AP Spanish Unit 2

If you are teaching AP Spanish this year, it’s about that time when you might be starting Unit 2. AP Spanish Unit 2 is called “The Influence of Language and Culture on Identity”, and it’s fascinating!

Essential Questions

Step 1 when planning a new unit is to determine your essential questions. All of these units are broad and can be taken in so many directions! I try to think about my students and what will be interesting, relevant and new to them!

One of my favorite topics to discuss and learn about is how being bilingual impacts your personality. For example, did you know that many bilingual people report having different personalities depending on the language they’re using? They might be more outgoing in one language and more quiet in another. Or some people are more humorous in one language compared to the other!

If you need help developing essential questions, here are 2 hints:

There are many examples on the AP Classroom website. I’ll put the link below.
Keep your essential questions to no more than 3. I could spend a whole year on each unit, but to cover each topic well, I have to keep it to 2-3 essential questions!

Anchor Activities

To save your sanity, there should be some anchor activities that you use in each unit. What I mean by this is that there should be a few activities that you use in every unit- the directions are the same, but the content changes.

One idea is to ask students to find an article related to a topic you’re studying. I assign my students a country of study and the instructions tell them to find an article, summarize it, and then they report their information to a small group. The other group members take notes, and then we have information to make cultural comparisons! You can ask students to write or record their summary too.

I use this activity in each unit! The instructions are the same, but I change out the topic. In AP Spanish Unit 2, I can ask students to find articles related to values, self-esteem, language acquisition and cultural practices. It will depend on where this activity will fit best in the unit.

Projects for AP Spanish Unit 2

AP Spanish Unit 2 lends itself to some pretty awesome projects! My students explore a cultural tradition from their assigned country of study and they also participate in the “Iceberg” mini-project. (Both are linked below.)

Since this unit falls towards the beginning of the year, I often decide that presentations in front of the whole class are feel too intimidating for my students. In the cultural traditions project, they make a Google Slides presentation. Then we set up our computers with the project open, and students move around the room to listen to/view other students’ projects. This one is often one of their favorite activities of the year!

And one of my favorite things of the year is the Iceberg presentation. I give them a drawing of an iceberg, and ask them to think about what’s above and below the surface that contributes to their identity. Each year I am blown away with what students share. They share their immigration stories, challenges they’ve overcome, their values, that their sister is being treated for cancer…. all kinds of things that I would not have otherwise known. Many are willing to be vulnerable and it brings our class closer together.

Assessments For AP Spanish Unit 2

There are so many ways to assess students. The projects I discussed and the article activity are all things that can be graded. But don’t forget that we also need to prep them for the AP Exam in the spring. Use some of those tasks as a guideline! They can read and respond to an email, do a cultural comparison, or write an essay!

There are more traditional ways to assess as well. Sometimes I use short answer tests, multiple choice tests about the sources we read/listened to/discussed in class.

As difficult as it is, in this course, I find it best to map out the entire unit at once. This allows me to see how much time I have to spend on the unit. Then I plug in when and what kind of assessments I would like to do, and fill in the learning activities after that. It requires a good chunk of time to do this, but it saves time in the end!

If you do not have the time or the bandwidth to plan our your unit- I understand! Here is my AP Spanish Unit 2: everything you need. Detailed lesson plans and every activity and assessment linked in where you need it! I hope it will help some of my colleagues!