Ángel Díaz Miranda

Teaching Philosophy

I have learned to give students the tools and encouragement to be successful: structure,
dialogue, collegiality, feedback, and a sense of solidarity in literature and culture learning. In
response, I expect students to be prepared and to actively contribute to the class by commenting
on the texts and arguing pro or against the readings put forward by the professor. All the
questions and doubts that arise as the class engages cultural and literary texts become part of the
learning process. The students will converse and generate their own explanations individually
and then as a group. By working side by side, the students create a community whose aim is to
consolidate efforts in order to accomplish the tasks of the course. Those tasks could vary from
deciphering the complex relationships and references that Xavier Villaurrutia inherited from
French Surrealists, acquiring new insight into the relationship between aesthetic theories,
biopower and cruelty in Tato Laviera’s “Jesús Papote”, his most hermetic poem. I strive to foster
a relaxed, yet respectful and "on task" environment. I strive to let students understand the
importance of tradition for a poet like Octavio Paz and the desire to enunciate violence poetically
and politically for poets Yolanda Segura, Sara Uribe and María Rivera. I want students to seek
newer poetic sources and to understand how current literary works engage with tradition by
accepting or rejecting it. Students should be comfortable and ready to learn without the added
pressure of “performing” the role of the student. By focusing on individual strengths rather than
weaknesses, students are given the opportunity to self-correct as well as to co-teach each other.
This results in the establishment of the classroom as a place where conversation about poetry,
culture, and difficult issues flourishes.

The use of classroom media has allowed me to enrich my efficacy in teaching literary texts in
dialogue with audiovisual materials, as this facilitates access to knowledge for the students. I
have played Eminem’s song “My name is” as an introduction to Martín Fierro, in order to
showcase how autobiographical persona is similar to, and different from, a poetic voice. The
entire Hip Hop class read “Prologue for Ode to Road Runner” by Pedro Pietri first in unison and
out loud, then at different rhythms to highlight the aural presence of the New York City subway
in the poem. I have engaged the DuBois’ concept of “double-consciousness” to demonstrate its
pertinence and how current it is today. The students discover that the concept is as pertinent to
African-Americans as to recent Latin American Immigrants as to Latinx in the United States in
their relation to White Supremacy, Hegemony, and Patriarchy.

I have showcased multiple ways in which to attract the students into the study of poetry and Hip
Hop, which are my areas of specialty. For example, as a way for the students to understand the
precepts of Estridentismo, I pass around facsimiles of their magazines while I stick leaflets of
their work on the walls (the same way members of the literary movement did in the 1920s) I
compare these literary strategies to “tagging” and graffiti writing today. I highlight the plastic
work of Leopoldo Méndez (a member of the group) and compare it to the politics of
Haitian-Puerto Rican American painter from New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat. I favor including
visual, tactile, and aural elements into literature instruction because students easily relate to the
content they are learning. As the class progresses, the students are divided into groups. Some
students will replicate the leaflets, others will prepare to debate notions of progress and
homophobia intrinsic to the Estridentistas’ work. Another group of students creates a response
from the perspective of the Contemporáneos, a rival poetic group previously studied.

As a professor of language, literature and culture, I reinforce three “C’s” for my students:
coherence (of thought), clarity (of verbal and written expression), and cohesion (of the two). The
C’s are easy to remember and serve as guidelines for both writing papers and arguing orally in
front of the other members of the class. The students respond very well to this prompt and try to
always follow its direct principles. By working with them to acquire knowledge and to
continuously think critically, we —the students and I— can cement academic conversations that
lead to multiple more, without neglecting the purpose and objectives of the course. My student
evaluations prove that I honestly stand by these words and, more importantly, that the material
covered in class becomes personally meaningful.