Learning Spanish is relatively straightforward. Application of that learning, however, is much more complicated. That’s why Spanish teacher Daniel Verdugo has his Spanish 4 class work on producing the award- winning bilingual magazine Ñ Magazine. “I tend to design the semester ahead of time and then develop activities for students to read, listen and write about those things,” Verdugo said.
As magazine editor, Verdugo chooses which pieces of students’ work to publish. Class projects are often based on material required for the magazine.
“The quality is very good considering that most of the articles within the magazine are written by people who are not yet fluent in Spanish and are still studying the language,” junior Victor Alexandrov said. “Mr. Verdugo touches up the articles [as] editor. The magazine is well-formatted and features a beautiful cover illustrated by a student in the Huron art program.”
Verdugo is originally from Barcelona, Spain. Before he became a teacher, he worked for a newspaper in Puerto Rico that covered both national and local news.
“That was my first experience in the press,” Verdugo said. “I was very impressed because the guy who ran the newspaper put it together using Microsoft Word. I didn’t know that you could just use Word to put together a newspaper. The newspaper looked professional. That really inspired me. If you can do this with Word, [then] we can [make a magazine] using Google Slides.”
Verdugo also wanted his students to be able to express themselves to people outside of the classroom.
“To have students publish their work, I think it makes sense from [an] educational point of view,” Verdugo said. “I think that sometimes we have students write essays, write articles that only teachers read. It’s such a waste! I think it’s important for them to share their voices and to empower their voices.”
Verdugo has received a lot of positive feedback on the magazine, including several awards such as first prize for “El profesor como creativo” at a 2019 conference in Salamanca, Spain, third prize for “Best educational practice of Spanish as a Second Language based on information and communication technologies,” and a recognition award from the Hispanic/Latino Commission of Michigan for “giving visibility to the Hispanic presence in our community” in 2019.
Verdugo is now working to market the magazine to the community, so it can get sponsors and exposure.
“[We don’t want] this magazine to stay in the classroom; [we want] to get it out there and enrich the cultural scene of Ann Arbor,” Verdugo said.
Verdugo and the students raise money in order to cover the costs of production. Parents as well as local businesses have donated.
In addition to trying to get a community presence, Verdugo wants Ñ Magazine to be “an open educational resource” that other students can access for free. For the magazine, the students use images licensed under creative commons (no copyright) and content created by the magazine is also licensed under creative commons so that it can be reproduced.
Copies of Ñ Magazine can be found in the Huron library or in the foreign language office.