A Spanish language writing instructor encourages her students to rethink the formal essay.
In Spring 2024, in lieu of a traditional final essay in Spanish 301: Advanced Spanish Writing, I experimented with a different form: a visual (also known as graphic or multimodal) essay. First-year students, sophomores, juniors and seniors were enrolled in the class. Three planned to major in Spanish, while others were finishing their language requirement. All of them entered at an intermediate-mid or intermediate-high level of proficiency and had taken Spanish classes for years (in high school) or for several semesters at Duke.
The Bacca Fellowship (truly, a cohort of friendly scholars) was a fantastic opportunity that helped shape my ideas, quite oblique early on, into a rewarding project.
Here is how I introduced the assignment to my twelve undergraduate students.
Why a multimodal essay?
Our world is multimodal. Students (since forever) have been writing formal essays. The formal essay is wonderful. I'm a fan of essays. I love reading them. A highlight of my undergraduate career was writing them. But I wondered what would happen if we were to include more of our senses: visual, aural (tactile? olfactory?) to communicate well-researched ideas to a wider audience, to make knowledge more visible.
Topic. Identify a topic of interest to you. What kind of topic? Something rooted in the Spanish-speaking world. A topic that has multiple points of view (contentious, even), so that it's interesting to write and to read. Something from the last few months. A topic with multiple stakeholders. For example, if writing about an environmental bill in Ecuador, who are the interested parties? Most likely, the government of Ecuador, environmental groups and non-profits, business entities, indigenous groups; the list may go on. A good topic will reveal many points of view. Don’t forget the "X" factor. A minor point, but helpful to some students: X (formerly Twitter) is a great place to explore and see what kinds of things are addressed on the ground, (and maybe in a less formal, journalistic way). If you want to explore the topic of Mexico and women's rights, go to X and look up Mexico and derechos de mujeres. Then, do a Google News search to see if there are similar hits. Can you start building a bibliography?
Audience. Identify your target audience. In academia, the audience is your professor, in addition to very attentive and supportive peers. What would happen if you were to open your research to a wider audience? Even if it's just one person outside of the classroom? In addition to Profesora Merschel and your classmates, think of one (or more) people you'd really like to share your work with (Spanish-speaking or not). A family member? A good friend? A former high school teacher? A roommate? You might send them your work to look through, or sit down and walk them through it. Even non-Spanish speakers will appreciate the product you made, precisely because you thought of them, and you're sharing it with them.
Medium. How do you want your target audience (professor, classmates, and your chosen audience outside of class) to experience the work? Do you enjoy experimenting with new technologies? Microsoft Sway is a tool that may work for you, and it’s available to students through the Outlook 365 suite. Would you like to avoid technology altogether and make a zine?
Length. Between 1,600-2,000 words, equivalent to roughly 6-8 pages (excluding the Works Cited page)
Is this still an essay? Yes, it's still an essay in which you stake a claim. You'll carry out all the preparation and work that all other students in other sections of this course are doing.
How will I be graded? Make this fun for yourself. Something you (at least kind of) look forward to making and presenting informally to your classmates and me in the last week of classes. You will not receive a grade on that oh-so-nebulous, subjective, and intimidating term "creativity." The rubric is the one used in all sections of this course.
The Outcome
I was pleased with the results of this experiment. Students took various paths. Most used Microsoft Sway to create their visual essay, and I was thankful to have spent no class time walking them through the technology. One student turned in her essay via a Microsoft Word document with inserted graphs and pictures throughout. One student produced a handmade zine. One student, who traveled to Costa Rica on a Duke-sponsored trip during spring break, uploaded her own photographs to support her essay on the environmental and economic crossroads that Costa Rica is facing. Here is one example of a student essay, by first-year student Hannah Jiang, who used a green-colored theme to align with the “green wave/marea verde” of abortion rights activists. One student copied me on an email that shared his essay with his high school Spanish teacher. Another student, who wrote about migration at the U.S./Mexico border, shared her essay with her sister, who was in law school working to become an immigration attorney.
This assignment is presented at the beginning of the semester and is heavily scaffolded: students go through many steps on their way to the final product. They read widely to explore topics, brainstorm with their peers about possible topics, meet with me several times to make sure they’re on the right track, turn in a draft thesis statement, an annotated bibliography, an outline, a proposal, a first draft, a second draft, and a final version. It’s not until the final version that they submit the multimodal container of their work. They come to class and talk and write extemporaneously (and without notes or dictionaries) about their topic. They read each other’s work and provide feedback during several of the above stages.
Still, I wondered about the use of artificial intelligence when they were away from our shared space, so I asked them to complete a simple, anonymous Google form along the way that asked 1). If and how they were using outside tools and 2). If they used artificial intelligence, did they find certain tools helpful and why. Some students reported turning to tools such as ChatGPT or SpanishDict to doublecheck their grammar and vocabulary usage, but my overall sense is that these projects were indeed their own.
I want to extend my gratitude to Nan Mulleanneaux, Silvia Serrano, Melissa Simmermeyer, and the 2023-2024 Bacca cohort for their fellowship and encouragement.
Sources
Becerril, Daniel. “Mujer sostiene pancarta con el mensaje 'Es mi cuerpo, yo decido.'” 7 Sept. 2021. Human Rights Watch, Reuters, https://www.hrw.org/es/news/2022/06/22/mientras-ee-uu-limita-el-acceso-al-aborto-algunos-estados-de-mexico-lo-extienden
Jiang, Hannah. “La batalla polémica por el aborto en México.” 6 May, 2024. Student paper.
IMAGE CREDIT: Daniel Becerril
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lisa Merschel
