La hija del sastre: Cartas colaborativas

After reading La hija del sastre I hooked up with one of my colleagues in another district who was also reading the book with her students and a few chapters from the end of the book. I wanted to get the kids to think outside the box a bit and use what they knew about the novel in a different way. 

Goals:
- Retell the events of the novel La hija del sastre

- Write using quality sentences and structures in Spanish

- Use technology to correspond with other students outside of own classroom in Spanish

- Connect with a character in the novel on a personal level

Process

I created a google doc that listed the group number, name and email, and a list of characters in the book. Students logged in signed up to be a character by writing their name and email next to their chosen character. The partner school students then logged on to sign up for a character they were writing to along with their name and email.

Once the groups were chosen, they created a private google doc to share with each other and the their teachers. They had to show evidence of having read and understood the story by including the character's thoughts, hopes, worries about certain events, as well as questions for the receiving character. As you can tell, we were trying to get the students to use the subjunctive mood. We gave them some suggestions to use:

1. Ayer…
2. Después de entrar al taller un hombre guapo…
3. Me siento…
4. Me preocupo que…
5. Espero que...

The characters had to interact at least three times. These types of collaborative projects are great because they make the students think a little differently and also "up the ante" with accountability. They make the students more responsible for their learning, giving it a purpose for why they are doing this. It is also fun to experience language skills of other students and give them confidence that they are doing better than they may have originally thought.

What are ways that you reach outside your classroom to give students experiences through the 5th C?