Dante’s Inferno is a text that is as difficult to read as it is fascinating. However fun it is to teach, it can be frustrating for students to encounter the hundreds of characters whose names are devoid of meaning and context. Like Dante himself, students need a guide to take them through Hell. But how to teach them to guide themselves? In line with my Fren 1200 course … Continue reading Playing Dante in 2015

This is a followup to the post Cross-Cultural Student Poetry as it comes from the same assignment. Once again, in my Fren 2120 class of  Spring 2015, I have a few students who demonstrated mastery of French in only their fourth semester, composing thoughtful and moving poems. These two in particular took philosophical views of their lives and used them to recreate the original poem. Rather than … Continue reading Student Poetry, vol.2

This post is shortened from a paper given at the Image of the Hero conference (Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, Colorado Springs, CO 3/20/14). The paper was well-received and sparked an interesting discussion at the conference, and I hope others will enjoy it as well! Continue reading Arya’s Odyssey and Aragorn’s Actium

Here is an exciting article from Boulder’s city newspaper, the Daily Camera, on my new class starting this fall, Fren 1200 Medieval Epic Through the Lens of Game of Thrones. Continue reading Class of Thrones

This post came from an assignment in my Fren 2120 class during fall semester 2013. Students practiced relative pronouns through poetry modeled on Jean Arceneau’s 1998 poem Je suis Cadien. This poem recounts the history of the Cajun people, from emigration to Acadia, through forced immigration to Louisiana, and to the challenges of assimilation into contemporary American culture. In composing a poem inspired by the Cajun … Continue reading Cross-Cultural Student Poetry