Course Description

Prerequisites: ACT score of 18 in English or successful completion of Eng 099

The course is designed to help students understand and develop their writing, reading, and thinking abilities through the production and rhetorical examination of personal and academic texts and to prepare students to develop analytical and synthesizing abilities for further academic study and life-long use.

General Education Goals

I. Essential Goals

A. To Communicate Accurately and Effectively: Students will write, revise, and edit papers in academic discourse, explaining positions or issues they have discovered in their reading assignments. Papers, discussions, and reports will demonstrate the students= abilities to analyze the needs of different audiences.

B. To Locate, Select, and Present Information Efficiently: Students will use electronic, library-based, and field-research resources by creating at least one extended, argument-based document incorporating different forms of verbal (written and oral) assignments such as summaries, analyses, and critiques. Students will demonstrate their ability to clarify an issue and incorporate it into a coherent, extended written argument.

C. To Think and Reason Analytically: Students will produce documents and participate in discussions that demonstrate ability to recognize rhetorical reasoning in readings and their abilities to apply analytical reasoning to their own work.

II. Ancillary Goals

A. To function responsibly in the natural, social, and technological environment.

B. To recognize and value the multicultural nature of American society and to respect the rights of all citizens.

C. To make informed and ethical value decisions.

Learner Outcomes of this Course

 

Students who have successfully completed Eng 100 will be able to:

1. Responsibly and accurately summarize a reading, using a variety of techniques, including purposeful notating, outlining, paraphrasing, attributing, and directly quoting when drafting and revising a simple summary. They will employ the same techniques toward drafting and revising a simple synthesis of two or more sources dealing with a common topic [Essential Goals 1, 2, & 3];

2. Demonstrate the ability to apply the various concepts and methods of critical thinking (for example, the processes of induction and deduction or fallacy analysis) as they draft and revise a critical analysis of an argument (for example, identifying fallacious reasoning or ineffective use of evidence) [Essential Goals 1 & 3];

3. Demonstrate familiarity with library research methods, as well as with Internet and/or field research techniques, in order to gather information to develop a critical synthesis project supported with sound critical thinking and outside sources [Essential Goals 1, 2, & 3];

4. Demonstrate in their writing a rhetorical understanding of and the ability to make informed choices about the use of appropriate dialects, including those of their home languages as well as those valued in academic and professional contexts [Essential Goals 1 & 3];

5. Construct sentences that reflect conventions and standards of academic usage and to demonstrate reasonable control over paragraph structures along with the ability to link ideas together into a longer multi- paragraphed piece of writing [Essential Goal 1];

6. Produce a minimum of four polished papers or the equivalent (I. e., 3000 words, or twelve pages. of typed, double-spaced, final product) that demonstrate both rhetorical breadth (variety) and depth (moving selected pieces through numerous revisions towards final polished form) over the course of a semester [Essential Goals 1, 2, & 3] .

Teaching Strategies for this Course

The instructor will rely on a variety of strategies such as:

1. Discussion of professional and student texts in private conference and whole class settings;

2. Writing-to-learn techniques including journals, in-class written responses, and periodic self-evaluations of work during the course, focusing on the students= ability to analyze, revise, and edit their own writing;

3. Assignment of summaries, syntheses, critical analyses, research projects, and preparation of a writing portfolio;

4. Instructor presentations about significant concepts in the readings as they relate to bias and objectivity in other writers= and students= argumentative texts;

5. Students= presentation of their own writing, and research discoveries in formal class reports to promote understanding of the role the research plays in their lives;

6. Student and teacher use of communication technology, including e-mail to communicate and distribute course materials and online resources for research; and

7. Quizzes based on course readings and discussion;

8. Annotated local revisions for reviewing personal grammar and usage needs;

9. One short oral lesson on a reasoning fallacy to engage students in applying argumentative strategies; and

10. Conferencing with students about research findings through Reading Journals and field research.