Teaching using short stories has to be my FAVORITE activity in my Spanish class. It provides so much input in the target language and allows for so much creativity. I wrote a whole post about building reading skills in the language classroom. Plus, there are so many ways to extend the story and provide even more opportunities for input. Read on to discover my top 10 ways to extend a short story.
Act it out!
Act it out- Students create mini skits based on the story. They can use the dialogue in the text or write their own dialogue based on the events of the story. Act live in class or make short videos.
Alternative endings
Alternative endings– Students use their creativity to write an alternative ending. Hang them up around the room and do a gallery walk. After, bind the students’ endings with the original story and add it to your classroom library.
Listen & Draw
Listen & draw– The teacher reads a few sentences from the story and students draw what they hear. An easy way to summarize the story.
Running Dictation
Running Dictation– Select several sentences from the story and post them in the hallway. Check out this post from the Comprehensible Classroom for detailed directions.
Write & Discuss
Write and Discuss– After reading the story, have the class summarize what they read out loud as the teacher writes the summary on the board.
Character Quotes
Character quotes– The teacher selects a variety of quotes from the story (you can modify the endings if the story is written in prose) and students determine who said the quotes. Post as a handout, post around the classroom as a gallery walk, or create a quick Google Form where students write the names of the characters.
Smash Doodle
Smash Doodle– A combo between a journal and a scrapbook, a smash doodle is a great visual way to represent a short story. Students use text and visuals to summarize the story.
Nearpod (Digital)
Nearpod- Nearpod offers a variety of digital activities (matching, questions, drawing, games) that you can use to implement the ideas above on a digital device. Great for remote teaching!
Toontastic (Digital)
Toontastic– In Toontastic Students create their own creative animated films! They can either animate the story or their creative alternative endings.
Flipgrid (Digital)
Flipgrid – Students create videos in Flipgrid and can respond to one another. Ask them to summarize the story, talk about their favorite part of the story, or create an alternate ending all in the TL.
You will love reading short stories with your Spanish students because they will absorb so much of the language naturally and in context. As a teacher, implementing some of the 10 ideas above will make lesson planning a breeze. You can easily stretch one story into a week’s worth of activities for extra repetition and input. Comment below if you have another idea of how to extend a short story.
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