The oral tradition is one of the oldest known to humankind.  We learned to talk as small children.  Much like walking, we tend to just do it and not think about how we do it.  We use language daily to express feelings, achieve our goals, and to share information.  This section explores the important role “oral language,” or verbal communication, plays in that process.  How do we create meaning?  How does written language differ from oral language?  How can we use language effectively?  How do we make our language appropriate, vivid, inclusive and familiar to our audience?  Finally, this chapter explores the six elements of language:  clarity, economy, obscenity, obscurity, power and variety.  Do not just talk, make your words count!

""Reading Poetry" has several aims: primarily, to increase the ways you can become more engaged and curious readers of poetry; to increase your confidence as writers thinking about literary texts; and to provide you with the language for literary description. The course is not designed as a historical survey course but rather as an introductory approach to poetry from various directions -- as public or private utterances; as arranged imaginative shapes; and as psychological worlds, for example. One perspective offered is that poetry offers intellectual, moral and linguistic pleasures as well as difficulties to our private lives as readers and to our public lives as writers. Expect to hear and read poems aloud and to memorize lines; the class format will be group discussion, occasional lecture."

Systematic training in spoken and written skills to improve fluency and style. Oral reports by participants on individual topics. Discussions with native speakers, analyses of selected literary texts, periodicals, and Spanish-language media. Taught in Spanish.

Increased practice in listening comprehension, reading, and group interaction. For graduate credit see 21F.752.In Spanish II focuses on continuing to develop fluency in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing in Spanish, using the second part of the video-based program, Destinos, begun in Spanish I. Destinos is a soap opera that allows students to learn Spanish and experience its cultural diversity while following a good story full of surprises and human emotions. Spanish II also includes additional materials, such as Spanish films and other media, various types of reading selections and online resources. Spanish II continues to develop students' listening, speaking, reading and writing skills using the second part of the video-based program, Destinos, begun in Spanish I. Destinos is a soap opera that allows students to learn Spanish and experience its cultural diversity while following a good story full of surprises and human emotions. Spanish II also includes additional materials, such as Spanish films and other media, various types of reading selections and online resources.

Designed for students of Hispanic descent and raised in the US. Expands oral and written grammar study and increases contact with standard Spanish. Studies recent fiction and poetry as well as specific historical, social, economic, and political aspects of Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban cultures. Many of the nonliterary readings are in English; class discussions in Spanish. Taught in Spanish. Fron the course home page: Course Description Spanish for Bilingual Students is an intermediate course designed principally for heritage learners, but which includes other students interested in specific content areas, such as US Latino immigration, identity, ethnicity, education and representation in the media. Linguistic goals include vocabulary acquisition, improvement in writing, and enhancement of formal communicative skills.

An introduction to symbolic logic with an emphasis on formal logical languages and natural deduction systems of logical proof. Students learn how to translate reasoning into a symbolic logical language and how to prove arguments valid with the precision of mathematics using formal systems of proof.