Job Opportunity

Escuela en Cupey busca maestro(a) de ingles de elemental con licencia y preferiblemente con experiencia.
Pueden enviar resume al fax  (787) 755-4380.

Upcoming Teacher Training Program

Starting May 28^th, 2008

Equivalent to 10 CEP Hours

Learn how to use the latest educational technology to teach your ESL students. Share with your colleagues in a workshop format covering: blogging, Smartboard, interactive PowerPoint use, among others!

This program is sponsored by a grant from the USDA Hispanic Serving Institutions Education Program (PI Cathy Mazak, CoPI Rosita Rivera).

If you would like to receive more information:

·        Write to our email: usdaenglish@uprm.edu

·        Log on to: http://academic.uprm.edu/usdaenglish

·        Contact: Sandra Soto sss15626@uprm.edu

·        Contact: Zaira Arvelo zaira.arvelo@upr.edu

Invitation: OUR STUDENTS’ WORK

The English Department community (faculty, students and staff) is cordially invited to the following presentations of our students’ work:

MEDIA WRITING IN THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM

Students enrolled in ENGL 3268: Writing for the Communications Media will present various media projects (posters, brochures, features, videos) about English Department faculty and student initiatives.

When? Wednesday, May 14 at 12:00 p.m.

Where? Chardón 318

Light refreshments will be served!

BECOMING RESEARCHERS: PRESENTATION OF RESEARCH PROPOSALS

MAEE students enrolled in ENGL 6006: Research Methods will present their original research designs, which engage in ongoing debates about such topics as: the teaching of English as a Second Language in Puerto Rico; technology, new media and (English) literacies; definitions of and challenges to the literary canon from a (post)colonial perspective; English varieties and English competencies in the classroom and beyond; pedagogical practices in the ESL classroom; multicultural and critical language education, among others.

When? Wednesday, May 14 at 6:00 p.m.

Where? Chardón 318

Light refreshments will be served!

Questions? jgeliga@uprm.edu

Testimonios AfroPuertorriqueños successfully completed its Spring “tour”!

(from J. A. Géliga Vargas)

AfroPuerto Rican Testimonies: An Oral History Project in Western Massachusetts (a.k.a. Testimonios AfroPuertorriqueños) is an ongoing research project that began in September 2006 as a collaboration between faculty members Jocelyn A. Géliga Vargas and José Irizarry, community leaders from Aguadilla and Hormigueros, and UPRM students from the English and Social Sciences departments. After 18 months of collective organization, training, research and dissemination activities, we received many invitations to present the preliminary results of our inquiry into contemporary AfroPuerto Rican identities this Spring.

On March 1, MAEE student Irmaris Rosas, community leaders Tania Delgado and Luis Soto and I presented our project at a special session of the College English Association-Caribbean Chapter Conference, held at UPR-Arecibo. On March 12, MAEE student Fabiola Barrera, community leaders Alfredo González, Tania Delgado and Brunilda Rosa and I co-presented our project in a two-hour session of the weeklong event Literacy and Community, organized the Department of English at UPR-Aguadilla. The following day Irmaris, Fabiola, Social Sciences student Luis Daniel Cruz, community leaders Brunilda Rosa and Carlos Delgado and I offered an hour-long presentation at UPR-Mayagüez in the context of the Semana de la afropuertorriqueñidad, organized by the Humanities Department’s Agenda Cultural initiative. On April 30, Irmaris, Fabiola, Luis Daniel and I joined community leaders Alfredo González, Brunilda Rosa and Luis Soto in a two-hour presentation offered at a well-attended and stimulating community forum in Aguadilla.

