As the semester winds down, I start thinking about how I would do things differently. In my Introduction to Literary Studies, which I taught for the first time, I used Aproximaciones and pretty much followed the organization of the book: Narrativa, PoesÃa, Drama. I think that next time I teach the course I will begin with poetry and spend more time on it than the other genres, since it seems to me that poetic language is part and parcel of good literature. I also think I would proceed in reverse chronological order, dealing with the Siglo de Oro/Baroque last, since it is more challenging and I think it would be good for students to become accustomed to poetry before diving into Garcilaso or Sor Juana. I did ask students to memorize and recite a poem this semester, though.
Any thoughts? Have you used other textbooks worth recommending?
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Texts: We use Introduccion a la literatura espanola/latinoamericana (Focus Publishing). It's not very extensive. It takes a chronological approach rather than genre strategy. There's also a book called Temas that is not chronological but takes a thematic tact. There's a lot of ways to cut this up. I emphasize movements and themes within movements for the survey and less the formal aspects. We read a lot of poetry (the students have to be taught to like it and understand it because their first inclination is to dislike it) and prose selections. I supplement the anthology with other more poetry, plays, etc. When I first taught it I assigned too much. I think a course like this lends itself better to exams than papers (especially research or analytical papers). I try to emphasize the particularities of Hispanic literature compared to American/British lit since most of my students are fairly knowledgeable in these areas. I'll be teaching the second half of the survey sequence too so I'll cover Enlightenment to at least Modernism and Neo-realism.
I used the reverse chronological order approach and found that it worked well namely for the reason you state, that the language of modern works is more accessible, thus allowing us to ease them into the more difficult older material. They gain an initial sense of confidence and some reading strategies before delving into texts more difficult to penetrate.
As for materials, I usually prepare a reader for them that includes well-glossed texts, sometimes opposing page translations. I think I will use Aproximaciones next time. The two volume Voces de espana, Voces de hispanoamerica (Thomson-Heinle)are very well done, except that they follow a chronological approach.
On another note, the biggest challenge for me has been to teach this "Intro. to Hispanic Lit" course in a ten-week semester (!). When I first arrived I pushed for a two-course sequence. But it has not happened yet. Naturally, in a course of this brevity the idea of even broaching the topic of literary theory is unrealistic. So, we stick to an introduction to diverse genres, mentioning here and there some poetic concepts.
I agree with Dave that at this stage exams and short-answer questions is the way to go, versus analytical papers.
I haven't taught such a course. We don't really have one on the books.
I suppose "on the books" wasn't meant to be a pun...
I haven't taught an intro yet at SFSU. When I taught a similar course at BYU, I think I used Aproximaciones. I do like the idea of reverse chronological order. I've thought of doing that with my medieval classes: starting with Celestina and ending with the Cid.
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