About the project


 

The “Hágase la luz” project is an initiative that has been nationally ranked in the 14th position in the framework of the call of Grants for the design of projects aimed at improving students’ learning by professional cooperation groups among centers supported by public funds from different autonomous communities or cities carried out by the Ministry of Education and Culture (PROMECE 2014). In addition to the IES Vega del Pirón of Carbonero el Mayor (Segovia)—the coordinating institution—, the schools Colegio Bilingue Manuel Bartolomé Cossío of Fuenlabrada (Madrid), CEIP Nadal of San Feliu de Llobregat (Barcelona) and IES Calderón de la Barca of Madrid are also participants in the project.

 

The innovation of the project, whose main aim is the creation of educational material, relies largely in the conjunction of the innovative elements that shape it: this is an inter-center, interphase, international, and interdisciplinary project that seeks excellence, applies ICT and offers teaching materials at no cost for the users. These elements materialize in the range of activities and materials designed during its development (from purely scientific and technologic to literary creations), in the degree of collaboration among centers of very dissimilar backgrounds, in the diversity of individual contributions (writers, proofreaders, illustrators, translators, copy editors, etc.), and in the dissemination the project is getting not only in Spain and Europe but also in the USA.  

 

There are currently three interdisciplinary and bilingual (Spanish-English) publications in progress; myths, tales and legends about light. In addition to the above mentioned centers, this project relies on the participation of the Department of  Philology and Education of the School of Teaching Training and Education of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), members of the Department of  Greek Philology and Indo-European Linguistics of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and the Department of World Languages, Literatures & Linguistics of West Virginia University (WVU) in Morgantown (USA), which has taken the task of carefully revising the English versions of the tales. Concurrently, the Spanish versions have been supervised by the UAM’s Group of Children and Teenage Literature.

In order to perform this task, we have established the following course of work:

 

a) Creation of the original publications with tales and legends about light and technology, whether derived from popular traditions or made up. In principle, this material targets elementary school students in their 5th and 6th grades and the first ESO[1] courses, in such a way that there is a sense of continuation in the education process and that, as far as possible, abrupt leaps from stage to stage are avoided. Illustrations have been done by children from the schools Nadal and M. B. Cossío. The final volume has an introduction, tales/short stories, educational activities and a bibliography.

 

b) Creation of the original publication of classical myths about light and technology in a performable format: theater, farce, shadow theater, mimes, etc. This material is intended initially for ESO and Bachillerato[2] students. The texts have been created by teachers of the schools Colegio M.B. Cossío, IES Calderón and IES Vega del Pirón and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

 

c) Creation of an anthology of short stories set in our current world with Classical Mythology in the background. The idea is to bring the contents of the myths to our current reality in order to focus on their timelessness: things have happened a long time ago, but their applicability, like that of popular tales, is undeniable. The work is structured in the following fashion: 1) introduction of the classical myth; 2) contemporary short story; 3) comprehension activities, establishing relationships and reflection. And the same pattern applies in each one of the myths that make up the chapters. The work will also have an introduction and updated bibliography. The texts were created by teachers of the schools Colegio M.B. Cossío, IES Calderón and Vega del Pirón.

 

The material can be used for reading and discussion in elementary, secondary and bachillerato classrooms in Spanish Language and Literature, English Language, Classical Culture, Latin and Greek classes, among others. Its versatility and innovating character make of this project a useful and valuable tool. In short, this is a means to promote reading and learning through educational material with a vast applicability to the classroom. Its more immediate goals are, among others: to energize reading, to deepen the English knowledge, to get to know Classical Mythology and its models, to recognize the deep structure of the tales-myths-legends, to become aware of the validity of the myths nowadays, and to have fun in the way. These works are published in Ediciones Clásicas both on paper and digitally (freely distributed electronic book).

 

As expected, the first volume, Cuentos del Mundo: La Luz (I) / Tales of the World: The Light (I), has become available. This material was created to be read and discussed in English in Language and Literature classes in a Hispanic setting, and to be read and discussed in Spanish in an English-speaking setting. The tales subject matter is, therefore, light and technologies based on light, a topic that is materialized in a variety of stories, characters and fiction worlds. Following the project goals and purpose, these tales intend to integrate contents from diverse areas in order to reinforce the multidisciplinary nature of the educational materials. However, it is interesting to note that the means chosen for this innovation proposal is the short story and fiction, which is the voice that narrates stories, a voice that is heard and read. Fictional narration appears as the ideal and essential mean for learning, inasmuch as it enables the individual to experiment reality in an indirect way in the imaginary worlds created by this reality. Hence, the interest of the narrations proposed in this volume as an invigorating factor of learning and as an inter-stage bridge, complemented by a set of activities aimed at ensuring comprehension and bringing the reader closer to the text at an affective level.

 

 

 

[1] In the Spanish educational system, the ESO stage comprises obligatory education after primary school for children approximately between 12 and 16 years of age.

[2] In the Spanish educational system, this phase is not obligatory, it follows the abovementioned ESO and is intended for teenagers between 16/17-18 years of age.