SPAN 3400

This class was pretty easy and I would recommend it for anyone doing the major/minor. The class is entirely lecture where Professor Riva walks through a different old Spanish reading each week. He is a little disorganized but he's a great person and is clearly passionate about what he does and he makes difficult texts somewhat understandable. He's also very understanding with any issues you might have. The workload is very light - the only assignments were 2 essays throughout the semester and then a final timed essay. As long as you take notes during lecture and keep up with the readings so that you have something to write about for the essays its an easy A.
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This course was a bit of a mess. It's not that it was terrible- Professor Riva clearly cares so much about the literature and about his students, and really wants to help you. Also, he grades pretty easily, which is great! The class is entirely lectures- each week he assigns some medieval Spanish literature for you to read before class, and then in class he lectures about the history behind the piece and goes through it line-by-line with you. The readings were fairly incomprehensible to me, given the type of language they were written in, before class, but he goes through them so thoroughly in class that you end up understanding them and that it is unnecessary to read them before class. I didn't know a single person who was doing the reading ahead of time by a month in. The grading is based on two papers and a final, as well as class participation, but because of the schedule, by the time finals rolled around I only had one grade in, from that first paper, which was 20% of my overall grade. The organization for this class is chaotic, as he changed the requirements for what the first paper was supposed to be several days before it was due, after I had already written it. Overall, I would highly recommend taking one of the other survey level classes, I don't feel like my Spanish really improved because of this class. It's not to difficult and not a lot of work, and again the professor really truly cares about his students and wants to hear what people think about the class and the readings, but it was also one of the most chaotic classes I have ever taken.

The course is super easy if you just pay attention during lecture. Don't be intimidated by the fact that some of the literature in the beginning is in Old Castellian; it gets easier throughout the semester, and Fernando will walk you through everything in the beginning and you'll understand more as the course continues. Only the literature in the beginning is super confusing because of the old language, otherwise, you'll get the hang of reading older literature and might find it very interesting like I did. Again, he'll do some hand-holding in the beginning to make sure everyone is on the same page. For my class, we had one written take-home midterm and one final exam in the same format. If you pay attention in lecture, you'll be prepared to write for the midterm/final, as they are relatively open-ended and up for interpretation by students. You can also definitely get away with skimming the readings before class, as Fernando does an in-depth analysis of each reading during lecture. This course was a relatively easy A and I would recommend taking it with Fernando if you can. He is ULTRA passionate about the content which shows in his lecture. This class is not discussion based, which some may like/dislike. Fernando clearly loves what he does and his eccentricity makes every lecture enjoyable and engaging. He's a great instructor who enriches the course with his own knowledge/background, and I would definitely take another course with him in the future.

Take this class. The readings are relatively interesting although it is really hard to understand some of the Old Spanish (he provides translations to modern Spanish). The class style is only lecture and we had one midterm and one final which were papers and he was very flexible with extra time. I would not take this class with anyone else. I got 100s on everything and enjoyed what we learned. Great class and requirement for the major so take with Fernando if you can!