Submitted by Jean Schuster

Objectives:

Content:
Students will be able to:
· Identify name significant historical events surrounding the White House.
· Connect the important events of the evolution of the White House to specific presidencies.
· Hypothesize about similarities and differences between Spanish historic landmarks and those in the United States.

Cultural:
Students will: · Attain an appreciation of the significance of a landmark through an understanding of its history.
· Contrast the experience of a centuries-old history like that found when touring cities in Spain with our own experience in the U.S.

Language: Content Obligatory
Students will:
· Use the preterit and imperfect tense to describe past actions, e.g. James Monroe era el primer presidente...
· Use interrogative words to obtain information from classmates, e.g. ¿Cuál arquitecto construyó...?
· Use ordinal numbers to describe time periods and dates. e.g. La Oficina Oval fue construida en 1909.
· Use the false passive with se for use of passive voice without an agent, e.g. Se hizo el diseño en....
· use ser to locate events e.g. La boda fue en ....
· use to following vocabulary to describe and identify historical structures and terms:

sustantivos el arquitecto el presidente la renovación el edificio la capital el fuego el diseño el estilo el concurso

verbos construir empezar supervisar terminar mudarse agrandar quemar instalar casarse

nombres los británicos la Casa Blanca Irlanda La Guerra de 1812 la Oficina Oval

Language: Content Compatible
Students will be able to:
· Use accurate adjective/noun agreement with words from vocabulary list.
· Use structures to compare U.S. historical structures with Spanish ones, e.g. Los edificios de España son más antiguas que los de los EEUU.
· Use Imperfect Subjunctive in nominative clauses, e.g. La Sra. Roosevelt pidió que le ayudara....
· Use cardinal numbers in Spanish, e.g. El segundo arquitecto fue...

Learning Strategies / Social and Skills Development:
Students will:
· Recognize that a specific question is related to their assignment of historical information that needs to be shared with the group.
· Use background information about the U.S. to make comparisons with Spain.
· Work cooperatively to fill in the knowledge gaps posed by the activity.
· Ask questions to obtain the information they need.
· Brainstorm in their groups to draw comparisons.

Time Frame:

One 50-minute period.

Materials Needed:

· Picture of the White House on transparency or projected on board from Internet. (I brought up a picture from Google.com and projected it with an LCD projector and laptop.)
· Information Gap Activity Sheet.
· Number BINGO cards
· Game Board with Numbers
· Poster paper for posting ideas shared by the group in the closure activity

Description of Assessment (Performance Project):

Background:

1. NUMBER BINGO.
Students will review numbers 1 through 2000 in Spanish in a BINGO activity. Make a BINGO grid with 25 empty squares. You may or may not allow a ìfree spaceî. Then put 25 numbers on the board from 1 to 2000 that would pertain to dates that would be used to discuss important historical events in Iberian History, i.e. 1936, 1492, etc. Students fill their BINGO grids randomly with the numbers from the board. Then read the numbers in Spanish and students mark them off on the grids. I use the grid several times by having them mark corners only. This game provided modeling of the correct number formation in Spanish.

2. BOARD GAME.
Students will then be given a board game with significant dates on the board already written in. Students will pair up to play the game, which consists of having to say the number on the square correctly in order to advance. Each square has a move for a correct answer and one for an incorrect answer. This activity will allow students practice in producing correct numbers.

Historical Information Task

1. WHITE HOUSE INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITY.
Students will be divided up into groups of four. Each student will be then given a sheet with 6 questions at the top and, at the bottom, historical information about the White House that will answer questions that other members of the group have. Students should first preread their information in order to know if they will need to answer the question being asked. Student A will begin and ask their first question. The other members of the group will check their sheet and the person with the information will give the answer orally. Students will then write down the answers for their questions on their sheets. These may be answered in complete sentences for an informal formative assessment of use of the language structures targeted in the objectives for this lesson. Or, you may do an informal assessment of oral communication and cooperative learning involvement.

2. BRAINSTORMING ACTIVITY.
Students may then brainstorm about differences and similarities between historic landmarks found in the United States and those found in Spain. You may give a specific number as a goal. I have my students come up with a total of three differences and/or similarities. Have the group decide who will present their ideas to the class.

Post Task

GROUP ANALYSIS.
Have the students then come together as a class. Each group will then take turns sharing the differences and similarities about Spanish and American landmarks. Another student can record on butcher paper the groups' ideas.

Assessment:

Rubric para Comunicación
Rubric for Tarea Escrita

References and Resources:

Snyder, B. (1999). Enhancing Inststruction in Your Foreign Language Classroom: Increasing Effective Communication Through Interactive Learner-Centered Activities. Bellevue, WA:Bureau of Education & Research

Attachments:

NOTE: some attachments are in PDF form (get Acrobat Reader)

BINGO Grid
Game Board
La Casa Blanca:

Estudiante A, B, C, D
Preguntas
RespuestasRubric for Tarea Escrita
Rubric for Comunicación

A Lesson from the CoBaLTT Project
/cobaltt
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
University of Minnesota