"¡Yanga! a Spanish Language Novel by Chris Mercer" for Advanced Students (FLEX)

This novel will provide activities that will engage students to read this action-packed novel about Mexico's greatest African Hero. Students will practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking Spanish. A breakdown of the novel is as follows:

Week 1: Introduction to Senegambia, Africa and chronological history of events that occurred between the year 1545-1932- the teacher will provide a Slide Show presentation with a video discussion about this region in Africa and the major events that happened in Senegambia, Africa. Students will interact with each other as they discuss in Spanish what they learned about this first week's presentation. The teacher will provide an Adobe Spark tutorial so that the students may present their final assignment with Adobe Spark, which will be a presentational slide show video. 

Week 2:  Part one- Senegambia, Africa 1544- This section consists of 4 short chapters introducing Yanga as the prince and the culture that he is part of. Students will read, answer questions in Spanish, and discuss in Spanish specifics of what is in the chapters. 

Week 3: Part two- The Dark Night- Students will read and discuss the journey of Yanga being captured. The students will read, answer questions in Spanish, and discuss specifics of what is in the chapters. 

Week 4: Part three- Liberty and the Mountain-In this section, students will read chapters 9-11 and discuss the events that happen with Yanga. The teacher will lecture about the major themes in the story and how they relate to current events. 

Week 5: Continuation of part 3- Students will read chapters 12-14. They will record themselves reading and share with the class opinions of the major events happening in the story. 

Week 6: Part Four- Students read and discuss chapters 15-17 as they start preparing their Adobe Spark Presentation.

Week 7:  Continuation of part 4- Students will continue to read and discuss chapters 18-20 and get ready to present on Adobe Spark. 

Week 8: Reflection week: Students will reflect on the events that happened in the novel with the current events happening now. They will present an Adobe Spark presentation video about the novel Yanga in comparison with today's time. 

Teacher to students interaction: Students will have access to the teacher through email and classroom page. The teacher will be posting video lessons where the students can see the teacher's face as she read excerpts of the book and practices vocabulary and pronunciation. The student responds back to the teacher through video (FlipGrid).

Student to Student interaction- The students will interact with each other through FlipGrid ( a free video site), play games, and collaborate on assignments and questions. There will be a weekly question where all students answer and all students will discuss.