Indepth Supplement
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Thematic Units Available from the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center
The three new units include:
- El béisbol is
written entirely in Spanish – including all teacher text – and
is authored by Veronica Lima. This unit was inspired by Veronica’s
love of baseball and by the book, Béisbol en los barrios
by Henry Horenstein. Included in this book are many stories,
including that of becoming a baseball player in Venezuela. Level:
Middle school, beginner to intermediate.
- La peineta colorada, by Michele
Montás and Luz Cannon, is based on the book of the same
name by Fernando Picó. This book is a children’s
story from Puerto Rico set in the 19th century, which tells how
a young girl and an older woman work together to save a runaway
slave from a rich man who earned his living chasing and capturing
runaway slaves. Level: Middle school, beginner to intermediate. Coming
soon!
- Fiestas de Yucatán, authored
by Jeanette Borich, takes young learners of Spanish on an imaginary
trip to Yucatan to celebrate a birthday party and the Posadas.
Jeanette’s travel to Yucatan sponsored by the Fundación
Cultural de Yucatán, provide a rich background for this
unit. Level: Pre-school and Early Elementary, beginner. Coming
soon!
Read more
about the NFLRC Thematic Units! One of our units, Cuadros
de familia, is available online in PDF format,
complements of the NFLRC, or you may purchase a bound copy.
Today we are pleased to share with you, our alumni, selections
from...
 La peineta colorada (The Red Comb)
Book Summary
La peineta colorada (The Red Comb), by Fernando Picó,
with illustrations by María Ordóñez, is
a children’s story from Puerto Rico, set in the 19th century.
The story tells how a young girl and an older woman work together
to save a runaway slave from a rich man who earned his living
chasing and capturing runaway slaves. One day while taking care
of household chores, Vitita (the young girl) comes across a woman
stealing eggs from the chicken nests under her house. When Vitita
confronts the woman and asks her to explain who she is, the woman
panics and without a word runs to the hills. When Vitita describes
the event to Siña Rosa (the older woman) she realizes
that they are dealing with a runaway slave. Having come from
runaway slaves themselves, Siña Rosa and Vitita scheme
to save the runaway slave from the authorities. In the end, Vitita
and Siña Rosa are successful and Carmela (the runaway
slave) is integrated into their town life. The author based the
story on anecdotes and historical facts he found in the General
Archives of the mid-to late-1800s in Puerto Rico. The tale captures
the importance of teamwork as well as the spirit and the wit
of a Latin American community. It also touches on the strong
influence women can have in a community in spite of their traditionally
submissive roles.
Click here to see a graphic organizer for this unit in a new browser window!
Target Audience
This unit is primarily designed for middle school students of Spanish, grades
5–8, ages 10-14, who are beginning students of Spanish. However, the
lessons could be easily adapted to upper or lower levels. This unit was written
for students who have had previous exposure to Spanish and are at the novice-high
to intermediate-mid level of proficiency on the Student Oral Proficiency
Assessment (SOPA) rating scale (Boyson, Rhodes, & Thompson, 1998). The
unit could last from four weeks to an entire semester depending on the amount
of time the teacher has with the students, the pace of the class, and the
supporting materials the teacher decides to integrate with the unit to enrich
the students’ learning experience.
Content Areas
Relevant content areas include geography, social studies, music, home economics,
art, and language arts.
Cultural Topics
This story revolves around the following cultural components: African influence
in Latin America through slavery, family, community, solidarity, friendship,
food, social traditions, oral tradition (story telling), and women’s
role in society.
Authors’ Note
Because of the length of the book and the level of the language in the text,
we used simplified versions of the text. We wrote one version in the present
tense and a second one in the past tense. While writing the simplified versions,
we endeavored to capture the characters’ feelings, to retain the historical
elements of the story, and to maintain the cultural connotations and references
found in the language. We were also careful to capture the wit and many of
the repetitive linguistic patterns found in the original version. Our vocabulary
presentations are all based on the level of our students. The simplified
versions can be further adapted accordingly for use with more or less advanced
students.
It should be noted that we use illustrations from the book as
motivators in different lessons. Rather than request copyright
permission to make color copies of the pictures, we bought several
copies of the book (available through Scholastic Books at a reasonable
rate), cut them apart, covered the text, and laminated the pictures.
Download the Introduction and Lesson 1 to La peineta
colorada (The Red Comb) now (there is no cost to download
the following selections)!
La peineta colorada (The Red Comb) - Word Document (188K)
La peineta colorada (The Red Comb) - Rich Text Format (RTF) (341K)
La peineta colorada (The Red Comb) - PDF Format (259K)
La peineta colorada (The Red Comb) - ZIP File (122K)
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