My Terrible Horrible NO Good Very Bad Day

My Spanish 3 students study a vocabulary list of "Murphy's Law" verbs. These verbs are all examples of bad luck in action: breaking, spilling, failing a test, falling, forgetting, losing, sleeping (at the wrong times) , etc.

We then read the SPanish version of Alexander and the,. Terrible HOrrible No Good Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz.

Students are then assigned to work with partners and together create their own terrible day at school -- keeping it mind the playful style of Alexander's bad luck. Nothing life-threatening or physically harmful is depicted.

They are required to do the following:

1. create 8 sentences in Spanish in which either or both of the partners are involved in bad luck events in the course of a school day.

2. storyboard their presentation, illustrating for me what pictures they envision taking to depict these events.

3. Using a digital camera provided by their teacher or brought from home, take their pre-planned pictures on the school campus during class time. Often, these pictures involve other school personnel such as principals, custodians, other teachers, etc.

4. A computer lab is reserved for the class to use, and they upload their pictures into PPT, arrange them and add Spanish text. They include a "cover page" slide of the main characters (the 2 partners) and the Spanish title, as used by Viorst and Cruz.

5. THey then use PhotoStory3 to create a digital story. Music and transitions are added, if desired. The digital stories are viewed on a special presentation day.