![]() ![]() They are the afterthoughts to our Austen, to our Dickens, to our Poe. We read our Sandra Cisneros, our Gary Soto, our Julia Alvarez-all authors I particularly love-but these writers are too often only the sprinkles on the vanilla frosting in our classrooms. Of course we explored a pittance of multicultural literature. It’s the experience my children had, and it’s the experience I witnessed everywhere I taught. It’s certainly the experience I had as a student and what I repeated as a teacher. Perhaps teaching English language arts in the United States means we have a natural inclination to be Anglo-centric in our literary choices. We are remiss and unappreciative of this prolific writer who, as far as I know, never had the veracity of his authorship doubted or debated. We have a generation of students who know nothing of the works of a man who rivals Shakespeare, a culture of citizens who know nothing more of Cervantes than one character and tilting windmills. Over and over again, I read posts and links to articles from friends and fellow educators commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare, but none of these friends and educators-or media outlets-ever mentioned the 400th anniversary of the death of the world’s most famous Spanish writer. Cervantes might say that from so little sleeping and so much reading, my brain dried up and I went completely out of my mind. Why had I never considered this? Even now I feel a little idiotic and embarrassed to admit that I never recognized this. They were contemporaries who also died around the same time. I came to realize that Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare lived and wrote at the same time. Regardless of what unit we happened to be on at the time, I always managed to insert some homage to Shakespeare into my April lesson plans.īut a real aha moment happened for me as I scrolled through that post on the Facebook page of the Santillana Spanish Classroom. For years, my English classes celebrated the life and death of William Shakespeare. Hoy conmemoramos el IV Centenario de la muerte de Miguel de Cervantes, el más célebre escritor de la lengua española de todos los tiempos, con “El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha.” ❼uál es tu frase favorita? #400Cervantes #DíadellibroĪnd all the pieces, los pedazos, began to come together. Even my beloved NPR rang bard-centric in the waning days of April.Īnd as a former high school English teacher, all this focus on Will-well, “small things make base men proud.” After all, who doesn’t enjoy a primer on Shakespearean insults? That’s rhetorical, “you blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!”īut all this Bard bravado also made me a little sad when I came across this social media post: Towards the latter part of April, my social media-populated by linguaphiles, bibliophiles, teachers, thinkers, and lots of former students-reverberated with all things Shakespeare. This post is writ ten by NCTE member, Michael Guevara. ![]()
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