Developing Writing Skills in Spanish

Developing Writing Skills in Spanish by Javier Muñoz-Basols, Yolanda Pérez Sinusía, Marianne David

Developing Writing Skills in Spanish provides intermediate and advanced level students with the necessary skills to become competent and confident writers in the Spanish language.

 With a focus on writing as a craft, Developing Writing Skills in Spanish offers a rich selection of original materials including narrative texts, expository essays, opinion pieces and newspaper articles.

Each chapter covers a specific kind of writing and is designed to help tackle the material in small units. The book aids students in crafting clear, coherent and cohesive manuscripts by means of guided practice and step-by-step activities.

Key features:

• Guidance on how to structure a variety of texts: narrative, descriptive, expository, argumentative, academic, journalistic, legal and scientific.
• Sequenced exercises on style, writing conventions, word choice, syntax and grammar.
• Reference lists and tables with specialized vocabulary, transition words and other useful expressions.
• Strategies and tips for planning manuscripts, brainstorming ideas, vocabulary enrichment, editing and proofreading.
• Includes original samples, as well as fragments from newspapers, well-known literary works and essays by notable Hispanic authors and journalists.
• Website with additional activities to reinforce the content of each chapter and a teacher's guide with valuable support materials at: www.developingwritingskills.com

Designed as a classroom text, self-study material or simply as a resource on writing, Developing Writing Skills in Spanish is the ideal supplement for all intermediate to advanced students of Spanish.

Developing Writing Skills in Spanish - Contents

Introduction Chapter 1. El texto narrativo (Narrative writing) Chapter 2. El texto descriptivo (Descriptive writing) Chapter 3. El texto expositivo (Expository writing) Chapter 4. El texto argumentativo (Persuasive writing) Chapter 5. El texto periodístico (Journalistic writing) Chapter 6. El texto publicitario (The language of advertising) Chapter 7. El texto jurídico y administrativo (Legal and administrative documents) Chapter 8. El texto científico-técnico (Scientific and technical writing) Chapter 9. Consejos adicionales para escribir correctamente (Revising, Refining & Proofreading) Answer Key

Developing Writing Skills in Spanish - Reviews

"Developing Writing Skills in Spanish is an extremely versatile book based on pedagogically sound principles. It introduces readers to a rich variety of registers, which combined with examples from contemporary sources, literary as well as non-literary, from Spain and Spanish America, help the learner to develop a feel for style and register variation. In addition, its user-friendly, carefully organized activities provide plenty of opportunity for practice and review of vocabulary, syntactic structures, and idiomatic usage. Its flexible structure makes it eminently adaptable to a variety of courses, enabling instructors to either proceed from one chapter to the next or to pick and choose according to the needs of courses for specific purposes. Finally, the availability of answers to the exercises makes the book eminently useable for independent study." - Milton Azevedo, University of California, Berkeley, USA

“I enjoyed this very much. This is a really substantial examination of writing in Spanish, sensibly broken down to help the reasonably advanced learner. It should help those with a good knowledge of Spanish to improve their writing skills considerably. What I like about it most is the variety and quality of the authentic examples of writing, often penned by very good authors. Each area is dealt with in detail and through imaginative and engaging exercises. There’s a wealth of detail much of which will be useful for reference purposes as well as for Spanish language learning courses.” - Jonathan Thacker, The University of Oxford, UK

“This textbook is most welcome, for it supports our department’s goal of having student majors achieve advanced to superior writing proficiency in Spanish. The authors have identified and provided the kind of instruction and support students need at the advanced level to cultivate their rhetorical sense while continuing to develop their vocabulary, as well as their understanding of the subtleties of aspect, mode and syntax in Spanish. Engaging and carefully crafted learning activities help students use their critical reading skills to improve their writing skills. Students will find the exercises fostering the acquisition of an advanced critical lexicon and specific rhetorical strategies to be most valuable. Professors will appreciate the emphasis on planning, revising, and proofreading one’s essay, as well as the nuts and bolts advice on the use of the dictionary, punctuation, accentuation and orthography in Spanish. ¡ Gracias y enhorabuena! ” - Alice J. Poust, Bucknell University, USA

Developing Writing Skills in Spanish - Authors

Javier Muñoz-Basols is an Instructor in Spanish at the University of Oxford.

Yolanda Pérez Sinusía teaches at the Official School of Languages and at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid.

Marianne David teaches Spanish at Trinity School in New York.