Para empezar... (To begin...)
Welcome! This is a brief introduction to all of the features of a typical content page (i.e. a page with an explanation of some topic in Spanish grammar).
Every topic is marked with a roman numeral with its level (levels are also color-coded: blue for I, orange for II, yellow for III). By no means should you restrict youself to just the topics in your "class" -- the markings are there only so that you know what will be expected of you a typical class and so that there is a logical sequence of topics for each level.
Each topic has a written explanation. These explanations are not designed to bore you, but rather to be thorough and engaging. There are tons of examples for every idea, all of which are indented to make them easy to find and reference. There are also lots of pictures to help you visualize ideas and to break up the text. I am a horrific artist, so laugh at my stick figures all you want. Important words are bolded and definitions or notes are highlighted. For super-important information (step-by-step processes, rules, major concepts, etc.), there is a colored box (the color depends on the level of the material).
Along the right-hand side of all pages there is a sort of sidebar. This contains:
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A yellow Quick Reference box with a brief outline of the content of the page and quick notes about major ideas. The outlines in these boxes are linked to the rest of the page so that you can choose a specific idea and jump straight there.
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Links to Next Topics, which are the next few topics in the chronological sequence of the level you are in.
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If applicable, links to explanatory videos. Again, the whole drawing thing is not my forte. Don't hold it against me.
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If applicable, links to PDF documents containing: worksheets (to be printed/used on an iPad), blank templates (i.e. verb conjugation templates), or notes (i.e. uses of the subjunctive).
Some topics overlap multiple levels. In those cases, there will either be two separate pages (this occurs when there is a huge difference between the ideas covered in one level versus the other) or there will be a large box at the end of the first page that contains the information appropriate for the next level.
Finally, at the bottom of each page, there are several resources to help you master the content covered on that particular page. On the left there is an interactive quiz that can be taken on a computer or mobile device. Those quizzes involve multiple choice, fill in the blank, and true/false questions. To the right, there are two boxes. In the top box, the orange one, there is a list of external resources grouped by type (textbook or online). All online resources are free for Severn students, and most are free for everyone. The textbooks referenced are all in the Realidades series by Prentice Hall. Chapter numbers are cited for most topics. Below the orange box, there is a yellow box that contains a list of related topics, all of which are linked to the appropriate page on this site. How is this different from the Next Topics section in the sidebar? Think of it like this: in the Next Topics section, you move horizontally. You will be linked to topics that might be very different from the one whose page you are on but that are the next items covered in a typical Spanish classroom. All of those links will be to the level you are on, whether Spanish I, II, or III. On the other hand, in the Related Topics section, you move vertically: the topic does not really change (so if you are on adjectives, the topics will be adjectives), but the difficulty level does (so you will see links to pages in Spanish I, II and III).