A writing-intensive course that aims to strengthen writing skills though varied genres, including literary analysis, journalism, and biography, and through multiple revisions. The course is a prerequisite for all upper division courses.

Taught in Italian. Required of majors and minors. This is a writing intensive course, its thematic content changes every semester. In Spring 2021 we will focus on the idea of “Italian identity”. We will discuss texts, videos and audio recordings speaking of cultural, ethnic and linguistic minorities, those who have inhabited the peninsula for centuries and those who arrived in the past decades. We will analyse this theme from multiple perspectives, considering varied examples, from the unifying power of cultural icons (music, food, etc.) to the current debate on the right to citizenship. We will read several texts from a variety of different genres and writing styles (newspaper and magazine articles, essays, personal narratives, etc.) all focused on the issue of cultural and national identity. As a writing intensive workshop, the aim of this course is to strengthen and refine your writing skills, thus strong emphasis will be given on the process of writing, reviewing and re-writing your work and that of your peers. You will write regularly both short and longer texts, using different styles and registers. At the end of the semester you will have created a portfolio of about 20-30 pages in Italian. Grammar will be reviewed only in the context of the texts and genres analysed. The course is entirely taught in Italian and it is a pre-requisite to any 100-level course in Italian. Prerequisites: Italian Studies 4 at UCB or proficiency placement /permission of the instructor IS 101 can be repeated for elective credit if the content is sufficiently different from the previous offering. Texts: to be announced.

Repeat Rules

Requirements class fulfills