Who am I?
An educator for 18 years, I currently teach Spanish at the university level. I have taught in both high schools and colleges; introductory through advanced levels. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish literature and a Master’s degree in Spanish. I have also had the opportunity to spend significant time living in Spain early in my adult life.
Why film?
I have always incorporated film into my Spanish classes, both at the high school and university level. Having seen the film Camila (María Luisa Bemberg, 1984) as an undergraduate student, that was one of the first films I used as a teacher. As a prolific filmmaker, Pedro Almodóvar seems to always have a new film that I could incorporate into my early classes and Como agua para chocolate (Alfonso Arau, 1992) was also a popular choice in my early years in the classroom. Since those first endeavors at using film in the classroom I have broadened both my knowledge and usage of Spanish-language films and their directors significantly in the last decade and I now use a wide variety of both feature length and short films from across the Spanish-speaking world in the classroom at many levels.
I have used several of the textbooks available in the U.S. market aimed at teaching film in the Spanish classroom, and have purchase lesson plans offered through independent companies that cater to the foreign language teacher. I have also created a number of lesson plans on my own for use in my classroom. Whichever source I have used, my focus has always been to make Spanish-language films accessible to the language student, and to use film as a way to teach language and culture. More recently I have also incorporated elements of film analysis into my lessons as well.
In the past few years I have had the opportunity to create two upper-level film courses: the first was 300 level content course called Spanish and Latin American Film in which we explore the cultures and history of Spanish-speaking countries, as well as elements of film analysis through the lens of 10-12 features length films by directors from Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala and other countries. We study many contemporary well-known films such as El Secreto de sus ojos (Juan José Campanella, 2009) and Laberinto del fauno (Guillermo del Toro, 2006) as well as lesser known films such as Chico y Rita (Tono Errando, Javier Mariscal y Fernando Trueba, 2010) and Arráncame la vida (Roberto Sneider, 2008). All films are chosen for their historical or cultural elements, and I try to keep the majority of films recent (last 10 years) simply because they are more appealing to the students. (And I find they are more willing to explore the importance of a movie if they have enjoyed watching it!)
My other course will be taught for the first time this fall and is a 400 level content course called Contemporary Female Writers and Film-Makers of the Spanish-Speaking World. We will explore universal themes such as interpersonal relationships, marginalized peoples, poverty, and ecology through the literature and film created by women. In this course we will study lesser-known films (at least in the U.S.), in part because of the subject matter and in part due to the small number of female filmmakers in the Spanish speaking world that have gained access to the U.S. market (more on that topic coming soon).
Why this blog?
The idea of creating my own blog was born out of the research that I have been conducting in preparation to teach my new course this fall. My struggles to find information on female filmmakers, and to then consolidate this information and process it in a way that will allow me to bring it into the classroom, has lead me here. Although I do anticipate that many of my first posts will be about directoras and their films, I also plan to explore the use of film in general in the Spanish classroom in this blog as well.
