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Benefits and Challenges

“Aprendí más sobre las vidas de las personas en los detention centers y sus desafíos.” (‘I learned more about the lives of people in detention centers and their challenges.’)

“Las cartas son una buena manera para practicar la empatía y tratar de entender una situación que no he experimentado.” (‘The letters are a good way to practice empathy and to try to understand a situation that I haven’t experienced.’)

Student quotes from SPAN 4215, in Fall 2025��

Many of my students have expressed that they like this project because:��

1. They get to use Spanish for a real purpose,��

2. They are contributing something positive in regard to US immigration, and��

3. Many are interested in pursuing work/further study in law and/or immigration.

However, the collaboration was also challenging because students didn’t always know what to write or what to say. Sometimes they didn’t get responses, or their pen pals would change a lot throughout the semester because the person would be released. Sitting with this discomfort became part of the learning process as my class and I tried to understand the uncertainty of detention and the privilege of our situations, as reflected in the earlier student quotes.��

Multimodal Student Reflection

This semester I am teaching SPAN 4215 again and continuing to collaborate with Cartas de Paz. Based on student ideas from last semester, this semester I have spaced out the letters more to facilitate responses. I have also thought of ways to encourage student reflection that uses different modalities. For example, students individually audio record reflections about connections and challenges from the letter writing, then, during class, they do in-person written reflections followed by small- ��and large- group discussions using classmates’ written responses as conversation starters.����

Students as Co-designers in the Learning Experience

One of the biggest take-aways from my participation in the weeklong Accelerator is to ask students for ideas on how to improve the learning experience. As such, I asked my students last semester how we could deal with some of the challenges they faced, and they gave me the wonderful idea of having students who received replies share what they learned so that the class, as a whole, can feel like they are learning regardless of whether they received a response or not from their pen pal. I will be trying this idea out, and I have a feeling it will foster classroom community and create a sense of collective learning.