El Cactus: Short story in the past tense.

Cleaning my Google Drive I ran across a file called, “El Cactus”. It was a copy of a resource from Robin Boling Purdy (Twitter: @SoyBolingual) & Kara Jacobs (Twitter @karacjacobs) that goes along with this bank commercial.

It’s a feel-good story about a cactus covered in marshmallows. Exactly what my Spanish 3 students needed as a break from reading, “Vida y muerte“. The only problem was that it was a very simple story in the present tense. You can find Kara’s post here with those resources. I decided to modify the story to past tense to give my students continued exposure to the preterite and imperfect. Here’s what I did.

The Plans

-Students started with a Gimkit of key vocab. It was Thanos mode time so that was an extra bonus!

-Next we went through the flashcards on Quizlet as a class.

-Students played Pictionary in groups of three (I projected the word list from Quizlet)

-I gave students a 6 panel story board (you can download the PDF below with other resources), projected 6 words, asked students to write a short story in Spanish using the words. Any tense, any plot, just keep it rated PG. Be as simple or complex as you’d like.

-Students traded stories and drew pictures of the story.

-Then in a new group, students read their original story.

-I read a simple version of the actual story aloud while students drew what they heard on the back side of the storyboard sheet.

-I projected the story with screen shots (modified from Kara’s original version) stopping before the twist, of course. This way students could see how close they were to the actual story & check their understanding.

-Finally we watched the video.

-I intended to play the true/false marker game but ran out of time.

The Resources

Past tense version of the story.
Past tense slide show
Student instructions to write story & draw story.

Thank you Kara & Robin!

Thank you Kara & Robin for sharing your skills. Again, you can see Kara’s orignal post here. I hope my addition can continue to help others! If you use my plans, I’d love to hear how it goes!

Leave me a comment below, tweet me @lisajmch, or find me on IG @lamaestramch