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Rethinking the Spanish American Short Story was designed for the Humanities Exposed (HEX) program in 2005 as a collaborative project, supported by The Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and West High School. The principal aim of the program was to offer high school students with an advanced level of Spanish the opportunity to think critically about the concept of literature using Spanish to communicate their ideas and reflections on topics raised during six weekly sessions. We focused on a corpus of short stories written in Spanish by Spanish American authors, and a selection of critical articles pertinent to the analysis of those fictional texts. Therefore, the main goal of the workshops was to enhance not only the student's reading comprehension skills, but also to go a step further in helping students to read and write in a well-argued and critical manner. During the meetings, students worked with and thought of specific and appropriate uses of literary jargon by exploring the formation of a literary corpus in order to generate a critical analysis. Participants were asked to bring up their own reflections and particular perspectives on the topics discussed throughout the meetings. Students consulted encyclopedias, dictionaries, and any kind of material that they found helpful during the process of reading the short stories and the theoretical excerpts, and of writing the short paper that was assigned as a conclusion for the program. This web page was created in order to keep a record of students' works as well as to facilitate the continuity of this project and to engage in the service the Center for the Humanities offers to the community. ÒRethinking the Spanish American Short StoryÓ resulted in a valuable and rewarding experience both from the profesional and personal perspectives. It provided me and the students with the chance of shaping a learning bridge between high school and college levels, usually thought of as two complete separate educational spheres. I would like to thank Mrs. María Llera for her invaluable help in the selection of the readings for this program and for her suggestions about the possibility of running the workshops at West High School. I also want to extend my gratitude to Professor Ksenija Bilbija, whose class on Twentieth Century Spanish American Short Story served as the main inspiration for the organization of this program.
Paula Di Dio |
Photo above: The last meeting of Rethinking the Spanish American Short Story at West High School. |
