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STANDARDS for Foreign Language Learning, published in 1996, has redefined the goals and contexts of foreign language learning and teaching in the United States as the "weav[ing together]" of five distinct but interrelated threads: communication, culture, connections, comparisons, and communities (28). If we extend the metaphor, effective foreign language instruction should ideally strive to assist students in creating a tapestry out of "rich curricular experiences" (28), rather than leave students at loose ends, wondering how disparate learning activities can be pieced together to form the fabric of a coherent whole.
The impact of Standards has been felt primarily in K-12 instruction and, to a lesser degree, at the beginning and intermediate levels of college instruction.1 In this essay, I outline my ongoing work in redesigning an upper-level Spanish novel survey course to incorporate more systematically many aspects emphasized in Standards in order to help students pull together these many strands of foreign language learning. I must confess that I began the revisions in the novel course before I ever read Standards. But both my course revisions and Standards are works in progress that have grown out of the same set of educational concerns and reforms in foreign language teaching and learning over the years. These concerns and reforms include the following:
The overall curricular impact of the redefinition of language proficiency as outlined in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, especially the key concept of language acquisition as a developmental process and the emphasis on recycling the teaching of grammar throughout a sequence of studyIn general, new notions about culture, its role in the foreign language classroom at all levels of instruction, and its embeddedness in "authentic texts" produced by the target culture (beginning with a ground-breaking article by Linda M. Crawford-Lange and Dale L. Lange, "Doing the Unthinkable in the Second Language Classroom")
Heightened interest in content-based instruction at the beginning and intermediate levels, in new approaches to integrating language acquisition and language use and in the learning of content in the classroom in upper-level instruction--in short, the notion of content through language (see Brinton, Snow, and Wesche; Stryker and Leaver)
The creation of languages-across-the-curriculum (LAC) programs that emphasize the active use of foreign languages by students and teachers in other disciplines to access and interpret materials not available through English (see Krueger and Ryan; Straight)
The work of scholars such as Claire Kramsch (Context and Culture) who have developed models of integrating language and culture teaching particularly appropriate for the college level that focus on a dialectical approach to the analysis of texts within contexts (see also Lange 77-78)
Both Standards and my course revisions reflect many of the priorities that have emerged from the past few decades of reconceptualizing foreign language teaching and learning in terms of language as culturally constructed social discourse (see Kramsch "Making the Invisible Visible xvi-xxii). Indeed, the focus in Standards on communication (understanding, interpreting, and presenting information through speaking, listening, reading, and writing), culture (the relations among practices, products, and perspectives), connections with other disciplines and the ability to access viewpoints of the target language and culture, comparisons (insights into the nature of language and culture), and participation in linguistic and cultural communities beyond the classroom is not revolutionary but, rather, seems a well-integrated compendium of the best practices our profession has developed.
Another confession I must make is that the revisions in my Spanish novel course would not have been possible without my having been immersed in an atmosphere of extensive curricular reform at my home campus. Just as the curricular principles outlined in Standards are envisioned as guideposts for program-wide, department-wide, institution-wide (dare I say profession-wide?) planning, so ten years of work in our department and through our languages-across-the-curriculum program have provided my colleagues and me with an institutional context for curricular revision at all levels of instruction.
That institutional context involves three areas. First, the clientele in our upper-level Spanish language classes began to change. Fewer majors or students pursuing advanced work were planning to be teachers or to go on to graduate school in language or literature; most were double majors in Spanish and another field (most frequently biology, psychology, social work, economics, or Hispanic studies). While we firmly believed in the value of teaching literature, we started to reconsider why we were teaching literature. Was it only to produce future professional literary historians or critics? Or was it to help students develop greater linguistic and cultural fluency, to enrich their understanding of the Spanish-speaking world, and to prepare them for interactions ranging from face-to-face conversational exchanges to dialogues with interlocutors across time and national borders? The latter set of goals has emerged as the better characterization of what we wanted to achieve.
Second, those of us in our languages-across-the-curriculum program noticed that students in literature courses often had difficulties making sense out of the texts they were reading while in their Spanish-language discussion sessions attached to English-language LAC courses they were articulate interpreters of similarly challenging texts. It was clear that, true to the tenets of second-language reading theory, familiarity with the context and the topic that LAC students gained greatly facilitated their understanding of Spanish-language texts in ways our literature courses did not.
