4 Cs and More with the AATSP Poster Contest -

by Vicky Masson

“Interdisciplinary Connections” is a column of Language Teaching Lab to show specific examples of connections between world language teaching and other subjects at school

What is the AATSP Poster Contest?

The AATSP Poster Contest is an art contest sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. It is open to K-12 Spanish and Portuguese students whose teachers are current AATSP members.

https://www.aatsp.org/page/postercontest

I already participate in AATSP Sociedad Hispánica de Amistad. SHA is a society for Pre-K through 8th grade students of Spanish or Portuguese and it encourages young students to study languages as well as promoting ambassadorship, service to community, and service to school. I was excited to also participate in the AATSP Poster Contest 2022.

AATSP Poster Contest 2022 Theme

The theme for this year’s poster contest struck me the moment I read it. It is “Valorando nuestras raíces y construyendo nuestro futuro” (Valuing our roots and building our future). Maybe what struck me the most was the present implication in the balance between past and future, moreover in the uncertain times that we live in.

Why did I choose to do it this year?

Apart from loving the theme for the year “Valuing our roots and building our future”, 2022 is a big anniversary for the AATSP Poster Contest – it’s its 50th anniversary!

I chose to have my students participate this year because the poster contest:

Encourages cross-curriculum collaboration (social studies, art, Spanish, and technology)
Verbalizes appreciation for other languages and cultures
Promotes creative thinking

AATSP website suggests some other reasons to have our students participate in the contest.

The message aligns with the message to the school community from the head of school where I work. He constantly talks about creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and perseverance as essential skills to develop in education. I think that all these skills are present when creating the poster and when preparing for the presentational speaking and writing about it we do in class.

Another reason why I chose to have my students participate in the AATSP Poster Contest was to help achieve my goal of including #Powerful Learning principles in my teaching. This project includes the principles of personal and accessible to all students as each student brought their own experiences and abilities to the table. It is authentic and challenging as it is a contest where students of all the United States could participate. It motivates my students “to persist in overcoming learning challenges.”

This project is also collaborative as in many instances, students have to share their progress with each other in my class. Many students reported that listening to others’ ideas prompted new insights into their own learning and for their own project. Students also reflect on their learning at the end of the project as well.

As part of the #ReinventTheClassroom and HP Teaching Fellowship, I created my 2022 Vicky’s Vision Board. Having my students participate in the AATSP Poster Contest aligns with my vision.

How did I do it?

My students knew from day one that the art teachers at school would help with the selection of the three posters from 5th grade, for the 4th and 5th grade category, and the three from 6th grade, for the 6th to 8th grade category. They knew that I would assess their ability to describe their posters orally and in writing.

Students would draw their pictures at home and we would describe them at school. For two weeks they were to draw 10 minutes each night and document their journey with a few photos that they would insert in ClassNote, part of our Learning Management System.

In class, students brainstormed words and phrases for the theme. They also explained what the words and phrases represented. For ‘valuing’ they mentioned words such as, life, family, culture, sports, graduation, and other things that were important to them. They mentioned trees, soil, nature, as well as flags, culture, music, food, religion to represent ‘our roots.’ It was harder for them to come up with symbols for the word ‘building’ that did not include cranes, puzzles, and bricks.

The words ‘our future’ prompted tons of futuristic ideas and topics. They included space, planets, flying cars, UFOs, spaceships. Students also included portals and doors. The greatest challenge for them was to think from a hispanic/latino point of view and consider that lens in their drawings. The project helped them grow in their understanding of ACTFL Standards of Communication, Comparison, Connections, Communities and Culture as well as the Investigate Proficiency Benchmark on Intercultural Communications.

