Background | Implementation | Student Performance | Reflections | Comments

Background

This course brings together perspectives already taught in two courses in our existing curriculum:

• Span 446: Spanish Culture: A study of the history of Spanish culture
  and civilization from a diachronic point of view.  It covers a variety of
  topics, including geography, history, the arts, etc.
• Span 447: Latin American Cultures: The description and study of Latin American Cultures with attention to history, folklore, and the arts.

The goal for this new course is to build bridges between these two courses and explore the historical and cultural connections between Spain and Latin America in one course.  The idea is not to compress those two courses, which will continue to be taught every year at the 400-level, but rather to integrate topics in this new course at the 300-level.  The purpose is to offer students coming into the major an overview of key concepts and historical and cultural trends of the Spanish-speaking world prior to their taking advanced level courses.  In other words, we have envisioned this course as a tool helping students improve their cultural literacy before they start taking more specific cultural and literary courses at the 400 and 500 level.

This class was a pilot class and, therefore, I did not have any materials such as
a syllabus or paper prompts to draw upon.  I designed and developed it from scratch.  If it was successful, the department would put it into the curriculum again.  We have already decided to include it in our regular offerings, and I will teach it again next year.  I will be able to draw on my current experiences, such
as the goals that I have written into the narrative for the syllabus and the presentation itself.

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