Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

• Read both modified and unmodified materials reflecting an adult sensibility.
• Demonstrate understanding by writing clear, well-developed summaries, analyses, responses and presentations, and by speaking comprehensibly about the material.

Quizzes, tests, essays, presentations, and portfolios. Students will be tested regularly on previously unseen readings and expected to apply process skills to the material (see “Competencies and Skills – Textual Analysis” below). By the end of the course, students must also demonstrate mastery of oral communication and writing equivalent to the skill level necessary to exit Intermediate Academic Writing and Intermediate Academic Communication.

A. Content Comprehension B. Textual Analysis C. Critical Thinking Skills D. Study Skills E. Language Analysis

Competencies and Skills

A. Content Comprehension

1. Identify topics, main ideas, and supporting details 2. Identify rhetorical styles including narration, description, process, comparison/contrast, and cause/effect 3. Correlate information from multiple sources as a basis for a response

B. Textual Analysis

1. Identify paragraph and essay organizational structures for unabridged college-level literature, academic texts, essays, and newspaper and magazine articles 2. Identify rhetorical features such as plot, setting, character, theme, point of view, narrative and descriptive techniques, and symbolism 3. Interpret basic maps, tables, graphs, and figures and their relationship to the main ideas in texts

C. Critical Thinking Skills

1. Make logical inferences, predictions, connections, and conclusions 2. Relate readings to personal needs and experiences 3. Distinguish fact from opinion and fiction from non-fiction 4. Express in one’s own words ideas and opinions related to readings

D. Study Skills

1. Read, understand, and follow directions 2. Use previewing techniques including tables of content, indexes, and glossaries 3. Use note-taking techniques including outlining 4. Use skimming and scanning to find specific information 5. Develop questions based on readings 6. Work in groups to define, analyze, and solve problems 7. Use a monolingual, adult ESL dictionary of American English and other references 8. Read for comprehension under time constraints

E. Language Analysis

1. Identify the structures found in basic-level authentic adult readings and understand their functions there. Structures include subjects, verbs, passive voice, adjective and adverb clauses, prepositional phases, and pronoun references 2. Identify, understand, and apply knowledge of vocabulary items and their word families, word forms, and common prefixes and suffixes in new contexts