I became interested in the possibility of teaching a service learning class in Spanish, because many of the potential service projects are relevant for the everyday use of Spanish in Kansas and because I am often searching for ways to motivate student interest in the reading of literary texts. In terms of social changes, there is a growing Spanish-speaking population that has become visible in Lawrence; in addition to promoting study abroad opportunities among Spanish majors, I wanted to promote cross-cultural opportunities in our own community. This opportunity strengthens Spanish majors’ motivation for improving their Spanish, gives them opportunities to use their Spanish in everyday contexts, and also contributes to our local community. In terms of reading literature, my sense is that students often find it difficult to understand literary texts as social actions, as the words of authors trying to have an effect upon readers through the aesthetic experience of reading. I hoped that the service opportunities would allow my students to explore representations of Latino and Latina identities in literary texts while they were also struggling to understand the identities of the Latino communities they encountered in their service activities. In short, I wanted to see if the parallels between aesthetic experience and life experience would change students’ motivation for reading literary texts.
Given my interest in a possible service learning class, I was excited to see the announcement for the Center for Teaching Excellence’s Service Learning Institute (SLI) in Summer 2005. I was initially hesitant, but decided that the SLI would provide the structure to help me develop an effective course. I was especially interested in advice about how to manage the logistics of volunteer activities outside of class.
During the SLI, I was surprised by the breadth of projects that faculty members had proposed. Sometimes the projects proposed by other faculty members sparked creative ideas about possibilities for my course. The presenters were especially helpful in giving me a structure for resolving my questions about logistics and liability.
The financial support from the CTE grant was also helpful, as these funds made it possible for me to purchase books and videos for the class. One of the best investments was having the right resources at my fingertips for developing a new course. Some of the materials I purchased, using both my own resources and the CTE grant, were technical studies about the social role of foreign language educators and foreign language education. Other materials were documentaries, such as the eight-hour The New Americans or the fascinating study in community conflict over immigration, Farmingville. Other documentaries include Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary, Mojados: Through the Night, and La ciudad/The City (the exact genre of this last film is open to debate). Feature films that I considered for this course and its possible future versions and sequels include El Norte, El jardín de Edén, Gatekeeper, Bread and Roses, Espaldas mojadas, and María Full of Grace. I also did extensive additional reading about identities at the border (especially the work of ethnographer Pablo Vila); about displacement, travel, and diaspora (especially the work of James Clifford); contextual writings about globalization, economic changes, cultural changes, and immigration; and many books about changing Latino identities and communities in the United States.
Before designing my class, I did some reading in an anthology entitled Construyendo puentes: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Spanish, edited by Josef Hellebrandt and Lucía T. Varona, a book about service learning classes in Spanish. None of the models fit my own situation. I ended up skimming other books in the American Association of Higher Education’s series on service learning and finding essays in other volumes that sparked my thinking.
With departmental approval, I decided to offer the course on a trial basis using a special course rubric that is sometimes used to accommodate new course topics, SPAN 494 Special Readings: Spanish through Service Learning. The department also agreed to allow this course to satisfy elective hours in the major. I offered the class for the first time in spring 2006. The class filled quickly during pre-enrollment with 20 students, mostly junior and senior Spanish majors. Many had a double major with Latin American Studies, social welfare, or education.| << Project Summary | ^TOP^ | Implementation >> |
