I had success using this article listing the life spans of different animals as a hook today. We discussed Day of the Dead earlier this week, and I wanted to continue in the same vein without getting stuck on Day of the Dead. Life, death... it's all related, right? We focused on the lists of animals in the article, discussed who had the longest and shortest lives, then the conversation went something like this: Which animal lives the longest life? Do YOU want to live 123 years? What are the positives and negatives? Which do you prefer, living a short life that's more fun or a longer that is less fun? (Some discussion about what this question means and how it affects your decision? If you are only going to live 25 years, how are you going to spend your life? In general, what are things you want to do before you die? Good discussion, then students wrote paragraph responses to 1 of 2 question options on a notecard, then we passed around notecards and read others' responses, then wrote/shared out about class trends. ALSO, these questions should really utilize the subjunctive and conditional tenses, which I did not ask students to use. I recognize that the grammar of the questions might be a little wonky, but I felt that the conversation was worthwhile. Of course, you could take this hook in a lot of different directions and use it to talk about animals too! Cheers, Emily
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Cuántos años viven los animales.docx
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