Escena Musical

Lisa Howie, OFLA Executive Treasurer 
Spanish Teacher, Smithville High School

My Spanish 3 students are finishing and presenting Prezis about Spanish musicians/artists right now. I wish I could take the credit for creating the format, but I can’t. Years ago I was doing an online course about integrating technology into the classroom and I found a webquest already created that I could use. The author gave me permission to use it and years later, when he removed it, he allowed me to continue using the materials. While I can’t share those exact materials, I can give you an idea so you can adapt it to your situation.

The students pick their partners. I have a hat with slips of paper with current/important Spanish artists from all genres. Every few years I redo the list to keep it current. They pick their subject randomly and begin researching. I give them a few weeks, a little time in class, and choices of when to present.

I use Prezi instead of any other presentation system simply because part of the original assignment was to teach them to become familiar with new platforms. You could have them work with Google slides or ask them to learn something like Canva. There are so many good presentation platforms.

Basically, they are to present these items: name, description, style, career, awards, official website, at least five photos, an appropriate video, and their opinion. Of course, they must cite sources used. We talk about using sources in Spanish instead of trying to find English and translating it. I also tell them I don’t want many words on the Prezi – really just captions. They can use notecards to give the details when presenting. 

While students present, the other students are to give their opinion on the music/video of the artist on a scale of 1-10. After all the presentations, I collect the voting papers and we come up with a class favorite. I choose a good song from that group, and we use it in class for several weeks. This leads us into the March Música Madness that I use each year from Spanishplans.org.

As you can see, this presentation and class interaction hits many of the Presentational benchmarks in Ohio’s Learning Standards for World Languages and Cultures. You can turn it into direct instruction on the 3 Ps and have them be very intentional in displaying those. I prefer for it to be more subtle while still having them explore Spain’s many musical products.