Note: A placement exam will be required when you arrive on site.

Superior

This course is designed for students who have completed or tested out of a minimum of 2 upper-division college-level Spanish courses. However, students must take a placement exam to determine the course level into which they will be able to enroll.

Description:

This course is directed to those students with an advanced-level of Spanish who seek to improve their written communication skills.

The objective of this course is to introduce and develop elements of rhetoric and composition with the goal of improving the student’s style of written expression in Spanish. The course analyzes aspects of communication and its use in written expression. This is done in such a way as to provide the student with the knowledge and practice necessary for creating well-written texts.

General Objective:

Provide the student with the rules and techniques needed for efficient editing.

Specific Objectives:

1- Identify the principal elements that intervene in human communication.
2- Recognize the different types of communication.
3- Eliminate frequent errors that impede fluency in communication.
4- Adequately apply the rules of Spanish-language editing.
5- Offer practical recommendations to elaborate written communication.
6- Improve vocabulary: precision and variety of vocabulary, avoid over-used words.

Contents:

1) Communication:

- Communication as the principal and ultimate objective of a written text.
- Elements of communication.
- Importance of grammar and effective communication.
- What is editing?

Morpho-syntax structures of written communication: the word, the sentence and the paragraph.

The word:

- Denotative and connotative worth of words.
- Importance of the correct use of words: “extranjerismos, latinismos, neologismos, tecnicismos y regionalismos.”
- Common errors.

The sentence:

- Concept and parts of the sentence.
- Subject and predicate: placement of sentence elements.
- Agreement.
- Simple sentence.
- The possibilities of ordering the elements of the sentence written in Spanish.
- How to create sentences.
- Compound sentences
- Sub-ordinate and ordinate elements.

The paragraph:

- Concept.
- Types of paragraphs.
- How to create paragraphs.
- Composition process and synthesis.

2) Written Communication:

- Types: descriptive, narrative, explanative:
- The explanative with basis in compare/contrast, the explanative with basis in cause and effect, the explanative with basis in the definition, the explanative with basis in analysis and classification. Synthesis: the argument, the overview, the investigative work and the essay.
- Structures (component elements)
- Proceedings for elaboration.
- Editing recommendations.

Methodology:

- Theoretical-practical methodology developed by the professor and the student
- Visuals.
- Use of texts as models to give examples of correct and incorrect usage.
- Practical exercises to apply to techniques.

Suggested Activities:

1- Movies in Spanish or another language (not English) with subtitles in Spanish.
2- Lectures: “Un viejo que leía novelas de amor,” by Luis Sepúlveda.

Evaluation:

Attendance and Participation: 10 %
Homework: 10 %
Written Assignments: 30 %
Mid-term: 20 %
Final exam: 20 %
Oral and Written Report over “Un Viejo que Leía Novelas de Amor”: 10 %

Suggested Bibliography:

• Müller Delgado, Marta Virginia. Curso Básico de Redacción. 2º Edición. San José, Costa Rica. Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 1996.

• Valdés, Dvorak Hannum. Composición, Proceso y Síntesis. 3º Edición. Estados Unidos de América.

• Pacheco Salazar, Viria y Álvarez Flores, María. Comunicación Oral y Escrita. 2º Edición. San José, Costa Rica. Editorial G.O. Impresos S.A. 1997.

• Pazos, Ethel. Frecuentes errores del hispanohablante. 1º Edición. San José: Editorial Alma Mater; 1996.