Finally, we began to rethink what students finishing our language requirement really needed to know after four semesters of Spanish. A basic level of functional language proficiency was essential, but rather than limit that proficiency to daily-life survival-level tasks (many of which students may never need to perform), we wanted our students to be able to understand and interact knowledgeably with the Spanish-speaking world at a higher conceptual level (whether that world is present through contact with individuals or accessible through the press, Univisión, SCOLA broadcasts, or the Internet). As a result, our second-year Spanish sequence is a content-based program that emphasizes reading, analysis, and discussion of authentic texts and the recycling across cultural topics of selected linguistic features necessary for students to perform the required conceptual tasks. The third-semester Spanish course explores cultural topics across the diverse societies of the Spanish-speaking world (Spain and Latin America); fourth-semester Spanish focuses on the culture of United States Hispanics (Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans).
As we worked from the bottom up (first- and second-year instruction) and the top down (upper-level courses for the Spanish major), we developed a series of language, culture, and critical-skills goals for each level of instruction that help us plan sequences and courses and make transitions smoother at the point where the two levels meet.2 The Spanish novel course lies at that juncture.
Like all our literature courses, this course has a prerequisite beyond the completion of our foreign language requirement: a two-course sequence, Culture and Civilization of Spain and Culture and Civilization of Latin America. Despite their conventional titles, these courses could perhaps best be described as "history of mentalities" courses in which students explore key ideas across time and in relation to present-day society (for Spain, the development of concepts of national or imperial identity, the development of the Castilian language and its role in nation building, the role of the church with regard to the state and that of religion in everyday life, and so on). Having learned from our experiences in LAC courses, we structure (textbook-type) reading assignments and brief instructor presentations to provide background for hands-on analysis and discussion of authentic documents and texts, both literary and nonliterary. At the same time, we constantly strive to promote active language learning through a variety of oral and written activities. Thus when students come to Spanish novel class, I can assume that they have some familiarity with the historical contexts of novels I might choose for the course. I cannot assume, however, that they have much or any systematic training in reading literature, in either English or Spanish. Currently, we have no introduction to literature course in our Spanish offerings; rather, all literature courses have to teach the essentials of reading literature.
In this institutional context the major challenge to redesigning the Spanish novel class is one that accompanies every survey course: How can one provide intellectual coherence (beyond the mere notion of genre, in this case) when a panoramic survey can be so broad as to seem strangely contentless? Furthermore, how does one incorporate learning activities that allow students to continue to develop their language proficiency in speaking and writing as well as in listening and reading? Doris Kadish has succinctly referred to the holistic integration of literature, culture, and language learning activities as "applied literature." Similarly, Dorothy James makes a strong case for learning and teaching language through literature, and Les Essif speaks of teaching literature as "culture-in-process" (24). All these phrases point to what I am attempting to do in the Spanish novel course by interweaving the five C's of Standards.
My point of departure has been to organize the Spanish novel course around the dialogue between story and history (in Spanish, historia and Historia). This decision has allowed me to capitalize on the following:
My background in sociohistorical approaches to Spanish literature and to the analysis of literature and other discourses
Our students' general familiarity with the major issues, debates, attitudes, and values of the periods in which the novels were written or are set
The opportunity to explore with students the ways in which literature in general and novels in particular differ from other types of written texts, especially historiographic works and primary documents; what novels tell us about a society and how they tell it (see La Capra, History and Criticism and History, Politics)
The chance to explore the meaning and function of novels in society in particular periods; questions of production, transmission, and reception of novels; "reading as historical practice" (Swaffar 37) and reading aloud versus private reading; the publication of serial novels (novelas por entregas); the development of literary criticism and of expert readers; and so forth
This framework allows for an analysis of issues pertaining to culture (relations among practices, products, and perspectives) and to comparisons (insights into the nature of language and culture) as well as an introduction to possible connections with other fields of inquiry and discursive models.
