Being able to communicate effectively in writing is essential to becoming proficient in a language.

By improving your Spanish writing skills, you will also improve your writing skills in general.

It is a myth that second language learners can ignore grammar and writing and just focus on conversation.

This course aims to improve your understanding of key grammatical concepts and to refine and expand your ability to express yourself in writing.

The course assumes that effective writing and critical thinking are inextricably linked. So, we’ll work on thinking about thinking, analyzing, questioning, identifying assumptions, and drawing conclusions.

How can we apply Spanish language structures and writing strategies to communicate effectively?

How can we learn to think more deeply in order to understand, explain, and analyze various topics in the Spanish-speaking world and in the human experience in general?

Course Goals

1. Employ appropriate vocabulary and apply correct grammatical structures in Spanish in order to describe and explain situations in writing related to their lives and cultural topics.

2. Answer and ask questions in writing about their lives and cultural topics related to themes in the Spanish-speaking world.

3. Practice grammatical concepts by recognizing, identifying and applying them in sentences.

4. Understand native speakers as they talk about chapter topics.

5. Apply grammatical concepts to create original texts that effectively narrate an event in the past, describe in detail, explain a topic, and analyze concepts and problems.

6. Construct paragraphs in Spanish at the Intermediate High level of proficiency, according to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines.

7. Recognize and explain all the verb forms in Spanish: subjunctive (present / past), indicative (present, preterite, imperfect, future, conditional, compound tenses)

8. Integrate the following writing strategies in order to create texts that communicate ideas and experiences effectively: brainstorm, complete multiple revisions, incorporate transitional phrases, vary vocabulary, and use strong verbs.

9. Identify assumptions in a variety of texts.

10. Analyze and critique ideas in their own writing and the writing of others.

11. Discuss, describe, and analyze big ideas and questions about life.

12. Construct effective questions in order to analyze a topic.

13. Collaborate with others to explain and assess real-world problems.

14. Reflect on their own writing.