Spanish Meme Contest

Who knew that a Spanish Meme Contest could be so fun? I teach middle school Spanish*. There are 3 weeks left of school and my kids are D.O.N.E. – especially my 8th graders (and, let’s face it, I am right there with them). Unfortunately, while they may be ready to start summer, there is vocabulary to master and verbs to conjugate. We’ve sung every song, played every game, so what could I possibly do to spark some enthusiasm? I turned to a wonderful group of Spanish teachers on Facebook and started looking for good ideas. And there is was – the perfect one – Spanish Memes! Kids love their technology (and I am fortunate enough to work in a school where each child gets his or her own iPad), and they REALLY love being silly! Therefore, when I saw the idea to hold a “Spanish Meme Contest” I knew I had to try it, and boy am I ever glad that I did. My students LOVED it. They were SO excited and into it; even my students who pretty much do nothing sat, thought, researched, and prepared quality products.

*I now teach elementary Spanish, so probably can’t do this lesson – what a bummer because it was awesome!

How Does a Spanish Meme Contest Work?

So what is a Spanish Meme Contest and how does it work? Well, the best part about this lesson (well, the 2nd best after the kids loving it and actually LEARNING) is that it is simple with very little prep. It also can be used with just about any theme or unit, and you don’t really need anything other than access to computers or iPads. Here is what I did, but you can easily change it up to meet your own students’ needs!

The Assignment

Our school uses Schoology, which I love, so I was able to create an assignment right on each class’s Schoology page. This makes it really easy, because you can post the assignment, sample memes, and any other information all in one place; plus, students can then submit their final products right to the assignment and I can see who turned it in and who did not. If you don’t use Schoology or a similar program (like Edmodo), no worries! Simply create your assignment as a handout, then have your students either email you their memes or share them with you on Google. This is what I posted (I did this with my 7th and 8th graders; this is the one I used for 7th grade):

Your assignment is to create 2 memes (like the samples attached and the ones we saw in class). I will choose the top 3 memes and post them on Schoology for ALL classes and parents to vote on – the meme with the most votes by May 27 (next Friday) will get a prize! ALL MEMES WILL BE GRADED AS A SUMMATIVE GRADE – EFFORT, CREATIVITY, AND SPELLING COUNT. Here are the rules for your meme:

1) Memes MUST be in Spanish.

2) One of the memes must include a form of “ir a” (I am going to….”

3) The other meme must contain at least 1 vocabulary word from Chapter 3.

4) Memes MUST be appropriate.

5) You can create your own by finding an image on Google, or can use a site such as memegenerator.net or https://imgflip.com/memegenerator (these may be blocked at school).

6) See the attached images for examples.

7) SUBMIT YOUR 2 MEMES TO THIS ASSIGNMENT ON SCHOOLOGY BY SAVING THEM AS IMAGES AND UPLOADING

8) HAVE FUN!

Inspiration

I showed them some Spanish Memes I found online to give them inspiration (but honestly, they were so excited they didn’t really need to see them)! Next, I explained that I would choose the top 3 from each class (I enlisted my own 8th-grade son to help 🙂 ) and then there would be a week of voting by peers, teachers, parents, (or whoever they wanted to share the link with)! I am giving a small prize ($5 gift card to the store of choice) to each class’s winner, but you can do whatever you want!

Let me say, choosing was NOT easy (but that is a good thing!); here were my favorite Spanish Memes from my 5 classes:

Voting

In order to make it simple for students to vote and share the poll with others, I created a poll for each class on Google Forms. I included this language so that people would know that students were not expected to have perfect grammar:

Spanish students created memes to demonstrate their knowledge of current vocabulary. I have chosen my favorites and the one that gets the most votes will be the winner of a great prize! If you don’t know Spanish, don’t worry, I included the general meaning for each meme. If you DO speak Spanish, please note that I encouraged the students to do their best without putting their entire phrase into a translator. These were not graded on perfect grammar, but creativity, use of current vocabulary, my ability to understand what they were trying to say, and effort. The students’ names have been intentionally left off so there is no bias in voting. Thanks so much for your help!

You can see an example of a poll here.

Do you have a favorite? Did you try this in your class? Please leave a comment and share! Also, be sure to check out our other Spanish lessons and resources!