Teaching

On this page you can view a list of courses and syllabuses from my teaching experiences at five different colleges and universities. I have included links to PDFs of the most recent iterations of each syllabus, including those with hyflex or online modifications due to Covid-19. The assignments ans timelines on some of these recent courses do not reflect a “normal” semester!

On the blog:

I occasionally I write about how I integrate my research into my teaching, or how my assignments in the classroom have led me to reevaluate or expand my own research agenda. These posts appear below — I typically include links to free materials that I created for these topics (PDFs of discussion questions, reading guides, assignments). Comments, suggestions, tips, and feedback welcome!

(Jan 2014) The Perfect Wife in the 21st Century: La perfecta casada en el siglo XX
(Feb 2014) Exploring Female Identities in Carmen de Burgos’ “La rampa”
(Apr 2014) The Red Virgin: Motherhood and Power Dynamics
(May 2014) La Llorona: Incorporating Latino Studies into Hispanic Literature
(Nov 2015) Francisco de Goya: The Enigma of the Black Paintings
(Dec 2015) Picasso’s Guernica and Aleixandre’s “Oda”: The Spanish Civil War in Art and Poetry
(Feb 2016) Teaching Spanish America: From the Conquest to Contemporary Film
(Sept 2020) Mapping Madrid through Art, Literature, and Creative Cartography
(Oct 2020) Don Quijote, the Graphic Novel, and Snapchat: Alternative Assessments in the L2 Literature Classroom
(Mar 2021) Cartographic Narratives: Using Data and Mapping Principles to Teach L2 Literature

Teaching experience:

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY (2015-present)

STUDY ABROAD: “Spain Today: Madrid, Pamplona, Barcelona”
I created this annual program by working with the Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Españolas (ILCE) at the Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, starting in 2018. Summer of 2019 was its first (very!) successful year. It is unique in offering our Spanish Majors a 700-level course in which they conduct research in Spain on a topic related to their professional goals; they present at K-State the following Fall semester. In 2019 we held “photo gallery” event, which was a really fun format: Spanish Majors and Minors Present Research from the Summer in Spain Program.

SPANISH LANGUAGE:

Spanish 301: Spanish IV
Spanish 408: Intermediate Spanish Grammar
Spanish 410: Intermediate Grammar  & Composition
Spanish 420: Intermediate Spanish Conversation
Fall 2015; Fall 2018: spn 420_syllabus_f18_conversation_3rd edition

SPANISH AND SPANISH AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE:

Spanish 550: Introduction to Literature in Spanish
Summer 2016 – 4-week intensive: SPN 550 syllabus and SPAN 550_Calendar
Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Fall-Spring 2018-19

Spanish 550: Hispanic Readings & Media
Fall-Spring 2019-21: spn 550_intro to hispanic literature_syllabus
Spring 2021, Online/Covid, 70% synchronous: 0-Syllabus_550_SP21

Spanish 565: Civilization and Culture of Spain (#Span565KSU)
Fall 2015; Spring 2017: 1_SPN 565_Span Culture Civ_Sp 2017
Spring 2020: **Syllabus changed due to Covid-19**

Spanish 567: Introduction to the Literature of Spain (survey)
Fall 2015: SPN 567_Literature of Spain_Syllabus_F15_update

Spanish 567: Heroes and Housewives: Introduction to the Literature of Spain (themed survey)
Fall 2017: 1_SPN 567_Heroes and Housewives_Syllabus_Fall 2017

Spanish 567: Transatlantic Art, Visual Cultures of Spain and Mexico
Fall 2021: 0-Bender 567_Transatlantic Art_Syllabus

Spanish 568: Literature of Spanish America (survey)
Spring 2016, Spring 2018: spn 568_literature of spanish america

GRADUATE-UNDERGRADUATE SEMINARS

Spanish 735: Literary Portraiture and Modern Spain (#LiteraryPortraitureKSU)
Senior seminar: Fall 2021: 0_Span 735_Syllabus_Literary Portraiture

Spanish 735: Mapping Madrid in the Edad de Plata (#MappingMadridKSU)
Senior seminar: Fall 2020, Hyflex/Covid: Syllabus_Mapping Madrid blog

This course focused on the representation of Madrid in the literary and cultural production of early 20th-century Spain (media, literature, art, film). We explored how urban spaces paradoxically create opportunities for free expression and the challenging of social, political, gendered, or religious norms, while also reinforcing or promoting dominant narratives and identities in both individual and collective contexts. Thus, the narrative-city may be celebrated, critiqued, or (re)imagined. Key texts included Carmen de Burgos’s La rampa (1917) and José Díaz Fernández’s La Venus mecánica (1929). The final mapping project was based on my thinking about maps as literary analysis, and some of my students’ final projects can be viewed here.

Spanish 735: Gender & the City in 20th Century Spain (#GeneroCiudadKSU)
Senior and Graduate seminar: Fall 2019: Syllabus_Gender-City_20thC

Spanish 768: All About Almodóvar: Spanish Cinema (#AlmodovarKSU)
Senior and Graduate seminar: Spring 2022: 0_Silabo_Almodovar

Spanish 732: Pop Culture and Cervantes’ Don Quijote de la Mancha
Senior seminar: Spring 2018:  0_SPN 732_Don Quijote_Syllabus
Senior seminar: Spring 2021, Hyflex/Covid: 0_SPN 732_Don Quijote_Syllabus_2021

• Visit my Spring 2018 students’ final creative, collaborative Snapchat project: www.quijotesnaps.wordpress.com
• Read about my non-traditional approach to this, and other literature courses, in my peer-reviewed article published in HISPANIA (Sept. 2020): “Snapping the Quijote: Examining L2 Literature, Social Media, and Digital Storytelling through a Cervantine Lens“

• View the trailer that seniors in my Spring 2021 course made to “promote” the seminar and reading of Don Quijote to future K-State students. They had fun with it, which made me happy given that their last three semesters of college work were sporadically online, hybrid, and distanced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwFTbUsFi8M

Spanish 779: Spanish American AP Literature Readings: Analysis in Context
Graduate & Undergraduate seminar
Fall 2016, Fall 2019: 0_SPN 779_AP Latin America_Fa19

Spanish 779: AP Spanish Literature: Transatlantic Perspectives
Graduate seminar
Fall 2017: 1-spn 779_ap spanish lit-transatlantic

Spanish 779: AP Spanish Peninsular Literature: Analysis in Context
Graduate seminar
Fall 2018: 1-spn 779_ap spanish lit_syllabus

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GRINNELL COLLEGE (2013-2015)

• Spanish 105: Introduction to the Spanish Language I (Intensive)
• Spanish 106: Introduction to the Spanish Language II (Intensive)
• Spanish 217: Intermediate Spanish
• Spanish 285: Introduction to Textual Analysis
• Spanish 295: Refashioning the Self: Hispanic Women’s Literature in the 20th Century (Transatlantic Seminar): SPN 295_Syllabus_SP14_ReFashioning the Self
  

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THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY (2008-2013)

• Spanish 1, Spanish 2, Spanish 3 (as 15-week hybrid-online & 3-week summer intensives)
• Intermediate Spanish Conversation
• Intermediate Spanish Grammar and Conversation
• Introduction to Hispanic Literature
• Mexican Culture and Civilization: Abroad – Puebla, Mexico (Graduate Assistant)

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BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA (2007-2008)

• Spanish 1
• Spanish 3
• Introduction to Spanish (on and off-campus)

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THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO (2005-2007)

• Spanish 1 (Supervisor: Spring 2007)
• Spanish 2

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