The general objectives of this course are:

• To improve students’ reading skills through the study of ten stories by contemporary Spanish authors.
• To introduce students to the work of some of the most representative authors of contemporary Spanish narrative.
• Via an interactive reading of the text, to find and apply strategies that aids the construction of the meaning of the text. The process includes the following stages for each text: a biographical sketch of the author, preview activities to introduce the content of the text, the reading of the story and finally, follow-up activities to complement the reading.

Syllabus

Reading as a process to construct meaning.

• Lexis.
  • Strategies to deduce meaning. Contexts.
  • The use of dictionaries: which ones, when, and how.
  • Lexical cohesion
• Sentences and sequence of sentences.
  • Grammatical cohesion.
  • Thematic progression.
• The text.
  • Textual cohesion.
  • Textual coherence.
  • Narrative text: the point of view, the narrative voices, the treatment of time.

Reading List

ARIZA, M.; GARRIDO, J. y TORRES, G. (1981), Comentario lingüístico y literario de textos españoles, Madrid, Alhambra.
BOOTH, W. C. (1978), Retórica de la ficción, Barcelona, Bosch.
DUCROT, O. (1986), El decir y lo dicho, Barcelona, Paidós.
HERNÁNDEZ, C.; MANCHO, M. J. y URRUTIA, H. (1993), El comentario lingüístico de textos, Gijón, Júcar.
MEDEROS MARTÍN, H. (1988), Procedimientos de cohesión en el español actual, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Publicaciones del Excelentísimo Cabildo Insular de Tenerife.
VAN DIJK, T. A. (1983), La ciencia del texto, Barcelona, Paidós.

Assessment

At the end of each term, students will write an essay on a story they have read previously.