ABSTRACT
As foreign language departments innovate their curricula to ensure to that students develop cultural knowledge, they are also faced with the need to expand offerings to a wider audience. This has led to the development of courses that incorporate aspects of the target language and also offer content of interest to students from other disciplines including film and media, anthropology, archaeology, history, and classics among others. This paper outlines a discussion-based course designed to foster awareness of myths and legends in Hispanic culture among language and nonlanguage majors. Opportunities for students to engage with the Spanish language are assured through the use of Spanish in the presentation of themes and small group discussions among students with varying levels of language proficiency. Students explore myths and legends from a theoretical perspective and reflect on stories that form part of their own cultural identities. Creation myths, sacred spaces, gods and goddesses, heroes and tricksters, concepts of the afterlife, as well as 20th-century cultural myths are key themes within the course. Suggested learning outcomes, information on key readings, lesson plans, and specific assessment tasks are discussed.
