SPAN 495 - Special Topics
Course Description: Through the completion of a community project, students will demonstrate that they have actively immersed themselves in authentic Hispanic cultural and linguistic environments and have internalized the language and cultural experience, from which they have developed personal understanding and new perspectives of Hispanic communities. This course is taught in Spanish.
Course Narrative: This course fulfills Major Learning Outcome 5 because it granted me the opportunity to be a part of my community of Salinas and get to know the experiences of two Mexican men who crossed the US/Mexico border. This course allowed me the opportunity to learn more about my community of Salinas. As part of this course, I worked on a final paper where I conducted 2 interviews with men who were born in Mexico but came to the United States and also compared it with two texts that I read in previous courses. I explored the topic of immigration in the two texts Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan and The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande. I read both of these texts in Span 310 in my Hispanic Children’s literature course and personally felt seen by the texts. Both the protagonists had been through important events in their lives, just like my parents had been, and just like members of my community in Salinas. This course allowed me the opportunity to conduct interviews with two individuals who shared with me their experiences of crossing the US/Mexico border. Immigration is a very prominent and pertinent topic in the US Media as well as living in the state of California, I was glad that I was able to learn from these two individuals. This class prepared me for my capstone project because I had to go through the process of conducting research and coming up with a topic and then creating questions for interviews, as well as finding who to interview and then analyzing the information that had been shared with me. I am glad that I was able to conduct interviews for this class because it was a nice preparation. I also enjoyed that we worked on the final paper in parts and took the right steps and measures to get to the final project without feeling overwhelmed.
Major Learning Outcome Fulfillment:
MLO 5
Evidence:
Final Paper
Course Narrative: This course fulfills Major Learning Outcome 5 because it granted me the opportunity to be a part of my community of Salinas and get to know the experiences of two Mexican men who crossed the US/Mexico border. This course allowed me the opportunity to learn more about my community of Salinas. As part of this course, I worked on a final paper where I conducted 2 interviews with men who were born in Mexico but came to the United States and also compared it with two texts that I read in previous courses. I explored the topic of immigration in the two texts Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan and The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande. I read both of these texts in Span 310 in my Hispanic Children’s literature course and personally felt seen by the texts. Both the protagonists had been through important events in their lives, just like my parents had been, and just like members of my community in Salinas. This course allowed me the opportunity to conduct interviews with two individuals who shared with me their experiences of crossing the US/Mexico border. Immigration is a very prominent and pertinent topic in the US Media as well as living in the state of California, I was glad that I was able to learn from these two individuals. This class prepared me for my capstone project because I had to go through the process of conducting research and coming up with a topic and then creating questions for interviews, as well as finding who to interview and then analyzing the information that had been shared with me. I am glad that I was able to conduct interviews for this class because it was a nice preparation. I also enjoyed that we worked on the final paper in parts and took the right steps and measures to get to the final project without feeling overwhelmed.
Major Learning Outcome Fulfillment:
MLO 5
Evidence:
Final Paper