Using Literary Texts in Foundational Spanish Courses: Why I Teach "A Julia de Burgos"

Abstract

Using Literary Texts in Foundational Spanish Courses:Why I Teach "A Julia de Burgos"1 Colleen Scott (bio) . . . yo iré en medio de ellas . . . —Julia de Burgos, "A Julia de Burgos" The poem "A Julia de Burgos" by the Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos clearly expresses the theme of duality and the double, specifically the battle between the public and the private self. Dualities are everywhere—images and screens projecting one's constructed reality contending with one's inner self. There is a dualistic state, too, within current pedagogical practice: on the one hand, a need to use technology and social media and, on the other, a more back-to-basics approach. Real-life, task-based approaches are certainly in favor, but we should not undervalue the use of literary texts in introductory and intermediate language courses. Teachers and textbooks include readings that they believe have literary merit, but how are students today going to receive these works that are not part of popular culture? How are students going to identify with the characters (or poetic voice) or the time period? Television, film, and the Internet provide our students with ample exposure to pop culture as it relates to the target culture, but many introductory-level and intermediate-level students lack exposure to aspects of the target culture's artistic and literary achievements in these early phases of language instruction. Many students know who Evita, Frida, and Selena are but not Julia. [End Page 107] Perhaps they will discover the intertextual reference to Rocinante, Don Quixote's famed horse. The poem "A Julia de Burgos" is a powerful pedagogical tool as it provides a lexical focus but also promotes cross-cultural understanding, and students feel a sense of accomplishment for having read and understood a poem in the target language. The purpose of this paper will be to discuss the importance of teaching such a literary work in an intermediate-level (third-semester) Spanish class and to demonstrate how students can interpret and interact with the poem. It seems most appropriate to use literary masterpieces (known and not so well-known) in the courses where the stress is upon learning the target language and culture. The poem is a great example of a Latinx woman writer in exile. Burgos was a Puerto Rican poet, who was an advocate for women, blacks, and the working class. In an era when it is important and necessary to self-advocate, students discuss the important themes of this poem: be true to who you are, and live according to your beliefs and desires and not those imposed upon you by society. Students see how this poem about freedom of expression, written in the 1930s, is absolutely relevant today. The poem serves as a model text for writing style, but it also has a communicative purpose in that students can react personally to the poem. At the intermediate stage of language learning, students are encouraged to form and express opinions in the target language, while also gaining linguistic and cultural knowledge. As we know, one fundamental function of language is the transmission of identity. The themes of the dichotomized self in relation to society and of identity as performance are discussed as we read "A Julia de Burgos." But it is also important for learners to understand that what we speak and how we speak form a part of who we are and how others see us. Do our personalities change when we speak another language? A different you? Yes, as the second-language learner migrates to a new language, a process begins that involves a separation from familiar structures (the native language). Students can feel inhibited when trying to speak another language and to generate unfamiliar sounds and structures. They may experience language anxiety because they do not understand or cannot produce an utterance. The language student is essentially starting over, learning to speak and to understand from a new perspective, forming a new social self. As such, the disparity between [End Page 108] the "true" self and the more "limited" self in the language classroom needs to be reconciled. Just as Burgos had to adapt to a new land, the language student...