Reading Tumba with 5th Grade

Tumba, by Mira Canion, is the first ever TPRS novel I've used as a FLES teacher. I am reading it with my 5th grade classes. Up till now, we've built stories and I've typed them up and we've read those, but we've never read a published novel. So I decided to try Mira Canion's new novel Tumba, starting in the first week of October as we lead up to the Day of the Dead. The classroom set of Tumba books has been sitting on a table just inside the door to my classroom for a few weeks. Everyone who walks in and out pauses to peruse the colorful cover with its creepy skeleton and marigold-bedecked tomb. But when I announced to my 5th graders that we were actually going to read it, they were stunned. "In Spanish?" they asked in disbelief. "Well, yeah," I responded. "But how will we understand it?" they moaned in despair. "You'll understand it." I assured them. They did not look convinced.

When we cracked the covers last week, it was one of the most exciting classes I've ever had. Mind you, these are students who have been exposed to Spanish twice a week for 30-40 minutes, some of them since Kindergarten, and some even less. Three of them were new students who had had no Spanish at all. As I read the first paragraph aloud to them and they followed along in their books, I could see them one by one glancing up at me in joyful amazement. "I understand this!" they were telling me, either out loud or with their eyes. We translated, we looked for cognates, we continued. They read with a partner and reported back what they had understood. I did a couple of grammar pop-ups. (How can you tell Alex is a boy and not a girl? because he's "nervioso" not "nerviosa" one or two students noted with confidence). "Oh yeah," the others concurred. We've started using journals to recap what's happened in each section we read (in English, for now, but I think we can do it in Spanish before long), list cognates and 'nuevas palabras'. When we broke out the journals this week, one student cried out "Oh yay, we get to draw!" I hadn't even thought of that in connection with this novel, but it would be fun to do that too.

So yeah, I definitely recommend Mira's novice novels. Having worked with her this past summer to translate Agentes secretos from Spanish to French, I have tremendous appreciation for what goes into making a novel comprehensible to the most novice of novices. Mira kept saying, "I want students to be able to read this in their first month of learning French." What might seem boring and repetitive to a native speaker or seasoned upper level teacher is not at all boring to a novice, especially when the content is as compelling and fun as Mira's novels. What I'm seeing in my 5th graders is sheer joy of reading something they are excited about, which is accessible enough for them to forge forward to see what happens next. In the language of my elementary school reading teacher colleagues, they are reading at the "just right level".

My challenge is to keep myself from making it too much of a chore by going all teacherly on them. I need to harness their enthusiasm, while still making sure everyone is understanding and no one is left behind. I need to make opportunities for circling and PQA without losing the momentum of the story. Suggestions and guidance are most welcome. I'm a total newbie at this approach to the 'R' of TPRS, but I am loving it. I'm looking forward to some of the ACTFL sessions on reading, in hopes there will be some FLES-appropriate tips there too. And I can't wait to dive into the many other novice novels I have on my shelves with even younger students. Any recommendations for 3rd or 4th grade?

Writing Novels for Emerging L2 readers - Kristy Placido

So you want to be an author...?

Kristy Placido is the author of several novels and advanced-level curricula for TPRS Publishing, Inc. She teaches HS Spanish in MI. Handout.

Novels are a great vehicle for compelling, comprehensible, cultural input. They are a mainstay of the Blaine Ray curriculum, providing a culminating experience for language students as well as an added source of comprehensible input that can be accessed outside of class time. Novels authored expressly for teaching proficiency through reading and story-telling are a key stepping stone on the way to reading authentic literature in the target language.

How to get started?

Choose a geographic setting: Google a country you're interested in using as the setting. Look at people's travel blogs. Read Lonely Planet.

Find existing stories: Cuentos de la Alhambra--Washington Irving, in public domain, can be reworked.

News stories—Chilean miners, mudslides, soccer, watch Univision, etc. for ideas.

Visit websites for charitable organizations, find stories, descriptions of people, places, activities they help with.

Travel/history/culture books

A writer is currently basing a novel on an adoption story.

If you start with a plot idea, look for an appropriate setting to develop your plotline.

If you start with your characters, develop each character before you write the story, think about actual people you know, get to know your characters deeply.

If your story is setting-driven, think about: culture, history, landscape, places of interest, experiences, parks, palaces, homes.

Google plot development for lots of websites that can provide guidance, such as: http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/read/plot1.html

Outline the story, then begin developing each chapter. Include descriptions of people and places.

Create level-appropriate reading:

Limit new vocabulary (8-20 new words per chapter; 10-15 chapters)

Use tons of cognates, known vocab, appropriate numbers of repetitions: Rule of thumb: minimum 5-7 reps for each new word introduced, preferably within the same chapter. Otherwise, footnote.

Use dialogue to allow for different verb forms.

Ask students for feedback on drafts of your chapters.

Make sure to keep some conflict or suspense for the end of the book. Think carefully about how you will reveal the details or unfold events.

Don't be afraid to scrap ideas and rewrite.

Talk with people you trust about your ideas. Have a native speaker read for correctness and fluency. (Nelly Hughes, Ohio (mexicana) is interested in helping with culture-based stories.)

Before sharing your work, make sure you copyright it: Copyright (c) 2011 Your Name. All rights reserved.

When you are ready to publish, send manuscript to: TPRSPublishing, BlaineRayTPRS, Contee Seeley Command Performance, Self publish: Lulu, Amazon: CreateSpace, Kindle Direct Publishing, etc.

Write every day. Don't put off writing until you have fully formed ideas. Flesh out ideas even if they don't turn into anything.

El Nuevo Houdini: Two in one—present and past.

To see novels for younger learners, check out Karen Rowan series: Isabela, Congo