I’m feeling energized having recently wrapped up a successful unit for Hispanic Heritage Month, which is celebrated throughout the United States September 15-October 15.

My school district has Newsela PRO, which includes an entire unit plan along with their text set for Hispanic Heritage Month – all resources for this unit are provided in Spanish as well as English.

Given that most of the resources I used were provided by Newsela PRO, I won’t go into too much detail about the unit itself, but I wanted to share how I used reading groups to differentiate for students.

Based on diagnostic information I’ve been collecting this year, I split my students into 4 leveled groups and I created classes for each group in Newsela. Newsela PRO allows you to assign a certain level of text to a class. By having 4 classes, I was able to assign different articles at a variety of levels. I tried to keep it interesting and not have every group reading the same articles. I used a lot of protocols similar to Team Jigsaw so that students didn’t read all articles, but were still able to get information from all articles. I also tried to keep changing the format of how they read, and what they needed to do after reading, so that students stayed engaged throughout the month.

Finally, what better way to culminate a unit on Hispanic Heritage Month, with my Latinx/Hispanic students, than with a Student Showcase and Fiesta?! Students invited families and teachers to come see their culminating projects and it was a great way to get the larger community involved and give my students a “real-world” audience for their work!

If you have Newsela PRO and are interested in my unit plan or have specific questions, feel free to comment here or message me on Twitter @LaTazaSpanish

Happy teaching!

Students shared stories of Hispanic Icons

Students shared information about important historical figures

Students celebrated art and culture