Our project has caught the attention of campus, regional and national media. In December 2007 it was featured in the first issue of the UPRM research publication Sin Límites and in the weekly newspaper Claridad. An op/ed column about our project, authored by Carlos Delgado, was published in El Nuevo Día on February 3, 2008; an extended and collectively written version of this article was requested by co-editors Miriam Jiménez and Juan Flores for publication in their forthcoming reader about Afrolatin@s (Duke University Press). More recently, our project was featured on the UPRM website (March 14-21, 2008), the weekly regional newspaper La Estrella (April 3, 2008), and El Nuevo Día (Revista Oeste, April 30, 2008).

My paper titled “El incierto proyecto del ‘cine nacional’ puertorriqueño ante el colonialismo y la globalización” was published in the latest edition of the journal Atenea (vol. XXVII, no. 2). At the request of the editor of the Caribbean Studies journal Sargasso, I recently submitted the article “Testimonios Afropuertorriqueños: Using Oral History to (Re)Write Race in Contemporary Puerto Rico,” co-authored by Irmaris Rosas and Tania Delgado, for a forthcoming issue on “Alternative Identities: Belonging and Resistance.”

CGS recognizes MAEE graduate Aleida Ferrer!!!!

MAEE graduate Aleida Ferrer was recognized in a recent publication by the Council of Graduate Schools (Washington, DC). Her thesis project (“The Design and Creation of a Bilingual Phonemic Awareness Test for Puerto Rico”) was the only one from Puerto Rico listed in the CGS publication Making a Difference: A Selection of Graduate Degree Holders and their Contributions to the Public Good. Congratulations to Ms. Ferrer, to the Chair of her committee, Dr. Elizabeth Dayton, and to her committee members, Drs. Eileen Blau and Billy Woodall.

Film Certificate News

El Abuelo, a short film by UPRM graduate Antonio Yordan, starring Miguel Angel Suarez, and funded by the Puerto Rico Film Commission, has been accepted by the 36th Annual Festival Internacional de Cine de Huesca in Huesca, Spain (June 5-14, 2008), and will compete in the Concurso Iberamericano de Cortometrajes.

Representatives of our Film Certificate will participate in the Open House and Expo Cine hosted by Taller de Cine on Saturday, May 3. Taller de Cine has operated for more than 8 years out of Jose Gautier Benitez High School in Caguas. The Open House will offer a series of pre-produccion, produccion, and post-produccion workshops given by Puerto Rican production companies, There will be guest appearances by Puerto Rican actors and filmmakers Noel Quinones, Rita Moreno and Miguel Angel Alvaraez, and film showings. We will be publicizing our certificate and showing films produced by our students in this important event in which all of the film programs in Puerto Rico will be represented.

Article Published in CENTRO

My very first peer-reviewed article was published in the Spring edition of CENTRO, the journal for the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.  The article represents the core of my dissertation work, and is titled “Negotiating el difícil: Uses of English text in a rural Puerto Rican community.”  -Cathy Mazak 

Review of CENTRO in El Nuevo Día

The recent issue of the journal CENTRO, in which both former MAEE student Kevin Carrol and I have an article, was reviewed this week in the newspaper El Nuevo Día.  You can read the review, where it mentions our names, at the following link:http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/revistas/revistas/revistas_recientes/397096-Cathy Mazak 

Digital Novilla Invitation

Dr. Mary E. Sefranek would like to invite you to the closing activity of her 2007-2008 Faculty of Arts and Sciences Seed Grant, “Portraits of San Sebastián: The Production of Digital Narratives in la Escuela Nueva Elemental Urbana”, at which her sixth grade research participants will formally present their collaborative bilingual book, Digital Novilla/Novilla digital, to the public. The book is based on the annual Festival de la Novilla (Calf Festival) that occurs the second Sunday of each January. The “unveiling” of this digital (open-access) publication and students’ presentation will take place on Friday, May 16, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in the Benito Fred Theater of San Sebastián and is sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English, Altrusa Internacional, Inc. de San Sebastián, the Department of Education (District of San Sebastián), and the City of San Sebastián. Invitations will be placed in your mailboxes or delivered to you in person.

Scholarship opportunity for incoming MAEE students

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