After unpacking the meaning of the theme and ways in which they could represent it through drawing, students immersed themselves into how to describe the drawing in Spanish, orally and in writing. That is where language structures and vocabulary emerged. The need to express ideas helped pinpoint important and necessary sentence starters such as,

The drawing is about…
There is/ are … in the poster
The … is + color because
To the right / To the left / In the background / On the front
The … represents…

Students also used beginning sentences that they had learnt in previous units, such as,

I like / I love
In my opinion / To me
My drawing has
… person … has / is / wants to / prefers …

This project gave me the opportunity to introduce students to topic and conclusion sentences. We brainstormed them as a class and we came up with a few examples of each. Students could possibly memorize and use them in their presentational assessments. Many students included at least a short and brief statement at the beginning and at the end of their speaking and writing. I am proud of students’ progress and language development that occurred during this project.

The collaborative piece in their daily interactions helped them become more confident in their language skills. They would describe orally their poster to a friend or they would read what they had written in small groups. Students knew, though, from the start that they would only be able to use their drawings in their presentational speaking and in their presentational writing. When it came the time they had to speak and write about their drawing without any other support than the drawing, for the most part, they were ready. The project would not have been complete without reflecting about it.

Students’ Reflection Questions and Answers

Students had to answer a few questions in English about their experience. I inserted some of their answers to the questions provided below.

What are you proud of? What went well for you?

I am proud of my presentational writing because it went well for me.
I learnt that I am capable of writing paragraphs in Spanish.
I am proud that after hours of working hard, I finally pulled off a very good drawing for the contest. I think something that went well for me was how I had some good ideas from the beginning, and I expanded it into one good drawing.
I think the Poster Contest was a fun assignment because I got to learn more about Spanish while I had fun drawing the poster and making creative ways to represent the themes in my poster.
I think that I am proud of the work that I put into this project and that all though I am not necessarily the best artist I like how my poster turned out.
I’m proud of my word choices, I took risks with words and overall I think I did well. I think I was good at describing my thinking.
I think that the poster contest went well, because I could write/speak about my poster with some amount of fluency.
I am proud of how I made my poster and how I could explain it with a basic level of fluency.
I think that what went well for me was being able to apply the theme to what I was drawing on my poster.

What was challenging? Making of the poster? Describing your poster in speaking? Describing your poster in writing?

Describing my poster in writing was really hard and challenging because sometimes you didn’t know how to say something and you had to improvise.
It was challenging thinking of an idea and how to add onto it.
What was challenging for me was making the poster because some of the little details were hard
I think it was hard speaking all about the drawing, but it got easier as I did it more.
Overall, I think I did a good job on my writing. I think I could have improved on my speaking, but I tried my best.
I think that one thing challenging was how we had to draw based off of a theme, and I had to think for some time on what I was going to draw.
It was challenging making an idea for the drawing/design of the poster related to the title.

What did you learn about yourself?

I learned something spiritual I’m not sure how, but I felt different when I was drawing
I learned that I had a lot of fun with drawing projects and want to do some in the future.
I think one thing I learned about myself is that even if you are a bad drawer, with some effort you can have an amazing drawing.
I learned that if I study enough, I can talk and write about something I drew.
I think I need to trust myself more because I make the right decision more often than not.
I learned about myself that if I rest after writing and then reread [my writing] it will help
I think I can explain my ideas better

Has this project in any way transformed the way you see the world? How?

This project showed me that there are many ways to make a difference no matter your race, no matter your gender, no matter how other people look at you.
I see all the roots and future that Americans and Spanish have.
Yes, this project has transformed I see the world because now I see how the roots and future of Spanish and Portuguese can come together.
This project made me realize how the world can change in many ways.
It has changed my perspective on other people’s posters getting inspired and seeing new ideas
This project did transform the way I see the world. I used to not really think about my roots or my future, but now I realize that they’re more important than they sound. The future is still unknown, but it’s still important to think about it.
I think this project has transformed how I see the world because looking at my picture I see the Spanish culture and the lively and happy future ahead.
It helps me see the world in the past and then in the future.
It has by when looking at buildings I can see my future and when I look at a tree, I can see my family’s roots.
This project has made me proud of where I come from and made me value my family more.
Because I know that every [person] must work together to construct our future

I am happy to have asked my students to participate in the AATSP Poster Contest. As an added benefit, it helped me get to know my students better.