How to Read a Novel with your Spanish Class
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Let’s talk about how to read a novel with your Spanish class. How long should a unit be? What sorts of activities should you do? How do you assess your students when reading a novel? We’re going to dig into all your frequently asked questions and more!
Using Readers in Spanish Class
In this series of posts we’ve been talking about using readers with students. We started with talking about FVR, then we looked at top recommendations for books for various levels, and today we have a special guest who is an expert in using novels with her classes – Allison from Mis Clases Locas!
I have personally never taught a novel to a class as a whole group so I reached out to Allison who agreed to come share her expertise with us. She’s going to answer our top asked questions about using readers in class, and then give us some resources for where we can get more support if needed!
Check out the other posts in this series:
- Free Voluntary Reading
- Classroom Library List
- Where to find reading materials for Spanish class
- Popular Recommendations for Readers in Spanish 1-AP
How to Read a Novel with your Spanish Class
- How many novels do you do in a year with each level?
- How long do you spend on a novel – and how do you know it’s the “goldilocks” pace (not too fast, not too slow)?
- Do we need to read each chapter out loud? What sorts of activities do you do with a novel other than “just read”? How do you keep students engaged while working with a book?
- How do you assess or wrap up a novel unit? Do you do a test? A project? What do you recommend?
- How do you differentiate for the various levels when working with a reader in a class? Have you ever tried reading groups where they’re reading different books? Would you recommend it?
- How do you incorporate culture while teaching a novel?
- Do you have any tips for working with readers while on a block? Thinking about longer class periods to engage students, but also longer periods of time in between classes to keep them remembering what’s happening in the story.
- How do you balance your budget between getting readers vs individual books for your classroom library and free voluntary reading?
Connect with Allison
Learn more from Allison on her website misclaseslocas.com. She has over 80 blog posts discussing readers and how she has used them in her classroom!
Here are her top 5 suggested novel posts:
- How to Teach Comprehensible Spanish Books
- Using Novels as the Core of a Spanish Class Curriculum
- Upper Level Literature Circles
- 20 Activities for Spanish Class Novels
- How to Start Free Reading (FVR)
More Reading Activities for your Classroom Novels
Thanks so much to Allison for sharing her expertise with us! One of the most frequently asked questions that came up in the survey was looking for ideas for what to DO with the readings, so I just wanted to add my playlist of reading activities for you here. This is chock full of ideas you can do with any reading, so you could pull out a chapter, or just do it with a short story, or any selection! Click here to check it out.
Check out the other posts in this series:
- Free Voluntary Reading
- Classroom Library List
- Where to find reading materials for Spanish class
- Top Recommendations for Readers in Spanish 1-AP
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