SP 444 - Creative Writing Workshop: Short Stories in Spanish

This course is designed for students with an advanced Spanish level in order to improve written expression, taking advantage of linguistic and cultural immersion. The students will read a number of short narratives that will serve as examples for their own original writing. The stories are taken from a number of authors from Spain and Latin America, as to provide a broad spectrum of samples for our students. Some of the stories will be shared with peers in class and there will be a couple of exercises of collective short story writing. Students will also critique works and work in teams, in addition to their reading strategies. By the end of the course, the student will know about the theory behind short story writing and will have studied a number of examples and implemented several narrative techniques in Spanish.

Research has demonstrated that study abroad can enhance every aspect of language ability. One of the most important general findings of this research is, however, that study abroad is most beneficial for the development of abilities related to social interaction. Students who go abroad can learn to do things with words, such as requesting, apologizing, or offering compliments, and they may also learn to interpret situations calling on such speech acts in ways that local people do. In short, and logically, study abroad has been shown to enhance the aspects of communicative competence that are most difficult to foster in classroom settings.

NOTE: This course is offered during the regular semester and in the summer. For summer sections, the course schedule is condensed, but the content, learning outcomes, and contact hours are the same.