Sneak Peek: A free, easy-to-implement lesson plan where students investigate and then present information on a mythical creature from the Hispanic world.
October is the perfect time to incorporate an activity that has that spooky season feel! Students are likely in the mindset of watching scary seasonal movies, picking out Halloween costumes, or decorating their homes for the upcoming holiday. Why not tap into that excitement that’s already there, and have them learn valuable skills along the way?
In this lesson plan, students will be given a list of mythical creatures from a wide variety of countries to choose from. They’ll think they are looking up scary creatures, but they will be doing so much more.
Many thanks to Zachary Bryant for creating this lesson so we can share it with teachers like you!
Learning Objectives: Students will evaluate multiple sources for credibility, interpret stories and information, form opinions and identify cultural perspectives from different communities. Students will express information in Spanish to communicate their findings.
Materials
Las criaturas del mundo hispano (FREE)
Las criaturas del mundo hispano apuntes (FREE)
Las criaturas del mundo project example (FREE)
Pen/Pencil for taking notes
iPads/computer access to Google Slides or similar
Prep
Print enough copies of the resources from above, or upload to your learning management system. Have the project example ready to show on your screen, or upload it for students to access.
Duration
Depending on class size, this lesson will take your class 3-4 periods if you are on a 50-60 minute schedule. Day one would include presenting the project guidelines and example, having students choose their creature, and beginning their research. Day two would be finishing their research and putting the slides together. Day three would be presenting to the class, but if you have a large class size you’ll likely need another day to finish everyone’s. If you need to spend less time on the presentations, you could assign the project to be completed by small groups instead of individually.
Teacher Instructions
- Greet the students and communicate the learning objectives for the day.
- Ask students about mythical creatures and legends they are familiar with in the United States or other parts of the world. (Answers may include something like Bigfoot, a mermaid, or a chupacabra etc.)
- Now that their brains are primed, introduce the project at hand. Distribute the criaturas del mundo Hispano sheet with the requirements and choice list. If you think students will be too distracted by the choice list, print it or provide it separately AFTER you’ve shown the example project.
- After going over the requirements, show the sample project provided about El rougarou. Make sure they know they will be presenting in Spanish.
- Have students refer back to the list of creatures (27 options) and let them start thinking about which one they might want to do. It would be wise to set a time limit here because some students may take a very long time to settle on one. You may want to devise a system to keep track of what is being chosen and by whom because you won’t want a lot of students presenting the same creature. Sometimes I like to randomly assign a number to each student and that is the order in which they get to pick their topic. Make sure to tell them to have their top 3 choices ready in case they don’t get to choose right away.
- Once creatures have been established, students get to work on researching and creating the slides with the required information.
- Likely on day two or three now, the students will begin the presentations. Hand out the apuntes sheet so students in the audience can take notes on each creature as it’s presented. Decide if you want to collect the notes sheets for grading/points and communicate that with your students. If you are able, grade the presentations live to save you time. It’s always advisable to have students upload their presentations to your learning management system so you can go back over them and to make sure they were completed on time.
Differentiation options:
- If you have students that have anxiety about presenting, you might consider reducing the weight of presenting live on the grade. If the student successfully completes the slides and turns them in but chooses to not present they could still earn a passing grade, just not an A.
- If your schedule allows (as well as the student’s), you could have a student with severe anxiety present before or after school instead of in front of the whole class.
Optional activities
If you’d like to extend this you could do a group discussion after the presentations are over.
- How would people in your town/city react if they saw this mythical creature today? Write a pretend news article about this as if it really happened.
- Which of the creatures presented would make the best movie character? Why?
- If you could design a new creature, what would its symbolism or powers be?
What’s next? Day of the Dead is swiftly approaching. Check out our blog post, Day of the Dead in Heritage Spanish Class, for ideas and resources to fit any classroom!
If you are ready for all of your lesson plans for heritage class done for you, join us in the Heritage Spanish Club!
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