The Road is Made Upon Walking: Using a Unifying Theme in the Required Course for Spanish Majors and Minors

FAIN: AC-303534-25

Arizona Board of Regents (Tucson, AZ 85721-0073)
Melissa Fitch (Project Director: May 2024 to present)

The development of new thematically-focused curricular content and experiential learning activities in Spanish humanities.

This project revises the required course in the humanities for Spanish majors and minors: "Readings in the Literary Genres" taken by approximately 1,000 students a year. The revised course explores the theme of life as a road or journey through four geo-cultural modules: (1) the Iberian Peninsula; (2) Latin America; (3) the US/Mexico Borderlands; and (4) the student’s own life. The course crosses multiple borders to expose students to the cultural heritage of the Luso-Hispanic world through an examination of the arts and literature treating the theme. The revision is designed to increase the retention of Hispanic and Latino students in our programs in the College of Humanities, currently at 36%, by using evidenced based teaching strategies found to be effective with these students. The class demonstrates for students how studies in the humanities enrich life in ways that are both tangible (by giving them skills with practical applications in work and non-work settings) and intangible.