Lesson Title: Blackbird y el perfume

Name: Carol Nezzo

Discipline: Spanish

School: Lakelands Park Middle School, Montgomery County, MD

Grade Level/Content: Grades 6 and 7, beginning level Spanish

Time required for Lesson: 40 minutes

Standards: This lesson supports three of the National Foreign Language Standards: Cultures, Connections, and Comparisons.

Specific Objectives:
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

• illustrate a map of Blackbird’s flight from Baghdad to Cordoba; and
• use at least ten icons and Spanish words to record Blackbird’s contributions to our life today.

Vocabulary/Concepts:

• the political geography between Baghdad and Spain, and the relationship of these cultures to the United States
• the meaning of “culture”
• Arabic influence on the Spanish language
• the time period of Arabic influence (and Roman influence)
• Arab contributions
• teaching others

Materials/Resources:

Al-Andalus Magazine, free from www.saudiaramcoworld.com. (A class set may be requested.)
In this lesson, only one copy is used for the story and for making transparencies of the
drawings.

Transparencies of the drawings in the story in the above magazine.
Colored pens for students to use on the transparencies.

A wall map of the world A long pointer would be convenient.

Three maps for each student – reproduced from the story. Each map is on a different color of paper.

If desired, the teacher may give each student a packet of the drawings (like the drawings on the transparencies).

Lesson Abstract:
The lesson in English introduces the students to the history of the Arab occupation of Spain. Students assist the teacher in telling the story of “Blackbird” by responding as they do to Spanish language stories: Si, No, Ahh, Oh, pobrecito, No me digas, etc. Students who wish for more participation—especially those who are kinesthetic learners—may take turns writing key words on the transparencies and outlining the objects related in the story. A second and major function of this lesson is that it prepares the students for a very short story in Spanish in succeeding lessons.

“If you eat asparagus, or if you start your meal with soup and end with dessert, or if you wear your hair in bangs, you owe a lot to one of the greatest musicians in history.”

He was known as Blackbird (Ziryab in Arabic). He migrated from the Arab world and lived in medieval Spain more than a thousand years ago.

Lesson Components:

Motivation/Warm Up:
• The teacher asks to students to trace the path from Baghdad to Cordoba on the maps of their desks with their pencils.
• The students are asked to write three sentences about this path and/or other features on the map. It is important to let the students know that guessing is acceptable.

Independent Practice:
• While the teacher reads the story of the Blackbird to the students, the students respond and draw on their maps. Allow kinesthetic learners to go to the overhead projector and trace the path on a transparency.
• Students take incomplete sentence notes and/or make drawings on their map paper (or on the pictures, if they have drawings packets).

Assessment:
• Students use a clean new map (on a paper of a color different from the warm-up and note taking paper).
• The teacher asks the students to draw the path of Blackbird’s flight. They are also asked to list or draw at least ten facts/icons that illustrate the story. They are asked to use the approximate date of the flight as Fact Number One.

Closure:
• Homework assignment: Ask the students to take a new clean map home and teach an adult at least five facts about the map and the story that they learned in class. Students should ask the adult to list at least five things they learned on the back of the paper and sign their name.