As the school year winds down, Advanced Spanish Literary Themes, taught by Sra. Alice Montera, has begun to reflect on its years of experience in Spanish education at Fieldston. In an effort to take their language outside the classroom and give back to the community, the students have created individual final projects in an area of their personal interest.
The projects included four main parts: engagement, investigation, giving back to the community, and reflection. In the engagement section, students identified an area of personal interest that required them to use Spanish outside of the classroom in a new way. In the “give-back” portion of the project, the students had to publicly share their discoveries and process with Fieldston in some form or another during the week of May 5th through 9th.
The individual projects covered a huge spectrum of themes and mediums: an artistic response to Hispanic museums and art in New York City; a study of the culture and history of the arepa; three documentaries: one exploring the mixture of culture and language at Fieldston (http://goo.gl/LD4vQN), one about the Nuyorican Poet’s Café, and one about the experience of undocumented immigrants in New York City; learning salsa and teaching the dance at Ethical Culture; a photo essay of three New York neighborhoods from the perspective of three Latino athletes; interviews about the lives of eight different Spanish-speaking employees on the Upper West Side (http://goo.gl/mXBJoz); student teaching with Señora Mella in Fieldston Lower School; learning about Dominican cuisine from an expert and preparing the dishes for the community; “Humanos de Nueva York,” a photo essay of Latino New York (http://goo.gl/HEi6iQ), and more.
