La Misma Luna film study: An engaging end-of-year review

I made it to the end of the year. I can’t believe how utterly exhausted I am. Like, new mom-of-triplets exhausted. OK, maybe not quite THAT tired, but still, a tired goes all the way to the bones. And my students felt it, too. That’s why this year I tried to find a more-than-average engaging year-end review.  I looked in lots of TPT stores and found film studies of La Misma Luna, but not one that went deep enough for it to be a whole-year’s-worth of review. So… typical of me, I made my own!

I started with some vocab reinforcement. There were certain structures they have “seen” this year, but haven’t been “required” and I wanted to make sure they had ample experience with them. We spent a couple days on this. (BONUS! the last slide is questions created for the Unfair Game!). You can download a copy of the fully editable slides here.

Once I felt comfortable that my students were ready to tackle the film study, I introduced them to the main characters. That took about a day. Then we got into the meat and potatoes of the movie. We watched about 20 minutes each day and followed that up with an embedded reading of what we had read. Some readings took more than one class period to complete. OH WELL! I always tell my students we don’t need to rush, we need to understand. After each day’s embedded reading, students worked in groups to put events in order, answer true/false questions, and answer comprehension questions. As long as students were on task, they received completion credit. If they were goofing off, the score was a zero in the gradebook. You can download your copy of the fully editable worksheets here.

We had a pre-scheduled virtual day that consisted of students logging in for 25 minutes of class time. I created this Nearpod to fill that time.

And finally, I needed a break, so I created a review guide where I mixed up screenshots from the movie and students had to go back to the embedded readings and copy down a variety of sentences that explained what was going on in that scene. They were mixed for a reason – to force students to go back and re-read! Reading is key to vocabulary reinforcement. It gives a rich context in which students’ brains will make valuable connections.

If students could read on their own and understand as well as complete the study guide at the end, they were guaranteed to do well on the final. And guess what? THEY DID!!

Students reported that this was one of their favorite activities of the year. They felt very well prepared for the embedded readings and extremely prepared for the final. Win-win!

This may be too late for some of you, but I know many are still in school and don’t finish until well into June. Also, I plan to make a past tense version of this and use it as a beginning of the year review for Spanish 3 next year. My goal is to work smarter not harder next year, so this fits well.

If you are out of school, I wish you a wonderful summer of rest and relaxation. If you are awaiting the end of the year, I wish you strength and stamina to continue strong. Maybe this resource is just what you need to help you through to the finish line.