In broadening the orientation of the course in line with what Kadish calls applied literature and in discarding traditional notions of coverage in survey-type courses, I have limited the number of common readings to allow sufficient time for exploration of the cultural, literary, and linguistic dimensions of the novels. I have intentionally chosen novels that I consider good stories and also important springboards for dealing with questions of story and history. For a twelve-week course, I assign four novels to be read by all class members: Lazarillo de Tormes, the classic picaresque novel (c. 1554) and a good starting text for trying to sort out what a novel might be; Benito Pérez Galdós's Doña Perfecta, an 1876 work by Spain's great nineteenth-century novelist originally published in serial form; and Ramón J. Sender's Réquiem por un campesino español and Josefina R. Aldecoa's Historia de una maestra, both set in the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War. In addition, I ask students to read a fifth novel of their choosing. My goal here is for them to have the experience of reading a complete novel in Spanish on their own and sharing with classmates their observations about the novel in a way that might encourage students to do additional reading for pleasure after the conclusion of the course. Thus I hope to encourage behaviors outlined in the second communities standard: "Students show evidence of becoming life-long learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment" (Standards 9).
Before beginning to read each text, we do activities designed to reactivate or expand students' knowledge of the historical period of the work (the history) and to provide a context for the discussion of the novel (the story). These activities range from viewing videos about major events or issues associated with each novel's historical context to reading authentic documents from the period and analyzing modern history-book narratives of the period. For instance, Pérez Galdós's 1870 essay "Observaciones sobre la novela contemporánea en España" has provided students with the novelist's view of the relation that should exist between literature and contemporary history as a backdrop for the novel itself and with various characters' views of this relation (especially that of Don Cayetano, the local historian in the novel). In Historia de una maestra, the use of both primary and secondary sources has helped students understand the historical context of 1930s Spain and compare and contrast how history and literature sometimes tell different stories. An analysis of the 1937 Cartilla escolar antifascista, the republic's primer for adult literacy training that uses simple words and powerful images to link the campaign against ignorance with the battle against fascism, has forced students to confront the act of teaching in republican Spain as something radically different from any concept they may have of United States education, past or present. Similarly, secondary readings on the history of education (Escobar Sobrino) and the history of the Second Republic from Mundo hispánico, a post-Franco textbook approved by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science for today's high schools (Flores Guerrero et al.), have stimulated rich discussions on the dialogue between story and history.
Finding appropriate complementary materials continues to be a major challenge. In future trips to Spain, I plan to search for additional archival materials, for example, journalistic accounts of historical events mentioned in the novels, oral histories and testimonies, and history-book accounts or other narratives from the periods in which the novels are set.
With regard to class activities, assignments, and methods of evaluation, my goal has been to maximize student participation to give students opportunities to develop all four language skills through language use--the Standards's C of communication (see Klee). For each reading assignment, students complete an analytical guide designed to assist them before class in acquiring strategies for reading the novels as both cultural documents and literary texts. Class time is then spent primarily in small-group discussions in which students share information and discuss their findings, followed by large-group debriefings in which we compare notes, draw conclusions, and propose new topics for analysis. These debriefings also allow us to get back on track in case some groups overinterpret or misinterpret something in the text, and they give us a natural forum for discovering the boundaries of interpretation permitted by each novel. When needed, I supplement discussions with minilectures.
Because students should not limit their speaking practice to one type of activity, we intersperse other types of oral activities into this standard routine: readers' theater-type presentations or dramatizations of key scenes from novels; debates, dialogues, or role plays on issues in the novels from the viewpoints of different characters; and retellings of the stories in various registers. (The last can illustrate forcefully the power of dialogue, using oral language, and how it differs from the power of narrative, using written language.)
To practice the level of oral discourse appropriate for formal public presentations, as we finish each of the four novels, we devote two days to student panel presentations on the novel. (Each student participates in panels on three of the four novels during the semester.) In their panels, students synthesize information presented in class discussions, analyze selected topics, and present commentaries on critical articles that illuminate important aspects of the novel not covered in class. In this way, after dissecting each work in small groups, we reassemble it within the context of our story-history framework in the panel presentations. Class members are responsible for actively listening to the presentations, asking questions, requesting clarifications, or offering other insights. The panels act as a bridge between regular class discussions and the preparation of short papers (4-5 pages each) that students are required to write (one on Lazarillo, one on Doña Perfecta, and one on the two novels of the Spanish Civil War). Topics assigned to panels and for the papers are not the same; instead, the paper topics build on the concepts developed in all class oral activities up through the presentations.
