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One of my favorite parts of teaching Spanish is reading real literature (not just stories written for language learners) with my students. Recently, I started reading literature with my high school son. I was amazed at how much he enjoyed the stories and how much more engaged he was than when working on grammar or vocabulary.Here are some of my favorite literature pieces to teach. I have used these selections time and again for about twenty years. Most of these stories would be upper level high school or intermediate college level Spanish.
These first two selections are normally what I start out with if students have never read Spanish literature before. (NOTE: Many, but not all, of these selections can be found in Album
.)Signos de Puntuacion by Luis C. Infante - The story of how Sr. Alvarez's last will and testament gets interpreted. His will is written without punctuation. Each of his relatives or acquaintances punctuate his will to benefit themselves. Humorous. Great starter story because the bulk of the story is repeated (the will portion).
Una Carta a Dios by Gregorio Lopez y Fuentes - The humorous story of what happens when a Mexican farmer has complete faith in God and writes Him a letter. There are a lot of resources on the internet to supplement teaching this story as it is incredibly popular with Spanish teachers.
No Oyes Ladrar Los Perros by Juan Rulfo - A man tries to save his wayward son after he has been injured. Poignant and sad.
El Tiempo Borra by Javier de Viana - A short story from Uruguay about a gaucho who was imprisioned for 15 years. He is released. What will he find when he returns to his wife and child?
Continuidad de Los Parques by Julio Cortazar - A man reading a novel becomes a part of the story. As with many of Cortazar's stories the line between reality and fantasy are blurred.
La Nocha Boca Arriba by Julio Cortazar - Another great story with a surprise ending. Two realities are presented: a human sacrifice and a motorcycle accident. The level of reading on this one is a little more advanced. I would save Julio Cortazar's work after students have had some experience in reading in Spanish. Other titles by Cortazar: Casa Tomada, Axolotl.
Un dia de estos by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - While I am really not a fan of Garcia Marquez's longer works (i.e. One Hundred Years of Solitude). This short story of a dentist and a mayor is worth the read.
La Pared by Vicente Blasco Ibanez - A touching story of two families in Spain that overcome a feud when a fire breaks out in one of their homes. How tragedy can bring together enemies.
El Crimen Perfecto by Enrique Anderson Imbert - A story from an Argentine author about a man who believes that he has committed the perfect crime. Very humorous with a touch of fantasy.
Need more ideas for teaching Spanish? Visit my other blog, Debbie's Spanish Learning.
6 comments:
Gracias por las recomendaciones. También fui maestra de español, y ahora me quedo en casa con mis tres hijos jóvenes (de cuatro años y menos). Estoy planeando a enseñarles en casa (solo un año me queda hasta el Kindergarten - ¡como crecen los niños!) Me alegro mucho que haya encontrado tu blog. ¡Gracias!
Toni
Debbie, I enjoyed las cajas de carton. That may be the title and it meant cardboard boxes. It is about a boy who is a migrant worker. The story starts out with the family moving, using cardboard boxes. They move to a town where the family picks a crop and the boy goes to school. One day the boy's teacher offers to teach him how to play the trumpet the next day. The boy returns home to see stacks of cajas de carton. Polly
Hello, Debbie, I would like to buy some stories for high school..But my students haven't had SpanishTeacher for 2 years..Also They don't like spanish..It is so hard to me.. What is your advice, please?
Hi, i read your blog from time to time aand i own a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot
oof spam responses? If so how do you stop it, any
plugikn or anything you can recommend? I get so much lately
it's driving me crazy soo any assistance is very much
appreciated.
Yes, I do get spam. I am not sure of a plug-in or anything like that. I just report it as spam and delete it.
It's not on your end. It is because many of the photos on my blog were hosted by Photobucket. Last year they decided that they would charge about $400 a year to continue posting photos on blogs. I wasn't willing to pay that and haven't had the time to re-upload photos.
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