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Spanish 395 Syllabus

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Quito, Ecuador
Spanish 395: Current Issues in Society, Culture and Politics

• The prerequisite for Quito, EC: Spanish 395 is Spanish 250.

• Students will be watching local daily newscast, as well as using newspapers and magazines delivered daily to the school.

Course Objectives: The general goals of this course are to have students monitor and analyze current events, issues, and aspects of Latin American culture. These aspects will be met through a variety of media resources and, in turn, providing additional opportunities for Spanish language practice in listening, reading, speaking and writing. This will be done by:

• Listening/Watching movies, documentaries, the local news, guest speakers or conversations, and then answering questions and commenting about the content.
• Reading newspapers, short stories, magazines and editorials and then answering questions, commenting, or debating about the content.
• Writing reactions using acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures.
• Engaging in, and sustaining face to face conversation with others about topics studied.
• Attending local field trips for direct experience with the issues.
• Using the Internet to acquire additional information about Latin America.
• Demonstrating an understanding of selected elements of Latin American culture.

Course Topics: Topics covered in this course (but not limited to): Poverty, the Environment, Health/Healthcare, Indigenous Groups/Rights, Education, Children, Politics, Women's Issues, and Crime and Punishment.

Attendance and Participation: All students are required to attend all classes and are expected to arrive on time. If an illness or an emergency prevents you from attending class, you are expected to notify the RD as soon as possible. Upon your return to school, you must submit a note from a physician explaining your absence. The Resident Director will notify you if the absence is excused.

• Makeup work will be permitted ONLY when the RD is presented with acceptable documentation and the absence is excused. Students with an unexcused absence will not be allowed to submit makeup work. Class participation points cannot be made up for any reason.
• After two hours of unexcused absences in a course, each additional unexcused hour will result in a one-percentage point reduction of your final grade per absence. This means that if you miss one school day and your absence is unexcused, your final grade will be reduced by 2 percentage points. For example, an 80% becomes a 78%.
• Lateness to class counts toward unexcused hours and will be rounded to the next quarter hour. (If you arrive 9 minutes late, you now have 15 minutes unexcused; arrive 17 minutes late, you now have 30 minutes unexcused, etc.). Repeated lateness and absences will require a meeting with the RD, will be reported to The Ohio State University, and may result in your removal from the class.
• Missing or arriving late to required meetings and required school activities will be counted as an absence and will be treated as outlined above.

Academic Misconduct: Academic misconduct is defined as any activity which tends to compromise the academic integrity of the institution, or subvert the educational process. All suspected cases of academic misconduct will be reported to the Committee on Academic Misconduct as required by University rules. Such instances include, but are not limited to: plagiarism (representing as one's own work anything done by another), cheating on assignments or examinations, collusion, falsification of excuses, submitting work from a previous quarter without explicit permission of the current instructor, violation of course rules contained in the syllabus or provided in class.

For example for a written or oral report you should use the vocabulary, grammar structures, and strategies you've learned. Paraphrase your information and DO NOT "cut and paste" whole paragraphs from the web. Work submitted must be in your own words. "Borrowing" materials without citing sources is plagiarism.

All cases of copying, cheating, plagiarism, fraud, deceit, and other unacceptable academic conduct will be reported to the Resident Director and subsequently to the Office of Academic Misconduct at the Ohio State University in Columbus without exception.

Code of Conduct: Disrespectful or disruptive behavior in this program will not be tolerated and may result in non-completion of the program. Please refer to the OSU Student Affairs "Code of Student Conduct" Web site for rules and procedure.

Disability Services: Anyone who feels they may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the RD to arrange an appointment as soon as possible. At the appointment you can discuss the course format, anticipate your needs, and explore potential accommodations. We rely on the Office for Disability Services for assistance in verifying the need for accommodations and developing accommodation strategies. If you have not previously contacted the Office for Disability Services, we encourage you to do so.

All your work should be included in your Quito program portfolio.

Note: Students are not permitted to take this course as an audit or pass/fail, or receive a grade of incomplete.

• Movie Reactions (3): 15%
• Guest speaker/Field Trip Reactions (3): 15%
• Newspaper Article Reactions (6): 20%
• Class Participation: 15%
• 15 min in-class group presentation: 15%
• Final Paper: 20%

Requirements:
All reaction papers should be written before class so that students can actively participate in conversations, pose questions, and effectively analyze issues presented by the instructor. You may not have adequate information to address all questions listed below - they are meant to trigger thought and provide direction for your papers.

Movie Reactions:
You will view a film/documentary for background and general knowledge of important issues in Latin America. After watching the film, students will write a reaction paper (Spanish; 250-300 words). In writing your reaction, you should address the following questions:

• What are/were the issues addressed in the film?
• Do you have any experience with the issues?
• Do you feel that the issue applies to current culture?
• " You may interview one person in your family - does he/she feel that the issue is current? Does he/she have any experience with / knowledge of the issue at hand?

Guest speaker/Field Trip Reactions:
During the course of the quarter, you will take local field trips to see issues studied firsthand. Using the information that you acquired from the guest-speaker, as well as your fieldtrip, your reaction paper (Spanish; 250-300 words) should consist of two parts:

1. Guest speaker: What did you feel were the most important questions posed to the guest speaker? What are two things that you learned from him/her? Were there any questions/concerns that you feel that the speaker did not address? What do you expect to experience during your fieldtrip based on what the guest speaker had to say?
2. Fieldtrip: What part of the fieldtrip surprised you the most? What do you feel you learned from this experience? Was your experience different or the same of what you know concerning the same issue in the US (give examples)? Was what you experienced consistent with the guest speaker's account of the situation? Why or why not?

Newspaper Article Reactions:
Over the course of Spanish 395, students should choose 6 newspaper articles (independent of ones covered in class) relevant to topics included in the course outline.

1. In English, state (a) a clear theme and (b) a bulleted list of pertinent points. This should not be a direct translation. (Excellent practice for the SLRPE!).
2. Your opinions about the article in Spanish (250-300 words). Questions you could consider:
   • In what section/page of the newspaper did you find the article?
   • Why did this article trigger your interest? Is this an issue that you have viewed on the newscast? If not, why do you think it was overlooked? If so, was it presented in the same manner?
   • Do you perceive that anything positive or negative will happen out of the situation?
   • What kinds of other issues was the article "competing" with for coverage?

In-class group presentation:
During the first day, students will divide into small presentation groups (2-3 students). The teacher will present each group with 1-3 questions to address during a presentation of 10-15 minutes. Questions asked will be consistent with the topics covered in the course.

• Throughout the session students should work as a group to find articles, do interviews, participate actively in class discussion, meet to discuss how the field trip and reaction papers can be included in their presentation, and conduct internet research to answer the questions as thoroughly as possible.
• Students must bring concrete examples to illustrate their presentation (i.e. a handout, newspaper articles, statistics, etc). Each student in the group must take part in the presentation in order to receive a grade.
• The presentations will be graded according to content, linguistic accuracy, and class engagement/involvement.

Final Paper:
Each student will hand in a final paper (Spanish, approx. 500 words) based on his/her portion of the presentation. The student may choose to draw on additional articles, class discussion, and presentation feedback from the instructor.

Calendar:
Weekly Homework:
1 Movie Reaction
1 Guest Speaker -Field Trip Reaction
2 Newspaper Article Reactions
Throughout the course the students will also be preparing/gathering information for their group presentation and final paper.