On April 11 and 12, Rachel Parroquin gave an invited lecture, “El papel de la familia, los maestros y los mediadores en el camino de la lectura autónoma” to two cohorts in the Diplomado Internacional en Promoción de la Literatura Infantil y Juvenil (LIJ). The program helps teachers, professors, and promotores to develop skills and knowledge in the field of children’s literature from both a theoretical and applied perspective that includes action research; the program is in its eleventh year. Students meet weekly for ten months, three hours per week.
The diplomado is offered through Universidad La Salle Oaxaca with funding support from the Fundación Alfredo Harp Helú Oaxaca (FAHHO) and coordination from Seguimos Leyendo, a key organization among those supported by FAHHO. Students and faculty in the diplomado are from several countries, including Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Spain, with the majority from Mexico, and specifically the state of Oaxaca. Guest faculty for the diplomado include well known figures in LIJ and pedagogy, including prolific writers like Sergio Andricaín, Antonio Rubio, Ana Serrano, José Urriola, and Irene Vasco.
The opportunity for Parroquin to work with the diplomado was coordinated by Dr. Socorro Bennetts, the executive director of Seguimos Leyendo. Parroquin met Bennetts last spring during her faculty exchange semester at the UPAEP in Mexico through Martha Serdio, a professional storyteller and long-time host for Notre Dame students who study abroad in Puebla. Bennetts presented to Parroquin’s Once Upon a Time class last fall. Parroquin had the opportunity to reciprocate by teaching Bennetts’ students in the diplomado program.
Parroquin shared Jennifer Pigza’s (2016) POWER Model - a foundational theoretical chapter for Notre Dame’s Spanish Community-Engaged Learning program - and its application to engaged projects between universities, schools, and community organizations. She also presented work based on Ernest Morrell’s Every Child a Super Reader (2015) written with Pam Allyn for specific ways to cultivate independent reading habits in children. The version of Morrell’s work Parroquin shared with the students had been translated by Elena Mangione-Lora’s Introduction to Translation and Interpretation: Theory and Practice CEL class in 2019 for a parent literacy night at Holy Cross School. Parroquin finished the session with multiple examples of engaged work done in a variety of the courses in our department’s Spanish CEL program. Student feedback on the sessions showed that they appreciated the theory and its methodological framework, the respectful way of working together that the model promotes between university or school and community partners, and implications for how they can apply it to their own action research projects.
Parroquin and Bennetts will be discussing further collaborations this summer for both the diplomado program in Oaxaca and with the Once Upon a Time class at Notre Dame for the fall semester.
Photo Information: El Campito student and Notre Dame student in Andrea Topash-Ríos's CEL class: Bridging the Gap: Multiple Literacies and Connecting Society, Community, and Self.
Photography: Marc Parroquín.