As I continue developing this course, I am considering other types of writing assignments to supplement or replace these expository-analytical assignments. Possibilities include rewriting key episodes from the viewpoint of characters other than the narrator(s) or crafting alternate ends to the story (writing "Vuestra Merced's" reply to Lazarillo's autobiographical letter, for instance, or providing a counterpoint to Don Cayetano's epistolary interpretation of final events in Doña Perfecta by composing additional "letters, mysteriously uncovered" after the death of the protagonist). Another possibility would be to have students write reviews, from a variety of ideological perspectives or in different formats, that could have appeared at the time of the events portrayed in the novels. Still another exercise might be composing abbreviated versions of the texts in other genres. A reaction to or version of Lazarillo could take the form of a romance, the traditional popular Spanish ballad form preferred for poetic renditions of everything from heroic feats and noteworthy current events to sensationalized crimes of passion; these writings could be published in a class chapbook (pliego suelto). A newspaper review of Doña Perfecta could be a piece of journalistic writing; parts of the novel could be turned into a one-act play. A commentary on Réquiem or Historia de una maestra could form the basis of a newsreel script, or the story line could be adapted for a movie screenplay. My criteria for selecting activities will be, first, how well an activity illuminates some aspect of the narrative link between story and history or how different discourses tell stories in different ways. Second, I will consider to what extent an activity will allow students to use essential language features not necessarily employed in the writing of analytical or expository papers. Retelling a story in Spanish, for example, provides practice in the use of the preterit and imperfect tenses for past narration, whereas analytical papers primarily use present-tense verbs. Finally, it is important to strike a balance between all aspects of the course from the literary and cultural to the development of language-use skills.
I have broken with our standard classroom practices with the fifth novel. The goal of assigning a fifth novel is to plant the seeds for students' reading for pleasure in Spanish after a semester ends. I do not intend that students reading a novel independently do the deep analysis we do as a group on the four common texts, but I want them to understand another novel, have a successful experience reading on their own (perhaps even enjoy reading), and be able to present information to class members to guide their classmates' future reading choices. To ensure that students actually read their fifth novel and that their reading projects benefit the entire class, I ask them to produce a one-page, single-spaced review of their novel following a standard format: title, author, date of publication, plot summary (not to exceed one-third of the page), structural and stylistic notes, significance or message of the novel, and name of reviewer. (To be part of the reading community I attempt to create, I, too, read a fifth novel and write a review.) Reviews are collected at the end of the semester and duplicated. At our last class session, students meet in groups (assigned according to the novels' features) in a modified book-club format to share what they have read--my attempt to connect the literature class with the real-world way that adults discuss books outside of academia. Not every student has liked his or her fifth novel, but they have all contributed to lively discussions. As I have circulated among groups, I have overheard references to our common readings (e.g., "The structure reminded me of Historia de una maestra because . . . ," or "You know how Galdós does . . . in Doña Perfecta? Well, the author of this novel does something similar"). Students leave class on the last day with a booklet containing reviews of the twenty-five or so novels we read collectively--a resource that I hope they will peruse from time to time when they want a recommendation for a good book to read.
In the future, I plan to re-create a more authentic experience of a book club by having students meet outside class throughout the semester for informal discussions about their fifth novels. This would encourage students not to postpone reading their novel until the end of the semester; it might also strengthen the sense of being part of a reading community not structured by the teacher-student interaction of the classroom. Having groups of four or five students read the same novel would likely facilitate stronger reading bonds than would having students each read a different novel. Such a group format would, however, eliminate the freedom students have in choosing a novel in tune with their own reading preferences. On a small residential campus like ours where advanced Spanish students know each other already, perhaps the freedom of choice is more important than a shared group-reading experience.
The Spanish novel course is still very much a work in progress. The particular pattern produced by the intertwining of communication, culture, connections, comparisons, and communities in the fashion described above is a natural outgrowth of the institutional context of my campus, our program's priorities for undergraduate education, and my own experimentation. I share it not as a model to be duplicated as is but as an illustration of one way to connect the literary content of upper-level classes to advanced-level language skills development and culture learning as a point of departure for future discussions on teaching literature in foreign languages at the undergraduate level.
1According to Phillips, although the Standards were designed for K-12 instruction, the majority of language-specific organizations that have endorsed them consider them applicable for K-16 (6n1, 13).
2While articulated in different terms, the goals we have for our upper-level courses highlight many of the same priorities outlined succinctly by Janet Swaffar in a recent article in the ADFL Bulletin (see esp. the graphic on 35).
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------. "Observaciones sobre la novela contemporánea en España." Ensayos de crítica literaria. Ed. Laureano Bonet. Barcelona: Ediciones Peninsula, 1972. 115-32.
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© 2000 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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