“Aprendamos Sabiduría de los Géneros Literarios”. | Mexico

“Let’s Learn Wisdom from Literary Genres.”

By Mr. Diego Armando Bello Nieto.

Introduction: It is a strategy that I have undertaken for several school years, with the purpose of reinforcing knowledge about the three great Literary Genres: Lyric, Dramatic and Narrative, from reading literary works and biographies of authors.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I realized that basic level students lack knowledge about literary works and authors; for this reason, I decided to generate a line of work that, along with the Spanish content, will be addressed in the classroom and thus, meet two objectives: advance in our thematic program of the subject and review the literary genres.

First, what are the genres of literature? There are three main literary genres: poetry, theater, and narratives. The works within each genre share certain characteristics that place them in the same category. In addition, the categories of literature can be divided into subgenres, which teachers study, review, and analyze on various occasions, depending on the programmatic progress of the Spanish 1, Spanish 2, and Spanish 3 subjects, referring to secondary education, as is the case in our Agua Caliente Technical Secondary School, belonging to the Municipality of Contepec, Michoacán de Ocampo, Mexico.

Development: Since the school year is divided into three quarters, the times for each of the literary genres were assigned as follows; that is, in the first quarter we reviewed the narrative genre, in the second quarter we addressed the lyrical genre through the literary anthology, we reviewed poetry, in addition to the writing and recitation of the poem “Todos Santos” at our public Day of the Dead event in 2022, and in the third quarter, which we have been working on since March 2023, we began to develop the dramatic genre.

Narrative consists of the author using the figure of the narrator to relate events involving characters. This genre is characterized by descriptions of people, real or fictional situations and environments, and through them, it relates actions and events that happened in a given space and time, in addition to including dialogues between the characters. Therefore, it is necessary for the student to recognize and identify examples of narrative texts for their appreciation and to encourage the creation of their own narrative texts, so that from their perspective and imagination they can communicate inside and outside of school, with precision in any kind.

For this reason, from September to November 2022, we addressed narrative texts and authors, through activities to reinforce fundamental knowledge, such as the mental map of narrative texts, where Don Quixote was drawn and the concepts of narrative subgenres were added. In addition, we read and carried out activities on the texts of "Romulus and Remus" and "Thor" to make comics and drawings of the characters, and they were also asked to research, write and present a myth from a world culture.

After reviewing the life and work of Mary Shelley, I decided to create a transversal activity to apply and generate evidence and advances of the New Mexican School, by combining the subjects of Arts and Spanish, by creating an iconic figure of Frankenstein from recycled material.

Now, the lyrical genre groups texts in which the author expresses emotions or feelings. They are subjective texts, since the writer presents reality from his own experience and through the art of words he expresses his thoughts, reflecting his moods, experiences, feelings and emotions, which today are an important topic for academic work, since we develop socio-emotional education.

With the aim of initiating and addressing lyrical subgenres, from November 2022 to February 2023, various tasks and didactic actions were carried out, such as the writing of the poem "Todos Santos", and its memorization for its recitation by the First Grade, and later it was requested as a quarterly project, the creation, design, writing and presentation of Literary Analogy, where lyrical texts were integrated, for their appreciation and knowledge by the students of the three academic grades of our Agua Caliente Technical Secondary School, being observed by the community.

We also talk about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, through the reading of her biography and the creation of a timeline of the life and work of the greatest poet of Spanish literature, as well as the reading of a fragment of Hojarasca and the writing of the biography of its author, Gabriel García Márquez.

The dramatic genre popularly known as theatre brings together literary creations in dialogue with the intention of being represented on a stage, before an audience, coordinated by a director and executed by actors. Dramatic works arise from the relationships of the characters that the author represents or describes, with the necessary indications to know what they do or feel, for the enjoyment of the reader, but above all, to create or revive a spectator.

Finally, in the third quarter, students have been reviewing topics of the dramatic genre since last March and will continue to work on them until next July, starting with the creation of masks with a sheet of paper of their choice, creating the symbol of theatre; in addition to the reading of a fragment of “Romeo and Juliet” by the students, they also created a word search based on the characters of William Shakespeare’s work. Among other works, which we will review from now on, to reinforce their knowledge of the dramatic genre.

Reflection: Showing and narrating this type of activities is an epic, because synthesizing months of work in a few pages is insufficient to recognize the effort and dedication of my students, who surprise me every day and encourage me to improve my teaching strategies, which will undoubtedly be the bases for their academic and personal development, by promoting their humanistic, cultural and artistic part, which will seek to make them better children, great human beings and incredible students, because as Sor Juana said: "Without clarity there is no voice of wisdom."

The world of letters is wonderful, and there will always be an opportunity to learn the wisdom of literary works that teach us to dream and understand our past, understand our present and transform our future.