Backwards planning for Bianca nieves y los 7 toritos

I'm excited to read Bianca nieves y los 7 toritos by Carrie Toth this year with my 8th graders! In my backwards planning I read through the novel and pulled out all of the structures/words that I need to pre-teach to my students. I found a great video about guinea pigs in Ecuador that I used with the following structures:

• cuidaba a
• sufría 
• cariño
• vivía

I showed the video using a MovieTalk format, pausing and asking the students a lot of questions while we were watching. The video sparked some great conversations in my class. Do these guinea pigs suffer? Does María (main woman in the video) actually care for the guinea pigs with love and affection? After watching the video I gave the students an infographic (inspired by this infographic, but modified with comprehensible language). Students worked in pairs to read the infographic and answer comprehension questions.

I'm still feeling inspired by Carol Gaab's workshop at Comprehensible Midwest about using higher level thinking skills in the classroom. I gave the students the following statements that they had to put them in a venn diagram, comparing and contrasting María with themselves. It was great to see the students realize how much they had in common with María.

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Next, we played Possible or Probable? (posible o probable), also inspired by Carol Gaab. I projected the statements below one at a time and on their whiteboards the students had to ask wether each statement was possible or probable. I loved this activity because there wasn't a right or wrong answer. It created a platform in class for everyone to express their opinions, but they had to support their answers with information they saw in the video or read in the infographic. It was awesome to see students engage in debates in the target language!

What are some activities you use in class to engage students in higher level thinking?