Engage Students with Writing in Spanish
If you’re looking for a fun, cultural, and highly communicative writing task for your Spanish learners, message writing is a great choice! These ready-to-use templates and prompts help students imagine themselves traveling across the Spanish-speaking world while practicing vocabulary, grammar, and cultural awareness.
Classroom Task Ideas
1. Write Your Own Postcard
Students choose (or are assigned) a Spanish-speaking location and write a postcard using the provided models as inspiration.
Encourage them to:
- Use past tense verbs (he visitado, probé, fui, vi, disfruté)
- Include local foods, sites, and cultural elements
- End with a personal touch: ¡Te extraño!, Con cariño, Un abrazo desde…
2. Create a Postcard Exchange Wall
Print postcards on cardstock, have students illustrate them, and display them as an interactive “Viaje por el mundo hispanohablante” bulletin board.
Learning Objectives
Students will:
- Use descriptive language to talk about places, foods, and cultural experiences.
- Practice greetings, closings, and informal letter structures in Spanish.
- Apply past tense verbs (preterite and present perfect).
- Strengthen geographical and cultural knowledge of the Spanish-speaking world.
Extensions & Differentiation
For Novice Learners:
Provide sentence frames and word banks. Example:
Estoy en ___. / He visitado ___. / La comida es ___. / Hace ___ tiempo.
For Intermediate Learners:
Add cultural comparisons (Es similar/diferente a mi ciudad porque…) or opinions (Lo que más me gusta es…).
For Advanced Learners:
Assign a multi-paragraph travel blog entry or “virtual travel diary” expanding on one postcard.
Printable or digital
Easy to differentiate
Visually engaging
Culturally rich
Perfect for sub plans, early finishers, or cross-cultural units
Make a copy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SdY1ctvKECP7FNbwwoAlXHS2P8iDTzISwZPzNaidwBc/copy
5 Weeks of No and Low Prep Fun
Need quick, engaging activities for your class? This free guide includes 25 no-prep and low-prep ideas to save time while keeping students excited about learning.
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