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The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most prolific and distinguished Spanish American novelists of the twentieth century and the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, is also the author of eight plays, which have frequently been overshadowed by his narrative production. Going beyond the relationship traced by critics between his novels and his plays, this essay underscores the prevalence in his theatrical work of a tug of war between biographical and autobiographical voices as part of a fundamental exploration of real and fictional memory. From Vargas Llosa's early plays of the 1980s to his most recent ones, he has frequently dramatized the life of both real and imaginary, famous and infamous others and selves, creating the illusion that the audience is witnessing someone's life trajectory. This is the analytical angle from which this essay approaches not only Vargas Llosa's first play, La seorita de Tacna (1981), but in particular one of his most recent ones, Odiseo y Penélope (2007). In both analyses, the definitions of biographical and autobiographical discourses are interpreted in light of theatrical representation, underscoring in this way the subjective, dramatic, and metaphorical perspectives of these expressions. © 2012 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Vast and fast technological advancements mark the new millennium. New emerging technologies are changing the world and our society at a magnitude and scope never witnessed before. Who are our students in this new millennium? What do they look like? Are they a fundamentally different new generation as some claim, or do they still look similar to us in many ways? A clear understanding of the characteristics of our students is vitally important for our educational practice. The current study was conducted to contribute to this understanding. The findings of the study show that while students nowadays do enjoy a much broader access to new technology than students of the past, they still look similar to us in many ways. As educators, it is important for us to treat our students as individuals instead of just labeling them and placing them in a black and white dichotomy.

Communicative approaches to language teaching that emphasize the importance of speaking (e.g., task-based language teaching) require innovative and evidence-based means of assessing oral language. Nonetheless, research has yet to produce an adequate assessment model for oral language (Chun 2006; Downey et al. 2008). Limited by automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, which compares non-native speaker discourse to native-like discourse, most tests exclusively focus on accuracy while ignoring how examinees use language to make meaning. In order to offer stakeholders more trustworthy evidence of how examinees might use language in target language domains, a model anchored in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is put forth. Specific examples are given of how SFL might be used to evaluate test task types, such as the story retell:three examinees' responses are contrasted using genre analysis (Derewianka 1990) and transitivity analysis (Ravelli 2000) in order to demonstrate elements in their linguistic profiles that ASR-based assessment would overlook. In so doing, implications are drawn regarding the potential of SFL models for enhancing automated scoring procedures by focusing on the meaning-form relations in the linguistic construction of narrative.

Research has shown a disjunction between language instruction at the lower and upper levels of foreign language (FL) study. Whereas lower-division courses focus on grammatical patterns, upper-level courses focus on specific content. The third-year writing course is in a unique position to help learners prepare for the types of learning that they will encounter in more advanced language use contexts. Using grounded classroom ethnography, this multiple case study of two classrooms chronicles how a collaborative partnership between an instructor and an applied linguist facilitated the integration of two types of technology into a third-year Spanish writing course at a North American University. Technology was carefully chosen based on pedagogical considerations and teacher goals. Students in these courses included a mixture of heritage and FL Spanish learners with a mean age of 21 years. Findings included four ways that technology played a role in third-year Spanish language learning, including as: (a) a way to alleviate their workloads, (b) a motivator, (c) a way to improve the quality and quantity of feedback students received in the course, and in some cases (d) antagonistic to language learning. Implications of classroom ethnography for research on blended learning are drawn. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Marked inequities or disparities in health care and health outcomes exist for millions in the United States of America. Urban apartheid and increasing social stratification separate social groups making it difficult for them to understand each other. Many U.S. health care professionals, including nurses, hold negative stereotypes toward the urban poor and disenfranchised. Creating vehicles for understanding and respect between health care professionals and the social groups they care for is needed. Cultural humility uses self-reflection, self-critique, openness and transcendence to address power inequities between providers and clients. "Critical service-learning" is a type of "service-learning" that adopts the tenets of critical theory and pedagogy in engaged partnerships to foster social responsibility and a justice-oriented framework. The purpose of this article is to showcase Project Horizon, an innovative university-based health and social advocacy partnership that uses critical service learning with the urban community to foster cultural humility. Project Horizon outcomes show that this long-term engaged partnership is an effective vehicle for developing and enhancing cultural humility among health care professionals participating in the endeavor. Implications: Replication of social and health advocacy projects such as the one conducted through Project Horizon can be made in other settings to increase the capacity for democratically oriented nurses and other health care professionals who have an enhanced sense of cultural humility.

Despite the recent vogue in studies on Futurism, writer and artist Benedetta Cappa Marinetti has received little critical attention. Few scholarly works have focused on her essays regarding woman and the Fascist state, and in particular the role of mother. It has been argued that these texts support not only the position that women futurists - in adhering to a movement remembered for its disprezzo della donna - were victims of their self-accepting inferiority, but also the view that Futurist attitudes towardswomen were a precursor of Fascist-era gender politics. Larkin challenges this position, and discusses crucial new archival research, which reveals how maternity in Benedetta's works is actually linked to her radical new reformulation of Futurism. Far from seconding woman's inferior position within the avant-garde, or indeed the Fascist state, Benedetta uses the issue of maternity subtly to subvert her status - in both the movement and society - from within. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.

The current study investigated the impact of a German television program on changes in 4th-semester German students' reflections on cultural perceptions over the course of 1 semester. Sixty-nine students at the University of Texas at Austin watched 4 episodes of the popular German television program Lindenstrasse. After viewing, students were asked to reflect in written response papers on cultural features and patterns of behavior and on cultural differences and similarities. The study results suggest that students' perceptions of another culture can become more sophisticated when being exposed to authentic filmic material and asked to reflect in writing about observed plot features and cultural manifestations. The key to these results is a strategy for assessing not just students' recall of cultural content, but also their strategic competencies in negotiating cultural difference. Changes in students' cognitive styles were tracked by a scale that rewards students' strategic ability tomanage details of cultural knowledge and sociolinguistic content, including the following categories: (a) rhetorical organization; (b) content; (c) comparative point of view; and (d) interpretive substance. The article provides a model for the assessment of cultural competency (MACC), which can be adapted to assess students' engagement with the culture represented in various materials.