Postcard-Preterit and Imperfect (Intermediate Level)

Students write a postcard to the instructor from the town of Gabriel García Márquez’s short story “La siesta del martes” [“Tuesday Siesta”] telling what they saw the day of the events narrated in the story. The purpose of this activity is to use the preterite and imperfect tenses at the same time that students review the plot.

Mock United Nations Summit (Advanced Level) 

Sudents prepare a mock United Nations summit meeting in order to determine Spain’s legitimacy for membership in 1945. Students represent other countries,such as Germany, the United States, Italy and, Russia, as well as representatives from the Republican and Nationalist factions after the Spanish Civil War. As they presented their cases, students needed to use the information they had learned about thetopic, but also came to understand the multiplicity of perspectives that played a role in the conflict.

Integrating Literary Theory and Critical Thinking (Advanced Level) (PPT presentation)

Students analyze an article through the lens of a literary theory. In this case, students read Anthony Cascardi’s “The Old and the New:The Spanish Comedia andthe Resistance to Historical Change,” a Marxist reading of Lope de Vega’s play Fuenteovejuna. The purpose of this activity is to familiarize students with literary theory and challenge them to be critical readers. In this course, students discussed articles focused on Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Linguistics, Sociology, and Law.