The year is flying by (as it does) and we are almost at the end of our semester (exams are Dec 19-20). Our writing experiment is going SO WELL. I have found that not only can I use our goal sheet to have students select which goals they want me to watch for in their writing, but I can also use it to encourage them toward MY goals. Ex: In Spanish 4 we just finished Huellas 2.13, La música originaria, and they had to write an expository essay. I told them ALL of our goal on this assessment was to organize our writing better. They did not disappoint!

Looking ahead, I have ACTFL this week (if you’re attending, stop by booth 1317 and say hi and come to my session Upset Your Planning in Exhibitor Room 1 at 3:30 on Friday) and then Thanksgiving week… so things are going to be out of sorts in my room. Oh, and it is also the season of EATING at my school. Between now and winter break, we have no less than 6 “feasts” put on by different groups in the school.

Something to share: My top 4 gamified Follow Ups these days

1. Martina Bex’s Unfair Game – There are two ways to play… both are unfair. It is great because you can be as low or high tech as you want. I have drawn a board on my white board (4×4) and written point values in the squares then covered them with post its, I’ve used game boards of 16, 20, and 24 questions on Google Slides where I put the point values in the table and then cover each cell with a solid filled rectangle, and I have used the pre-produced ones in Somos and in the Wayside Comprehension-based Readers™ teacher’s guides that not only have the point values, but also click to take you to each question! When I play, I tend to play with questions students know the answers to and the unfair part is that they don’t know what point value is under each square. SOME of the Somos games also add an element of learning extra cultural info by including questions students have NOT seen the answers to (forcing them to make educated guesses). Super unfair! 🙂 I love it.
2. Next up is Nelly Hughes‘s game “La torre del saber” or “The Tower of Knowledge”. It’s SO easy. You just need a set of comprehension questions and a set of solo cups! Each time a team gets a question right, they can add a cup to their tower. Tallest tower wins. I do like setting a 30 second timer for each round after round 4 so that they have a limit on build time!
3. I just started using a game I *think* I adapted called Exact Words. (I know there’s nothing new under the sun, so if this is an existing idea, let me know.) I gave students comprehension questions but then rolled two dice and they had to answer in the exact number of words I rolled. It was fun to see them struggle to summarize in 2 words.
4. My (and my students’) favorite is AnneMarie Chase’s Lucky Reading Game. All you need is some comprehension questions and a giant deck of cards. It’s so great because drawing bad cards helps even the playing field if one team has a member who struggles to get correct answers!

Have a great end of Nov/December and let me know if you have other favorite activities I need to try!