ABSTRACT

Visual narrative as a mode of storytelling embodies ways of knowing at once relational and highly affective. Engaging with Garcia's novel through a creative project that involves selecting images of past or decaying structures triggers students to critically and creatively think about the impact of the landscape in the novel and in the lives of others. Dreaming in Cuban's richness in spatial and cognitive dissonance allow opportunities to form new narratives that encourage identification with experiences and histories that happened to someone else, even when students might be unfamiliar with Cuban American history and culture. In another digital image-based creative assignment he have students consider the novel's rich and imagistic descriptions of the landscape of New York and Cuba. By embracing social media technologies like Twitter/Instagram he has been able to teach Latino/a literature in a way that connects personally to a wide range of students as well as to situate it within the larger global digital age.