Training of four Puerto Ricans and four non-Puerto Ricans to assess the portrayal of Puerto Ricans in a sample of ethnic literature using a holistic approach is described. Basic assumptions involved in a holistic reading or scoring are as follows: (1) readers judge each textual unit as a whole and also within the context of the range of categories…

These 12 essays examine trends and innovations at the community colleges of the State University of New York (SUNY). George Robertson details aspects of recruitment and mission planning at Mohawk Valley Community College for the 1980's. Judith Hall relates her experiences in integrating Latin American reading materials in an introductory…

This collection of six essays examines the ways in which literature, as a discipline, reflects ongoing scholarship on gender, race, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation. In "Rethinking the Discipline of Literature: Gender," Joan E. Hartman presents the results of a Modern Language Association survey that highlights the…

In an effort to sensitize college students of Spanish for the professions to the values and social reality of the Hispanic world, one teacher used a combination of demographic information and Hispanic American literature. Information on the geographic distribution and characteristics of Hispanic groups in the United States was provided as a…

The newsletter is devoted to description of a 5-day conference on "Teaching Spanish to Southwest Hispanic Students" funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and held at New Mexico State University on July 14-19, 1993. It lists the middle and high school teachers from Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas who…

Monographs on pragmatics and language learning include: "Do We All Apologize the Same?--An Empirical Study on the Act of Apologizing by Spanish Speakers Learning English" (Montserrat Mir); "Conversational Openings in Kiswahili: The Pragmatic Performance of Native and Non-Native Speakers" (Alwiya S. Omar); "Experimental and…