Noticias Project

Description - This is an assessment for a Spanish III class that has been going over the uses of the preterite and imperfect tenses and will serve as the final assessment for the unit in place of a test. The students will work in groups of three to create a mock newscast about current events in a Spanish-speaking country of their choosing. Each group member will have a role to play and research and present accordingly.

Objectives

The students will be able to demonstrate the ability to choose between the preterite and -imperfect tenses in a summary (or translation) of news stories.
The students will be able to perform simple research on the internet using Google.
The students will be able to present short news stories in the target language.

Resources

Access to a computer with the internet for at least each group
Time – This project requires class-time to be fair to all students

Process - The students will be assigned to groups of three by the teacher (ensuring that there is at least one high-level student in each group) and then allowed to delegate the roles they are to play themselves. There will be an anchorperson in each group (who will do “top” news stories as well as intro and exit the show), a business/politics reporter, and a culture/sports/entertainment reporter. After the students have been assigned groups and understood/chosen their roles, they will be allowed to choose (as a group) a Spanish-speaking country to report on. No country should be repeated, and countries are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

After countries have been selected, the teacher will go over again the requirements of the project (see rubric below) and take the students to the computer lab to perform research. The research section should be monitored and guided, but students are to do the research without excessive help from the teacher. The research section should take no more than two days, and one should be enough.

Once the students have finished their research, they can begin creating their scripts in class. They need to start by determining the format of their show. Will they have each person present all his or her stories at once? Will they alternate between reporters? What will the tone be for the show? Before allowing the students to start, the teacher will review the rubric with them once again to make sure their instructions are clear. This part of the project will probably be the most time-consuming because the students will often need dictionaries or assistance with vocabulary. The teacher will not help students with the formation of verbs, but their group members may proofread each others’ work. This may also need to be done in class due to students not having access to dictionaries at home.

The final day of this project will be spent with the students presenting their newscasts for their peers and the teacher. They will be encouraged to dress up and play the role of news reporters during the class.

Rubric

	1	2	3	4
Preterite Vs. Imperfect	More than twenty-five tense errors in the script. Students cannot properly form the tenses.	Between fifteen and twenty-five tense errors in the script. Many errors in the conjugation of verbs.	Between five and fifteen tense errors in the script. Students still have conjugation errors.	Fewer than five tense errors in the script. No errors in the formation of the verbs.
Internet Research	Fewer than three sources are in Spanish and no links are given.	Three sources are in Spanish and links/photocopies are given.	Six sources are in Spanish and links are provided.	All sources are in Spanish and links are provided.
Presentation Skills	Students are unprepared and have few notes to read from, mispronounce common words, and present in a disjointed manner.	Students read haltingly from notes, make many pronunciation errors, and pause frequently.	Students read fluidly from notes, make a few pronunciation errors, and/or pause occasionally.	Students rarely look at notes, make pronunciation errors, or pause.