Modern Folktales: A Debrief & Unit Overview [S5 E158]

Listen to the full episode below:

Have you listened to episode 157 yet? If not, go check that out before listening to this one! Inside that episode, we interview middle grades author, Diana López. 

During our conversation with Diana, we discussed her career as a former middle school teacher, how she became an author, and how her stories were born from her own experiences growing up in Corpus Christi, Texas. 

We also got to hear the details of Diana’s latest book, Felice and the Wailing Woman. During this follow-up episode, we unpack our takeaways from the interview and share our ideas on how to use Felice and the Wailing Woman in your classroom.

It’s a debrief, it’s a brain dump, it’s a…unit makeover!

While Diana wrote Felice and the Wailing Woman with middle-grade readers in mind, we are sharing how we can see this book also fitting into high school. We’ll walk through our usual unit makeover process of vision boarding, crafting essential questions, and thinking through assessments. 

If you have been enjoying this series of author interviews, don’t forget to join BNT Summer Camp! This is where you can get involved in our Facebook community as a way to supplement this conversation.

You can also catch the extended episode with Diana López by joining Happy Hour. We tackle the question, are monsters born or made? You won’t want to miss it!

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • Teaching narrative effectively by giving students time to learn about the author’s craft

  • What comes to our minds for a vision board when we think of Felice and the Wailing Women

  • What a ‘smashbook’ is and how you could use it with your middle or high school students

  • Possible essential questions for this unit

  • How to approach an assessment if you’re using Felice and the Wailing Women as the central text

  • A recommended starting point for a writing unit (and our reasoning behind it!)

More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

Tune in on your favorite podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Amanda Cardenasunit, planning, inspiration, advice