Spanish 320: Integrated Inquiry Culture and Language

I took Spanish 320 with Dr. Fernández during my spring semester in 2020. I found this course very interesting because it was different than any other Spanish course I have taken and I was able to learn and practice different skills.

Prior to Spanish 320, every other Spanish course I have taken has been about learning vocabulary and grammar. Because of this, most of the work I did in these classes involved memorization. Instead of strictly learning vocabulary and grammar, Spanish 320 was focused on various forms of communication including poetry, theatre, cinema, and short stories.

With each new section of the course, I learned what aspects to look for in each communication form, as well as different skills for analyzing these forms. I have analyzed poetry, plays, and stories in English classes before; however, I have never had to analyze movies. I found this section of the class the most interesting because I was learning and using skills that I have never had to use before. Often with movies, we would look at the different camera angles and angles used in the scenes that would focus on people, the landscape, or a certain object or detail. This unit was the most interesting because I had never really thought about what each angle represents and why the director would choose to use each one.

For the final project we were required to use the skills we had learned throughout the semester to write an essay analyzing either a work of theatre, a movie, or a short story. I have attached my essay in which I analyze the short story “La luz es como el aqua” by Gabriel García Márquez. In this essay, I looked at various aspects of the story such as the author, different types of characters and narrators, and the main theme of the story.