ERIC Number: EJ1278217
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Sep
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-2133
EISSN: N/A
Snapping the "Quijote": Examining L2 Literature, Social Media, and Digital Storytelling through a Cervantine Lens
Bender, Rebecca M.
Hispania, v103 n3 p323-339 Sep 2020
This paper focuses on an advanced Spanish literature seminar I taught at Kansas State University dedicated entirely to Cervantes's "Don Quijote de la Mancha." In an effort to appeal to twenty-first-century students in rural Kansas, I designed my seminar to explore traditional questions of authorship, translation and reading, metafiction, self-invention, and parody, but through the lens of contemporary pop culture, including the graphic novel and mobile applications ("apps"). Unlike a traditional research paper, this course's non-traditional final assessment required students to place academic scholarship in an alternative, accessible format. It also promoted innovative, analytic interpretations of the novel through the juxta-position of text, images, video, and sound in a medium in which students already excelled: Snapchat. In what follows, I describe this alternative Snapchat project and its pedagogical justifications, then reflect on the results, student feedback, successes, and limitations. Ultimately, I propose rethinking or reimagining the traditional "Don Quijote" seminar--and second-language (L2) literature courses and assessments more broadly--by embracing purportedly non-academic technologies like Snapchat, whose reliance on a variety of semiotic tools has the potential to teach traditional skills of literary analysis and increase students' engagement with and understanding of narrative processes.
Descriptors: Spanish Literature, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Advanced Students, Seminars, Rural Areas, Authors, Translation, Teacher Attitudes, Language Teachers, Teaching Methods, Popular Culture, Cartoons, Novels, Social Media, College Faculty, College Students
American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Inc. 900 Ladd Road, Walled Lake, MI 48390. Tel: 248-960-2180; Fax: 248-960-9570; e-mail: AATSPoffice@aatsp.org; Web site: http://www.aatsp.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Kansas
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A