Course Catalog

AP/Advanced Spanish is an accelerated course meant to prepare students who plan to take the Advanced Placement exam. This course meets the Advanced Placement criteria required by the College Board. To earn the AP designation, students must successfully complete both Part 1 and Part 2 of this course in addition to the required weekly office hours.  Students will continue to read and analyze authentic texts such as poems, narratives, play excerpts, modern articles, Internet resources, and documents concerning current events. Students will listen to and respond to authentic recordings. They will also interact with various resources to continue to build their knowledge of Hispanic culture. Students will practice and apply advanced grammar, syntax, and precise vocabulary to express themselves more accurately in a variety of contexts.  Students will participate in weekly, real-time online "charlas," or chats, in which they will engage in contemporaneous conversations and discussions with each other and the teacher. These meetings will focus on spontaneous language tasks based on a variety of situations and themes.  Students will initiate and close conversations, negotiate meaning, ask and respond to questions, give and receive directions, and present and support opinions.  Students' conversational abilities will be critiqued by the instructor based on their ability to meet the standard of high-level proficiency. Feedback will be provided.  This course includes auditory comprehension assessments that require students to listen to audio files and record themselves speaking. This course includes auditory comprehension assessments that require students to listen to audio files and record themselves speaking. For both parts of this course, it is essential that students have either a headset equipped with a microphone or access to an internal microphone within their computers.

Course Objectives

Unit 1: Essential Content and Skills

• Read, analyze, and discuss Spanish and Latin-American poetry.
• Analyze poetry in regard to elements including hyperbaton, personification, rhyme, and repetition. 
• Compose narratives and summaries by using the writing process to evaluate poetic works and significant events. 
• Apply the conditional tense forms to describe hypothetical situations and to predict outcomes.
• Explore the works of Spanish poets Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and Antonio Machado and Latin-American poets José Martí, Rubén Darío, and Pablo Neruda.

Unit 2: Essential Content and Skills

• Read, analyze, and discuss the articles “La fiesta de San Fermín,” “El espejo convexo,” “La Tomatina,” and “Los indios kunas.”  
• Utilize descriptive adjectives and vocabulary to depict setting.
• Analyze literary elements such as plot and theme by using the writing process. 
• Explore Spanish culture in the context of traditions and celebrations. 
• Apply the present and past tenses to narrate and summarize events.  

Unit 3: Essential Content and Skills

• Read, analyze, and discuss the theatrical piece El Delantal Blanco. 
• Evaluate setting, plot, theme, resolution, and style.  
• Apply vocabulary and verb forms through the writing process to evaluate and discuss the social themes in El Delantal Blanco. 
• Record an oral interpretation of a dramatic piece.
• Discover the works of author Sergio Vodanovic.  

Unit 4: Essential Content and Skills

• Complete formal writing exercises and formal oral presentations.  
• Read, analyze, and discuss short reading selections.  
• Listen to short audio selections and respond in formal essays.  
• Apply vocabulary for comprehension in informal correspondence.
• Listen to and read selections from authentic sources, and prepare oral presentations in response to the selections. 

Course Materials

• Abriendo Paso (includes Gramatica textbook, Lectura textbook, and Lectura Audio CD) 

**NCAA approved