Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Wiley and National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Journal.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 194.95.59.195 on Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:10:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Teaching
Spanish
A
Golden
Age:
ternative
MY
University
This content downloaded from 194.95.59.195 on Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:10:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
276
DONALD T. DIETZ
Leon and San Juan de la Cruz was very contemporary. The stage having been set (with Garcilaso) for a consideration of nature, we now
focused on the beatus ille motif. Concurrent with
our reading of such poems as "La vida retirada,"
"Oda a Francisco Salinas," "Noche oscura," the
students expressed their concern with pollution,
the needless waste of natural resources and the
disappearance of wilderness areas. We also dwelt
on the now generation's penchant for orientalism, spiritualism found in books and movies and
in phenomena such as yoga, etc. In general, the
class saw the mystics' withdrawal from society as
an old expression of modern day's escapism in
hippie-yippie cults, liquor, and drugs.5
From the poetry of the mystics we returned to
drama, Lope de Vega's Fuenteovejuna in which
the students found new and fertile motifs upon
which to center their attention. The students
decided that one of the central themes of
Fuenteovejuna is the individual versus the establishment. They were also attracted to Lope's
spirit of democracy and his concern for the
individual which the students equated as their
concern for "the little guy," the Black in the
ghetto, and the Chicano in the lettuce patch.
The role of women in today's society was also a
topic of discussion. It was here I showed how
Lope's respect for the rebel and his own creativity as an artist, his dare-to-be-different attitude are reflected in his plays and in the new
manner in which he wrote them, creating a new
aesthetic. I assigned excerpts from Lope's Arte
nuevo de hacer comedias and impressed upon
the students Lope's innovative role in Spanish
theater.
3EditheJ. Potter speaking of the traditional survey course
states: "Often a pioneer of chronology, it is geared too much
toward the past and lacks a certain appeal to undergraduates
who seek studies about the contemporary world." See her
article, "Revitalization of Foreign Language Programs in
Higher Education," Foreign Language Annals, V. (December, 1971), p. 208.
4For a brief but comprehensive insight into the various
aspects of Don Juan's character see Gerald E. Wade's "The
Character of Tirso's Don Juan" in the introduction to his El
Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de piedra (New York:
Charles Scribner'sSons, 1969), pp. 41-53.
5The Spanish poet, Pedro Salinas, saw the writings of Fray
Luis de Leon and San Juan de la Cruz as an escape from the
hustle and bustle of the real world. See his Reality and the
Poet in Spanish Poetry (Baltimore: TheJohns Hopkins Press,
1966), especially pp. 97-128.
This content downloaded from 194.95.59.195 on Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:10:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
277
This content downloaded from 194.95.59.195 on Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:10:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
278
RENATE A. SCHULZ
ConferenceReports
Sprit of '76:Freedomto Communicate:
The 1976 CentralStatesConference
RENATEA. SCHULZ,State University College of New York at Buffalo
THE EIGHTH ANNUAL meeting of the Central
States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign
Languages was held at the Detroit-Cadillac Hotel in
Detroit, Michigan from April 22-24, 1976. Constance
Knop (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Program
Chairperson for the Conference, organized an outstanding program consisting of three general sessions,
twenty-one special interest sessions, six language sessions (German, French, Spanish, Latin, English as a
Second Language, and Slavic languages), and six
workshops. Naida Dostal (Detroit Public Schools)
served as Local Chairperson, assuring the smooth
organization of the Conference with the help of a competent team of Michigan foreign language teachers.
Each conference participant received a copy of the
published conference proceedings entitled Teaching
for Communication in the Foreign Language Classroom (National Textbook Company, 1976) as part of
his registration fee. The proceedings book contains
ten selected papers representative of the theme and
spirit of the Conference. As was the case with the past
three proceeding books, Student Motivation and the
Foreign Language Teacher (National Textbook Company, 1973), Careers, Communication and Culture in
Foreign Language Teaching (National Textbook
Company, 1974), and The Culture Revolution in Foreign Language Teaching (National Textbook Company, 1975), all speakerswere invited to submit a written version of their presentation to a panel of readers
who made the final selection for publication.
Reflecting our nation's 200th birthday celebration,
the theme selected for this year's Conference was
This content downloaded from 194.95.59.195 on Thu, 02 Apr 2015 10:10:40 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions