Abstract
Many intermediate Spanish foreign language teachers are currently “teaching culture” as a series of facts that are added to lessons sporadically when time allows. Research shows that high school-level Spanish teachers predominately focus on teaching grammatical structures and vocabulary because this is what textbooks and exams, including the National Spanish Exam, emphasize. This thesis argues that by reading and discussing the short stories of the Costa Rican writer Quince Duncan, students will be able to learn about the country’s history and culture from the perspectives of his characters while, also, still learning grammar and vocabulary. Duncan’s characters are members of the country’s minority West Indian community and have been left out of the nation’s dominant historical narrative, la leyenda blanca. By examining the non-dominate culture through these characters and their lives, the idea of a national culture will be problematized and students will learn for than just factual knowledge. This thesis provides teachers with materials to teach about Costa Rica’s historical events through the lens Duncan's stories provide. Students can become aware of the ways in which people at the margins and centers of a society view each other and interact and also begin to consider these interactions in their own cultures. Along with a detailed summary of four of Duncan’s stories, are lists of key vocabulary, historical background summaries, teaching suggestions, and discussion questions that will allow teachers to insert these stories into existing curricula.