Final Project Prospectus

For my final project I plan to start a Writing-in-the-Disciplines page for Latin American and Iberian Studies (LAIS). Although this includes other languages as well, I will specifically focus on Spanish to begin. I hope to work collaboratively with some of the professors in the department, most likely those I know or have had class with, because I think their advice will be the most useful. In the past I have had professors discuss the mistakes that non-native speakers commonly make when trying to write in Spanish so I will include a list of some of these. This list will contain a significant amount of grammatical advice, like making sure subjects and verbs agree and adjectives and nouns agree, as these are the mistakes students make over and over and simply need to memorize. I will also cover stylistic issues that vary by culture such as sentence length, and other basic differences like capitalization.

In addition to asking professors about how to avoid common mistakes I will ask them if they have any suggestions about how students can start the writing process. One of the hardest parts about writing in a foreign language can be getting started because students get caught up in how difficult they think it will be to convey their ideas in another language. Therefore, I will include any professor recommendations as well as some general suggestions about how to begin writing in any language, like how to work with an outline.

I also plan to include some help with vocabulary. I may try to provide a list of words that tend to be helpful, words that students sometimes confuse, and some phrases and transition words. If time allows I may put in reminders about different verb tenses and their uses and conjugations. Most likely I will post information about the tenses most commonly used in writing, such as present, past, and future and maybe basic information about the subjunctive.

I expect to rely on a lot of information from my Spanish textbook, used in 221 courses, for helpful ideas and particularly grammar. I also expect to find our readings about ESL students and their writing, such as Mosher’s “Creating a Common Ground with ESL Writers,” to be helpful. I may also reference various sections of The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors such as its recommendations about prewriting.

I realize that in this post it may sound as if I am taking on a lot. As I begin to work I think I will discover what seems to be the most important and pertinent information and I may edit what I have suggested here to include only the parts that seem most helpful.