SPN 664 - Hispanic Youth Literature

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This course will explore how to teach literature to students of different levels of linguistic abilities. We will explore three major facets of teaching texts. First, what kind of pre-reading activities are needed to prepare students for what they are about to read? Students need the cultural and linguistic context before they even begin to dive into the text. Strategies include: exploring the context through images and research, introducing vocabulary through images and activities where students develop skills to negotiate meaning, and, based on cultural and linguistic clues, begin to engage in psycho-linguistic guessing to form ideas of what they are about to read. Second, how can they engage in the text to confirm or deny what guesses they have formed? Third, how can they use the text to engage in an integrated performance activity? We will look at different texts and examples to explore these three major questions.