Grades, Creativity, and Frustration

Yesterday right after school, I saw one of my prior students in the hall. After our usual pleasantries in Spanish (which, with almost all of my students, consist of only "¿Cómo estás?" and "Bien, ¿y tú?" - another thing to work on...), I asked her if she was going on to Spanish 3 next year. Her answer nearly broke my heart and actually did leave me speechless:

Translating Spanish into Mosaic: Initial challenges and ideas

When I first expressed interest in Mosaic, I told my principal I would like to start with a small group of students that already had experience with Spanish. Our feeder offers Level 1 Spanish spread out over 2 years; my thought was that I would have students that had either one or both years of middle school Spanish completed when they walked into Mosaic. No such luck. The demographics just aren't there: we don't have enough students enrolled that meet that criterion.

Enter challenge number 1: