I had a story I almost always used in class early in the year in an attempt to get repetitions of puede + infinitive (is able do something) and quiere + infinitive (wants to do something).  The story was about a girl who was jealous of her sister.  Her sister was popular and successful, and the girl wanted to be like her.  At the end, she stole her sister’s money, hair, shoes, feet . . . etc. and became the popular one.  It always seemed like such a good story, but I was never able to get it to work in class the way it did in my head.  I told it in two classes this year with similar disappointing results before I realized I needed to make a change.

It’s incredible how a small change in a story can make a giant difference in class engagement.

Here’s the new version.  In short, the protagonist wants to be famous (not popular), and he is jealous of several other people in the class (not just a sister).  The small changes allowed me to include several characters and get several more reps of structures.  It worked much better in the next class.

Roberto quiere ser famoso:  (Spanish only – Sorry) This is actually a text I used as a reading for one of the earlier classes in which I told the older story, but it is essentially the same as the story to be told in class.  Several classmates can be included as the famous ones.  Be sure to get many repetitions on the puede and quiere structures.

Vocabulary Intro and PQA : These slides contain the vocabulary, PQA questions and examples of the structures in use.