El Cuy - una lectura simplificada

I love the articles from Veintemundos. They write about such a wide variety of interesting cultural topics, but sometimes they are just a bit too advanced for some levels. Also, for some students, just reading an article that long can be rather difficult. So, one of my new goals is to adapt some of those articles and create some activities to go along with them so that I can use them in different levels.




My first attempt is with this article: El Cuy: Mucho más que un simple animal. In this doc, I included the following:

• two "I can" statements:
• Puedo explicar la importancia del cuy en el Perú (con vocabulario nuevo)
• Puedo comparar algunos productos, prácticas y perspectivas culturales del Perú con los de mi cultura.
• a list of important vocabulary words with Spanish to Spanish definitions/synonyms
•  a Quizlet link for Quizlet Live 
• a simplified version of the article with some English words embedded to make the reading easier
• a variety of comprehension/recap activities after each chunk, including some pre-AP cultural comparison type questions
• two videos to show what the article is talking about
• Anthony Zimmern clip related to one part of the article
• A commercial that includes El Cuy Mágico, along with Zachary Jones' worksheet to go along with it
• a couple of final writing activities to finish the lesson

I created all of this for a colleague to use with an "animals" unit. I also have included some possible Essential Questions for that unit:

• ¿Por qué son los animales importantes en nuestro mundo? (amigos, trabajo, comida, belleza, parte de las leyendas y la cultura, salud)?
• ¿Para qué sirven los animales?
• ¿Cuáles son algunas características de los animales? (animal related vocabulary)
• ¿Cuáles son unos animales importantes en otras culturas? ¿Por qué son importantes? Cómo se comparan los productos, las prácticas, y las perspectivas relacionados con estos animales con los de nuestra cultura?

I hope to do something similar with this article: Rana Dorada: El animal más venenoso del mundo. Anyone want to help out??

Also, if any of this is useful for you, please consider giving back in a Radiohead style format.

If my colleague doesn't use this, I will surely find a place to include it! Even if it is for a few days when I am at a conference... NHAWLT and ACTFL are coming up soon.