Unit 1: Columbus and the Indigenous reality.

Description: When Columbus arrived in the American continent in 1492, he brought back series of testimonies in his diary. This diary, intended to be read by the king and queen of Spain, however, the diary has been read throughout the years by millions of people, specially students all around the world. The importance of this document is obvious, but its content can result problematic. This unit will study the content of these early document while putting them in context and analysing the implications this text has had in the shaping of our society nowadays.

Content of the primary text:

As this text was addressed to the monarchs of Spain, its content is mainly informative and propagandistic. This is why we need to read it with a pinch of salt.

Columbus offers a personal statement of the lands and peoples that he found along the way. The first important parameter to internalise before reading this text is that the point of view of this text is biased and very limited. Students will be expected to broaden this view in order to perform an analytical reading of Columbus' diary.

Before reading the primary text, students will receive a historical introduction to place the diary within a time and place. They will also receive a manual with important dates, maps and facts about Columbus' journey. You can use this manual while reading the text, along with other external sources.

Materials: Columbus' diary, by Christopher Columbus, Deep Rivers by Jose Maria Arguedas and a selection of poems by Humberto Ak'Abal.

Content of Secondary Texts:

The novel Deep Rivers by Arguedas tells the story of a little boy navigating two worlds: The exploited Indigenous world and the despotic world of the "Hacendados". This novel belongs to the Indigenist genre and will work as an introduction and transition to our third text for the course.

The poems of Humberto Ak'abal can be found both in Spanish and Kiche (Mayan). The poems deal with various topics and students will be able to pick their poem from a selection of 6 poems.

Unit Plan:

This unit will star with an introductory history lesson on the journey of Columbus. This will help contextualise the primary text, as well as serve as an informative session. Students will learn from an objective point of view on the events that led to the writing of Columbus' Journal. Next, students will be required to read the primary text. This will be divided in different sections per session for the duration of three weeks. Each day, sections will be analysed using the historical events learnt in the first two sessions. Also, each day, the professor will pick a particular fragment and the class, as a whole, will discuss it.

These discussions will start by answering a number of questions that will, hopefully, lead to a more dynamic discussion of the issues raised by the texts. Through these discussions, the class will create a list with characteristics of the genre that will keep growing week after week. The professor will email an updated version of this list to all the students.

Once the primary text is read, there will be a review session to draw conclusions and opinions about the entire text. This will work both as a review and a wrap up session. After this session, the students will have a week to work on a report on their personal views and ideas on one of the issues discussed in class, or one of the aspects dealt with in the text, for example: The role of religion in the conquest of America, or the descriptions made by Columbus of the Indigenous people he encountered.

2. The second text, Deep Rivers, will help to create a contrast between the primary text and other points of view observed in this novel. The students will use the lists that they created while reading Columbus' Journal and write a paragraph under each of the characteristics on how the new reading agrees or disagrees with the previous genre. Every week, one of the sessions will consist of a historical lecture on the period of this novel, as well as an introduction to the literary theory of Latin American literature. The second session will consist of a discussion where questions will be raised by the professor and the commentary of the characteristics will be shared with the class.

For the final session dedicated to this second text, the students will bring a list of characteristics of this novel. This will be used to determine the genre of the novel (Indigenist literature). Also, students must bring a list of the issues raised by the novel and will discuss which of this issues still exists in today's society. They will write a brief personal statement on the importance of dealing with these issues in literature and how this can help solve these problems. If they believe that literature cannot help solving these issues, then, they will have to come up with other solutions that they think might work.

3. The final text to be read is a selection of Humberto Ak'Abal's poems. These poems are written both in Spanish and K'iche (Mayan), this will make students a little familiar with, at least, one indigenous language. The poems will be read and analyse during one session in class. Then, there will be a second session on Mayan culture and history, including a little introduction of the Popol Vuh.

Students will then pick one poem to write a brief essay about. They will formally analyse the poem and then draw possible connections with Mayan. culture, there might not be any that they can find, in that case, they will have to come with other connections or interpretations. They will also devote a section of the essay to explore the issues that the poems talk about, they will decide why are these issues important, or who suffers these issues.

The final sessions will be about the importance of Indigenous literature nowadays and how the personal experience of these authors is relevant for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Students will discuss present- day representation of Indigenous people in other media, for example movies like Avatar, or El Dorado. Student will decide if the stereotypes established by the first encounter between cultures are still present in today's society or if these have disappeared.

Final Project:

Students will choose from a variety of topics and formats for their final project for unit 1:

Analysis of Genres: By comparing the characteristics of the three texts, students will create a study of the three different genres with their characteristics and propose and find other examples from each genre.
Poem: The student can choose to write a poem following the examples from Ak'Abal's poetry, but will have to include a topic from the Popol Vuh studied in class.
Students can create a dictionary of K'iche words that they find in the poems and from other sources, they will also try to create sentences.
Students can write a short story belonging to the Indigenist genre, the issues of this story have to be of current interest.
Students can do an investigation project on one issue that affects Indigenous communities nowadays, they will also need to propose solutions for these problems.
Apply the differentiation of genres and the detection of stereotypes to other genres: Movies, comic, fashion, etc.

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