First of ESO

Literacy Project- ´Holes´ , by Louis Sachar

Throughout the year, students read the book ´Holes´ by Louis Sachar. It is a great book for ELLs because of the simple language and the engaging story. We also used the movie throughout the school year to further reading comprehension. In this final project, students were encouraged to show their understanding of the text by creating various types of projects such as a play, a crossword puzzle, a board game, a game show or interview with one of the characters.

PROJECT EXAMPLES

Below you can see the work that Marcos, Gabriel, Miguel and Pablo put together.

We also have a play from the scene where Zero and Stanley return to the camp to find the treasure and are later caught by the warden. The girl change the ending a bit to give their own spin on events.

Other students opted to create other projects. Below is a picture of María with her Holes Gameboard. When you role the die, depending on where you land you can either act out the vocabulary, mouth a word, draw it, or fall into one of the holes and lose a turn. She worked very hard on this and used a lot of creativity.

Another example is of an ABC chart that uses each letter to use an important vocabulary word or concept from the story. Here it is shown as a list, but the student could have made it more complex by writing a descrition of why the word was important in the book.

Overall, this was a very fun experience for the students. It really showed me that students understood the major concept and gave them an interesting way to show what they learned.
Next year we will let students choose the book they will be reading and they will be responsible for choosing the type of activity to share their book with the other groups.

Yearbook

In the States, a great way that we save memories for the future is through use of a yearbook. During the school year, students take on different responsibilities to capture the ´Best of the Year!´ Pictures of sports events, clubs, classes, assemblies are taken along with all the student and teacher pictures. This book is normally kept for a long time and used to remind us how our lives used to be.

My students are going create something similar by writing about these following themes:

Friends- write about some of your best friends this year. Why are they such good friends? What do you like to do together? What are they like as a person? How long have you known each other. Can you think of anything fun that you did with your friends this year?

Favorites- Our favorites change from year to year as we discover new music, movies, food, places, activities, and people. Tell me what your favorite things were this year. Have these changed from last year much?

Classes- Did you have a favourite class this year? What about really fun activities? What was your favorite activity in class? What was your most challenging activity or lesson? What do you want to learn more?

Funny things- What made you laugh really hard this year? Was there an event that happened that you still think about and laugh? Write about it!

Future- What do you think next year is going to be like? Do you have any goals for next year? What about in your distant future? What plans do you have for yourself?