Spanish CBL Courses

“The Spanish and service combination has been responsible for so much of my personal growth and many of my fondest memories during college.”  

~ Elizabeth Hillman, recipient of the 2016 Mara Fox Award

Spanish Community-Based Learning Courses

20810: Immigration and the Construction of Memory

Usual rotation: spring semesters

Prerequisite: ROSP 20202

Tatiana Botero

This course has a required Community-Based-Learning (CBL) component in which students engage with the Latino community and will require weekly meetings at El Campito (Thursdays 5:15 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.) working with your assigned community families. An advanced-intermediate culture-based Spanish course, this class serves as a bridge course between our four-semester basic language courses and advanced classes on literature and culture. Through literature, film, current events, and guest speakers, students will develop knowledge about migration issues, family immigration histories, and problems facing our Latino communities in general, and particularly in South Bend with a focus on the immigrant perspective. For the CBL part of the class, students through ethical engagements will work on a collaborative creation and preservation of memory (memory of experiences that shape everyday life and the future of their assigned family). Together, through a series of interviews conducted on a weekly basis, they will document the powerful narratives that not only shape memory but signal possibilities of what is to come. Using storytelling techniques, students will work with families to create and record the family histories using a variety of methods that will result in a collaborative book detailing their life and path that has lead them to our community. This course will help create spaces of solidarity, empathy, and communication as legitimate points of departure for the politics of the future for both students and the community. Through this project, students actually see the face of immigration in a more personal way, a way that changes their perspective. 

20810: Bridging the Gap: Multiple Literacies and Connecting Society, Community, and Self

Usual rotation: spring semesters

Prerequisite: ROSP 20202

Andrea Topash-Ríos

This is a fifth semester Community-Based Spanish course that bridges the language and literature sequences in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. The course is intended to develop and promote oral and written proficiency as well as cultural awareness through exploration of global, contemporary topics related to literacy development and multiple literacies in international contexts.  With our community partner, El Campito Child Development Center, we will actively engage the development of pre-literacy skills with the children in the 4’s room.  At the same time, the Notre Dame students will move forward in their second language skills and dispositions.  In addition to class meetings, the class will spend one hour per week (Fridays, 9:30–10:30 a.m.) reading to a children and engaging them in conversation.  Students will work with child-partners to author an original storybook using the Story Jumper platform. Through reflective assignments, the Notre Dame students will describe their growing awareness of the connections between self, community and society as they learn about the challenges faced by El Campito families as they seek to build a better future.

30017: Introduction to Translation and Interpreting, Theory and Practice
Usual rotation: spring semesters

Prerequisite: ROSP 20202 or above or placement by exam; can count as an advanced elective toward the major.
Elena Mangione-Lora

Students explore translation theory, ethics, preparations, procedures and techniques. Together with an advanced language text to improve language skills, and selected readings to provide a strong preparation for meaningful interaction with their community partners, the course provides real-world opportunities for application and feedback for the skills the students develop.  Students will work with the community partner for 10–12 hours per semester, which typically entails a visit once per week to the partner site, Holy Cross School.

30051: Once Upon a Time – Children’s Literature and Community Connections
Usual rotation: fall semesters
Prerequisite: ROSP 20202 or above or placement by exam; can count as an advanced elective toward the major.

Rachel Rivers Parroquín

Students will be introduced to Literatura Infantil y Juvenil (LIJ) in the Spanish-speaking world through a combination of considerable reading of LIJ across genres and levels and a critical perspective of LIJ via academic text and articles. Authors will include prolific writers of LIJ like Alma Flor Ada, as well as widely known writers like Cortázar, Paz, Pérez Revérte, Poniatowska, and Vargas LLosa who have also begun writing children’s books. Among genres read will be folklore, narrative, fiction (contemporary, realistic, historical, multicultural, fantasy, short story), poetry, and non-fiction. Students will also learn about various LIJ book awards and their evolution over time. In addition, students will develop criteria for evaluating quality LIJ. Through the Community-Based Learning (CBL) component, students will share LIJ with young Spanish speakers through a reading program at Holy Cross School once a week throughout the semester. 

The following classes are taught by Prof. Marisel Moreno and include a CBL component working with La Casa de Amistad’s Adelante America and Crece Conmigo. Check Class Search in Inside ND for semesters offered.

40875: Migrant Voices: Latino/a Literature Through Service-Learning

Marisel Moreno

What can literature teach us about the local Latino community? How does immersion in the community enhance your understanding of concepts such as migration and biculturalism? How can literature combined with experience in the “real world” allow you to connect the dots between politics, economics, history, culture, and the arts? Migrant Voices is a course designed to bridge together the study of U.S. Latino/a literature and the pedagogy of community-based learning. Students will read foundational and contemporary works by U.S. Latinos/a authors from various backgrounds and nationalities (Mexican/Chicano, Salvadoran, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Peruvian, etc.) that are representative of the local Michiana U.S. Latino population. Issues of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and transnationalism will be central to our discussions and will be examined through both a literary lens and an experiential perspective. For the CBL aspect of the course, students are required to engage in a minimum of 2 consecutive hours of tutoring/mentoring, once a week, at La Casa de Amistad. Programs are available Monday–Thursday from 3–5 p.m. and on Mondays and Thursdays from 4–6 p.m. The final grade will be calculated based on: class participation, class journal, essays, quizzes, exam, and a final paper. This class will be conducted in Spanish. Offered to Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors. Cross-listed with: ILS, LAST, AFST.

40876: Race & Ethnicity in U.S. Latino/a Literature

Marisel Moreno

If something has become clear following the recent termination of Mexican-American studies courses by the Tucson Unified School District (AZ) is that race and ethnicity matter when considering the condition of Latinos/as in the US. In this course, students will begin by examining the events related to the Arizona law and will explore how these issues are played out in Latino literature and our local Latino community. Literature by Afro-Latina/o, Andean-Latina/o (and other Latinos of indigenous descent), and Asian-Latina/o authors will provide a lens through which to explore the racial and ethnic complexities that are erased by the umbrella term “Latino.” Tutoring/mentoring at La Casa de Amistad will provide an opportunity for students to see the issues studied at work in the “real world,” while also fostering stronger ties between Notre Dame and the South Bend community. For the Community-Based Learning segment of the course, students will spend two hours per week volunteering and will participate in a local immersion weekend. This course will be conducted in Spanish. Spanish heritage speakers are welcome. This course can fulfill the Modern Latin-American area requirement.

40892: Borders and Bridges: US Latino/a Literary and Cultural Production

Marisel Moreno

What is a border? Who inhabits the borderlands? What function does the border play in the construction of a national or cultural identity? How do we bridge communities? How are borders represented, established, and challenged in the works of US Latino/a writers? These are some of the questions that this course will address within the context of US Latino/a literature and culture. Most of the course will focus on two geographical areas that we tend to associate with these concepts: the traditional US-Mexico border and the lesser studied Caribbean. Students will watch films and read literary works by Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Dominican-American and Cuban-American authors in order to gain a deeper understanding of how borders and borderlands inform contemporary discourse and culture. This course has a Community-Based Learning (CBL) requirement. Students are expected to sign up for tutoring at La Casa de Amistad once a week for 2 hours. The course will be taught in Spanish and is open to advanced non-majors . This course is for undergraduate students only.