The Spanish III - Honor students will write a short story depicting a character of a Spanish- speaking country. They will narrate the life of a Hispanic character from his/her childhood to adolescence.

It is important for students to research how others live in Spanish-speaking countries. As they learn how others live, it enables them to be open to cultural diversity. The students should know that while they ready themselves for activities such as sports, arts, and other activities in their school community, students elsewhere might be getting ready to walk home for a few miles to carry a pail of water for their family. Nevertheless, these students also play and have fun with sports, arts, and other activities.

Although there are similarities between U.S. students and students from Spanish-speaking countries, it is important to note that there are students in Spanish-speaking countries who live their lives as U.S. students do; however, this small number enjoys access to American conveniences. Therefore, in some instances, it is difficult to distinguish cultural diversity if one studies this small group, unless a study is made solely on their spoken language, which is Spanish. This is one reason why it is important that Spanish III- honor students write a story of a Spanish-speaking character who lives in an environment that is not similar to that of a U.S. student, or the small number who live as U.S. students do in Spanish-speaking countries.

The student will select a Hispanic country from a resource list. Each student will write a story about a character of the chosen country. The student will play the role of the character by assuming his/her rural or urban persona, and tell the student listeners about his/her life. The narrative of the story, and the telling of the story will begin with the childhood years of the character, and continue until his/her present adolescence. The events that constitute the story plot must reflect how the character was affected by them and how they changed his/her life as a teenager in a Hispanic country. These events must take place in surroundings that resemble authentic scenes. These could be done by illustrations, or realia that fit the story narrative.

The student must include cultural aspects to the story. These should be foreign enough, so that U.S. teenagers learn the cultural diversity of Hispanic teenagers. The students who listen and read the story should benefit from it. As they become educated from learning about other cultures, they will learn to avoid stereotypes of Hispanic teenagers in general.

The student will demonstrate and emphasize the use of the preterite and imperfect tenses in the indicative mood. They will write the narrative aspects of the story using the preterit tense, and the descriptive aspects using the imperfect tense. They will also use all learned tenses and vocabulary to enrich the story, especially when writing about a character who is expressing what he/she was like, and what he/she is like now. The character as a whole will look back at his past, and learn from it. Moreover, he/she has learned a lesson from significant events in the past.

Students will publish the story on the web and present the story to their peers with the use of an outline for reference only. He/she will tell the story to others without having to read the story. However, a copy of the written story must be given to listeners at the time of the presentation and a copy to the teacher five days before the presentation.

The Student will:

1. Collect and record research facts about teenagers of a country. These facts must include unusual life styles which are different from the U.S.
2. Create a character who lives in the selected country, and assume his persona.

   a. Give the character attributes that enable him/her to function in an environment.
   b. How did he live?
   c. What interrupted his life?
   d. What traditions where habitual?
   e. How did he/she accept challenge?
   f. Why is he/she able to live in his/her environment? . Mention unusual activities. For example, how he or she used to pick cactus leaves every morning and prepared them for breakfast by removing the thorns, then adding the cactus leaves to scrambled eggs.

3. Process the story using Word and submitted to your teacher. The story should be 5 pages double spaced.
4. Publish the story using the PageMill © application. Your final product for the web will contain a title page, three pages for your story and a hyperlinked bibliography page.
5. Use a one page outline of the story as an aid in your presentation. The story should be memorized and the outline used only for reference. DO NOT READ FROM THE OUTLINE!
6. Submit this ouline to your teacher one day prior to your presentation.
7. The duration of your presentation will be approximately 8-10 minutes.

1. The student will demonstrate the use of the tenses learned in Spanish III - H.

• Write a story containing the tenses learned in class.
• Write a story emphasizing the preterite and imperfect tenses

2. The preterite narrative:

• beginning, middle, and end of a phase
• specific completed actions, finite
• high focus events or happenings

3. The imperfect descriptive:

• emotions, mental states, physical descriptions
• background or explanatory material
• circumstances, conditions, ongoing activities, in progress
• weather, age, time

4. Idiomatic expressions and verbs:

• Demonstrate the use of specific verbs in the preterite and the imperfect tenses.

hacer	acabar de + infinitive	conocer
pensar	poder	no querer	querer
saber	tener	tener que + infinitive

*These above are just a few examples key verbs and expressions.

This project designed and implemented by Spanish teachers, Joseph Brown and Patrick David for Germantown Academy. Technical assistance furnished by Carol Siwinski, Curricular Technology Specialist

Last updated September, 2000