources, learning about Mexican monuments and attractions, and then crafting a detailed travel itinerary for a trip to a city in Mexico of their choice. The purpose of this lesson is to build students knowledge of traveling, specifically to Mexico. The travel itinerary should be able to be used if they ever do end up traveling to Mexico. In creating their itineraries, they will explore monuments and attractions, dining experiences, monetary differences, etc. The goal is for students to be able to present what they will do in Mexico.

Travel Unit Resources:

1. Star Talk Unit Brainstorm
2. Interpretive Activity Design
3. Authentic resources for unit:
   • Authentic resource 1
   • Authentic resource 2
   • Authentic resource 3
4. Info-gap Interpersonal Activity
   • Crossword 1
   • Crossword 2
5. Presentation on Presentational Project
6. IPA Flowchart/Infographic

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS:

What is IMAGE?

Images and Making observations, Analyzing additional information, Generating hypotheses about cultural perspectives, and Employing perspectives and reflecting further (Glisan and Donato, 2017)

LOLA IMAGE LESSON:

The book that I have chosen is called Lola. In the story Lola asks her neighbors and family what they remember about the Dominican Republic for a school project. Each family member and neighbor introduces us to a certain aspect of the Dominican culture. With that being said, I’m going to discuss the Dominican Republic.

INDUCTIVE LEARNING TECHNIQUES

1) What are the "raw materials" needed for each task? What does the teacher need to find and develop for each lesson?

For both tasks, the teacher should have a grammar structure in mind for the lesson.

Discovery Technique: The students are presented with a passage in which the grammar structure is used, but they are not told what the grammar structure is. The students use context to discover the grammar rule; therefore, learning it implicitly.

Task-based lesson: In the task based lessons, teachers are not supposed to actively correct errors. This tasks focuses more on communication and using language to accomplish a task. Communication is used between students to determine exactly how they learned and used what the teacher had intended or selected for them.

2) Based on your ideas for the unit you are building around your book, what grammar topics would you select for your lesson? Reference a passage/section/or examples in your book that you could highlight in your grammar lesson based on the discovery technique.

I think for mine I could go over past tense preterite and imperfect or ser and estar differences and conjugations.

Examples from the book of ser and estar:

Y Lola era de la Isla.

¿Que pasa si uno no se acuerda del lugar de donde es?

Y todo el mundo siempre está bailando.

Mi niña, nuestras playas son poesía...

¡Estábamos debajo de la cama!

Mir está en su taller.

3) What type of a task could you develop to elicit the grammar structure for your lesson?

Provide a role play for students to use. Student A can ask a series of questions that require the use of ser and estar. Student B will have to determine which to use and answer the question. The students will then switch and do the same thing with different questions.

Reflection:

1) How you wanted your activity to go and how it actually went

I wasn't entirely satisfied with my activity just because ser and estar is a tad bit difficult to teach. Also, I didn't have very many present tense examples of ser and estar in my book. I think I can make it work, but I am going to have to make a few changes to my grammar lesson.

2) What you thought your objective for the activity was and how well the activity accomplished that goal

The objective for my grammar lesson was for students to analyze and identify the main differences between ser and estar. It was difficult to determine if my activity truly did reach that objective since my audience was already familiar with the differences between the 2.

3) What you planned well/not so well and anything you didn't consider or might need to change

As previously mentioned, I didn't have many examples of present tense ser and estar so I need to find a way for students to kind of figure out the conjugations of the verbs. Also, I was planning on providing students with the DOCTOR PLACE, but I need to allow them to discover those rules for ser and estar on their own as opposed to just handing it to them.

4) How you plan to change the activities to meet the objectives and to allow successful completion by students

In order for the students to grasp DOCTOR PLACE on their own, I may need to provide an activity that's more meaningful to them. Also, I need an activity that truly shows the rules of ser and estar in context clearly.