Course Description
Directed toward Spanish majors preparing for their Capstone experience, this course aims to guide the student in the process of completing a capstone proposal and initiating the preliminary steps toward the graduation ePortfolio. The ePortfolio provides evidence that a student is making satisfactory progress toward meeting the Core requirements and Major Learning Outcomes (MLOs) for the Spanish B.A.
Reflective Narrative
In SPAN 300, my partner for Capstone Linda Heredia and I completed the first steps of our final project to obtain the B.A. in Spanish. First, I chose to work with Linda because we both had an interest in doing linguistic research, as we had previously worked on the Anthology of Hispanic Testimonials, a literary work conducted by Dr. Fernandez. Then, we decided that we needed to do research that combined linguistics and social justice, such as the anthology. Since the Spanish language is mainly structured under the masculine grammatical gender and the feminine grammatical gender, in lesser quantity, we decided to approach the neutral language with the purpose of creating awareness about social inclusion through communication. For this reason, we decided to evaluate the Perceptions and use of Binary and Non-binary Inclusive Language in communities in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Baja California, Mexico, because there is not as much research on this topic in both regions. Binary inclusive language refers to the mention of men and women (todos y todas), while non-binary inclusive language is the neutral form that does not specify gender (todes). In the following presentation, we addressed the reasons of our research, the areas of study, the social context, the research questions, the methodology and the organization. It is important to mention that this research is subject to modifications due to the circumstances in which we would find ourselves. Another important aspect of the class was the progress I made with the ePortfolio, an electronic project that documents my academic progress at CSUMB and is part of the requirements for obtaining the B.A. in Spanish. In conclusion, I am excited and motivated to successfully complete our Capstone and ePortfolio. This class is related to WLC 300 and WLC 400, where we have been instructed about our career and final project.