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Study Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Course name: Advanced Spanish Reading and Writing in Context Workshop Course number: SPAN 3021 BASU
Programs offering course: Spanish Language Language of instruction: Spanish
U.S. Semester Credits: 4 Contact Hours: 60
Term: Summer 2016
Course Description
Advanced Reading and Writing in Context Workshop creates an environment where students can improve skills, along with the fluency, confidence, and desire to see themselves as proficient readers and writers in Spanish. This course is designed to let students deal with Spanish academic discourse conventions. Reading comprehension and writing skills will be mainly developed during the course, though students are expected to interact orally in order to discuss topics covered in the course as well as interpretations about readings and their written production.
Learning Objectives
Students should:
o Recognize the discursive strategies of texts read in order to ensure the comprehension of complex texts.
o Recognize the predominant plots and present subsidiaries in the texts, such as the characteristics of academic discourse in Spanish.
o Produce formal texts and grammatical, academic, discursive and contextually adequate texts.
o Introduce in the texts external statements and paratextual elements, according to the typical procedure of academic texts.
o Link knowledge of the grammatical system with the organization of formal discourses
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Methods of Instruction
During classes, we will work with original didactic materials. The course is focused on the comprehensive reading and written production of texts. Different discursive genres of academic and professional circulation will be selected so that the student can put him or herself in contact with academics and professionals through comprehension and production. Furthermore, the oral discussion of academic and professional themes will be contributed through different written texts and audiovisual maters as well as out-of-class activities, as a form of generating ideas that serve as a source for writing.
With the objective of developing correction strategies of written productions, activities of texts assessment will also be carried out.
Assessment and Final Grade
The evaluation will be qualitative and final, based on the completion of specific homework assignments for each class and the quality of the student’s participation (20%). The following will also be added quantitatively:
• Two midterm written projects that will consist of responding to written assignments (20%
each)
• A final written project (40%).
The written projects will be completed outside of class. In the case of the midterm projects, students will be able to hand in a first draft that will be returned with instructor comments before handing in the final project, which will receive a final grade.
The course awards 4 credits to students having completed the following requirements:\
• 80 % attendance.
• Completion (on time and in the proper form) of all the parts of the evaluation.
Attendance and Class Participation
Students are allowed to have no more than three absences throughout the course due to illness or other important reasons, rightly justified.
Regardless of the motives of the absence, students are required to attend the following class with missed activities completed. Late arrival (15 minutes or more) counts as half an absence. Leaving class before it is over will also impact on students’ final grade.
To ensure maximum exploitation of the course, students are expected to be thoroughly familiar with topics for each day before coming to the class and to actively and voluntarily participate in class work.
Written work should be typed on a sheet of paper (double space) and they will be submitted as scheduled. Works late submitted will be marked down 15 %. No course work will be accepted after the last day of class.
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Weekly Schedule
Week 1
Content:
o Lexical expansion: word families, semantics, associations. Expressions and phrases. Hyperonymy and homonymy. Using the dictionary.
o The Spanish in Buenos Aires: Rioplatense concept.
o Introduction to the concept of variety. Neutral and prestigious language.
o Formal and informal Spanish.
• Meet with the community: independent visit to the editorial, Eloísa cartonera. • Trip: Museum of the Word.
Week 2
Content:
o Introduction to Spanish academic discourse characteristics
o Key words in the academic and professional discourses
o Speech genres and function of paratextual elements
o Relation and differences between the informal and formal registers in writing texts . Impersonal language in Spanish academic discourse
o Specific lexical fields: extension and dominion in different discursive registers
o Mechanisms for coherence and cohesion.
o Summaries. Paraphrasing. Hypertextuality and intertextuality.
o Different textual frames: narrative, exhibitive-explicative and argumentative • Meet with the community: visit a class at a local university.
• Trip: University of Buenos Aires.
Week 3
First mid-term written project submission– Draft (week 2) Final version Weeks 4 and 5
Content:
o Poliphony in writing academic discourse
o Direct and indirect speech
o Deeper understanding of linguistic and communicative resources through the
use of textual frames
o Writing as a plan and process: determination of the addressee and communicative
purpose
o The dominion of the critical apparatus: formal resources
o Application of strategies of extension, reduction and elaboration.
• Meet with the community: visit of local editors
o Trip: Visit to “Eterna cadencia” bookstore
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Weeks 6 and 7
Content:
o Argumentative texts vs explicative texts
o Determination of the addressee and communicative purpose
o The introduction of controversy and debate in writing text
o Strategies in argumentative text. Resources for opinion, debate and rebuttal. o Expression of modality
o Writing against the other: controversy and debate
• Meet with the community: visit of local researchers • Trip: Visit to Ciudad Universitaria
Planning of final written project (week 7)
Week 8
Content
o Revision of students’ drafts final written project. Feedback and rewriting. o Revision of students’ portfolio
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Readings
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Alvarado, Maite - Yeannoteguy, Alicia. La escritura y sus formas discursivas. Curso introductorio. Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1999.•
Calsamiglia Blancafort, H. and Tusón Valls, A. Las cosas del decir. Manual de análisis del discurso. Barcelona: Ed. Ariel, 1999.•
Ciapuscio, Guiomar, “La expresión de tema en los textos de divulgación científica” en Rev. “Analecta Malacitana. Revista de la sección de Filología de la facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Vol. XIV, 2, Universidad de Málaga, 1991.•
Ciapuscio, Guiomar, Tipos textuales, Enciclopedia Semiológica., Buenos Aires, Instituto de lingüística FyL, Cátedra de Semiología, Ciclo Básico Común, UBA, 1994.•
CORPAS Jaime, GARCÍA Eva, GARMENDIA Agustín, KOSEL Carina, SORIANO Carmen,TONNELIER Bibiana, Aula del Sur 1, Curso de Español, Buenos Aires, Difusión-Voces del Sur, 2009
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Cortés, M. - Bollini, R. Leer para escribir. Una propuesta para la enseñanza de la lengua, BuenosAires: El Hacedor, 1994.
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Klein, Irene (coord.). El taller del escritor universitario, Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros, 2007.•
Montolío, Estrella. Manual práctico de escritura académica. Barcelona: Ed. Ariel, 2000.•
Padilla de Zerdán, Constanza. “Exposición, explicación y argumentación en el discurso académicoescrito en español”. En Vázquez, Graciela (coord.) (2005). Español con fines académicos. Madrid, Edinumen.
