Temas |
Subtemas |
UNIT 1. The short essay |
Introduction, topic sentence, thesis statement, body, subtopics and arguments, conclusion, and title. Formal and informal English. Connotation and denotation. Linking words and building paragraphs. Punctuation. |
UNIT 2. Tools for academic writing |
Spelling, capitalization, word choice (e.g. avoiding sexist/discriminatory language), tone, clarity (e.g. coherence, structure), exactness, conciseness, etc. Academic topics of contemporary interest, such as: art, community, ecofeminism, ethics, mental health, spirituality, success, war, etc. |
UNIT 3. Tools for critical reading |
-Rhetorical devices: allegory, alliteration, anaphora, assonance, chiasmus, epistrophe, hyperbaton, litotes, metaphor, metonymy, motif, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, paradox, pun, simile, synaesthesia, symbol, synecdoche, tautology, zeugma, etc.
-Critical terms: Bildungsroman, catharsis, deconstruction, diegesis, epistemology, feminist criticism, free indirect style, genre, heteronormativity, irony, logocentrism, metafiction, mimesis, mise en abyme, narrator, ontology, phallogocentric, queer theory, rhyme, satire, stream of consciousness, etc. |
UNIT 4. The close-reading method |
Type of text, opening lines, location and time, story, pace, themes, rhetorical figures, characters, type of narrator, point of view, tone, closing lines, meanings, interpretations, etc. |
UNIT 5. The end-of-degree project (or TFG in Spanish) |
Regulations of the Faculty of Philology (UDC). Planning and timing. The project itself: aims, methodology, table of contents, structure, quotations, footnotes, list of Works Cited, appendix, and abstract. The MLA Style. Information resources (online catalogues, databases, etc.). Plagiarism. The formality of the oral presentation. |
UNIT 6. Humor to survive and, thus, read and write |
What is humor? Ethics, theories (incongruity, relief, superiority, play, etc.), and practical examples (e.g. cultural differences, language usages). |