Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro – year 2

I was recently asked to give an update on how I have been teaching novels. All of my original posts on teaching the novel Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro were written as I was teaching the book for the first time, which was my first TPRS novel EVER. Last year my Spanish 2 started the year reading Brandon Brown, after their first year was based on Avancemos 1. I realized how much storytelling vocab they were missing out on, when many of the high-frequency words such as ve and va, were unknown to many students. Also, last year Spanish 1 read it 2nd quarter. You can purchase the novel and teacher’s guide from TPRS Publishing.

All Teaching Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro Posts

• Brandon Brown Chapter 1
• Brandon Brown Chapter 2
• Brandon Brown Chapter 3-5
• Brandon Brown Chapter 6-10 + Final Project 
• Brandon Brown Year 2

This year Spanish 1 is reading Brandon Brown after completing Units 1-10 of Martina Bex’s Spanish 1 Somos curriculum. It has gone SO much smoother this time around because our whole year has been focused on high frequency vocabulary and storytelling words. We actually could have done it earlier in the year, because they have been flying through the chapters, they even want to read them on their own. 


Before starting the novel unit, I posted all materials on Schoology in a Brandon Brown folder. This includes a full power point of the whole book with vocab, pre discussion questions, during discussion questions, and cultural expansion for each chapter. This has worked really well for students who are are absent, as they know the expectation if they are gone is to read the next chapter and complete the accompanying activities. This has been a great management technique, as it saves me a lot of time filling in those who are gone. I usually project what we are doing, but students can pull up their own powerpoint, if they would like to see the questions closer. 

Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro – year 2

Before starting the novel
Mini cultural unit – Carrie the Dancing Merengue Dog


During novel

• Almost everything we did was from the great teacher’s guide. Many of the items we did were the same from these posts.
• With 60 minute classes we spent 2 days each on chapters 1 & 2, and one day each on the rest of the chapters. 
• I was absent the 2nd day of chapter 2, when students were instructed to re-read the chapter, complete the comprehension questions, and prepare with scripts in groups to do a reader’s theater presentation when I returned. I was very pleasantly surprised when a couple of groups actually filmed themselves in class and posted them to Youtube for our viewing pleasure. They chose to use ridiculous non related props from our class prop box, but they were still entertaining for us to watch. This would be a great no prep sub plan for a novel – create a script of the most recent chapter, practice, and make a video acting it out. 

reader’s theater with random unrelated props

• This time, I did a better job differentiating between my two classes of Spanish 1. I used to insist that we did the same activities each class, but the personality of each class and time of day makes such a difference. 1st hour is always sleepy and needs waking up. They enjoy reading out loud and group work. While 4th hour is wild and right before lunch. This class loves moving, such as acting out scenes with the audio book, or with reader’s theater. They like quickly reading on their own, and then doing comprehension Kahoots. Just search “brandon brown” and there are lots of great public Kahoots. 
• Something else I just added this year was a Chapter 9 – Running Dictation. I just typed up 8 main events of the chapter in large print, and posted them around the hallway. See instructions of how to implement it here.
• To go along with the “Vaya” fun expressions slideshow found in the teacher’s guide, we watched Sr. Wooly’s Sé Chévere video, which they LOVED. I can not wait until we get our subscription to Sr. Wolly Pro for next school year!
• Check out this post for more ideas of keeping each chapter fresh – Mix it up – reading TPRS novels in class.