Course Information

     The primary goal of the course is to help students improve their writing skills in Spanish. To accomplish this, the course will include: 1) a rapid review of Spanish grammar (primarily verb forms and their usage); 2) study of syntax, style, and aspects of composition; 3) practice in writing Spanish in a variety of contexts and styles. Students will be required to hand in a written assignment, in Spanish, for almost every class.
     Students will often have the option of translating from English to Spanish a passage composed by the instructor or of writing their own original composition in Spanish. In either case, each student must do his/her own work (not copied from any other source) and must hand it in on time. Work that is submitted late may be docked a full letter grade or more, unless the student: 1) has a valid excuse, and 2) informs the instructor of the reason on or before the day the exercise is due, or as soon as possible thereafter in case of an emergency.
     No textbook is required for the course, although each student will be expected to purchase a good English-Spanish/Spanish-English dictionary. Since the daily exercises, explanations, and handouts may be designed specifically for this particular group of students and their progress and problems, the syllabus and the assignments listed on it must be understood as tentative and subject to change at any time. Students are responsible for attending all classes; if a student is not able to attend a class, he/she is responsible for ascertaining the nature of the assignment for the following class and for picking up the pertinent material or downloading it from the Web.
     Almost all of the course information is or will be available on the web; the professor's web page is http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/; the page for this course is http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/S210.HTM
     The student's final grade in the course will be based primarily on the written assignments (60%), plus class attendance and participation (20%), and the final exam (20%). The final exam will consist of formal exercises, including translation, plus an original in-class composition, but without the help of textbooks and dictionaries.

NOTE: ALL WRITTEN WORK YOU HAND IN IS TO BE YOUR OWN ORIGINAL WORK. THE SUBMISSION OF MACHINE TRANSLATIONS OR OTHER PEOPLE'S WORK AT ANY POINT IN THE SEMESTER WILL RESULT IN A ZERO FOR THE ITEM AND PROBABLY AN F IN THE COURSE.

Recommended dictionary:

• Collins Spanish Dictionary: Spanish-English; Inglés-Español. Unabridged edition (Collins-World).

Grading scale:

• A: 100 - 90
• B: 89 - 80
• C: 79 - 70
• D: 69 - 60
• F: below 60

[S210 Main page]

[Syllabus]

[Assignments]