Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Develops advanced writing skills. Reviews the writing process with descriptive and expository essays and improves skills with grammar and mechanics. Explores concepts including but not limited to the cultural expectations related to a U.S. academic environment and the use of outside readings to support one's ideas and opinions in writing. This is the fourth course of a five-course sequence. Prerequisites: ESOL placement test OR successful completion of ESOL 162 within the past 12 months AND concurrent enrollment in ESOL 160 and ESOL 164 or higher. Audit available.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:
1. Use writing to reflect and clarify thinking.
2. Apply knowledge of English grammar and writing rules to clearly communicate through writing in professional, civic, and academic situations commonly encountered in the U.S.
3. Apply critical thinking to writing with an understanding of one’s own cultural filter, using concepts learned in a multi-cultural environment.
4. Use the accepted patterns of organization and clarity common to professional and academic writing in the U.S.
5. Use a multi-step process to plan, revise, and edit written work, including tools (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus) and sources to support writing.

Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:

1. Use writing to reflect and clarify thinking and to develop fluency

2. Understand the U.S. academic and professional views of plagiarism to avoid plagiarizing.

3. Apply linguistic knowledge to clearly communicate through writing in professional, civic, and academic situations commonly encountered in the U.S.

4. Apply critical thinking to writing with an understanding of ones own cultural filter, using concepts learned in a multi-cultural environment; apply

cultural understanding learned in class to examine and appreciate the writing of others.

5. Use the accepted patterns of organization and clarity common to professional and academic writing in the U.S.

6. Use a multi-step process to plan, revise, and edit written work, including tools (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus) and sources to support writing.

A. Essays

Write a minimum of five essays, the majority of which are satisfactory*, including:

1. in-class essays

2. out-of-class essays

3. an essay not tied to a particular rhetorical style, some suggestions include:  

• reader response or responding to a prompt

• scholarship application essay

• English Wikipedia/eHow

• letter to a political figure (e.g. to a senator)

• short story/creative writing (e.g. spin-off narrative form)

• an article for a publication such as The Bridge or The Change Agent

• letter to the editor

• history of local community possibly including research and interviews

B. Optional assessment strategies

• self reflection on in-class activity

• product, movie, restaurant, art exhibit reviews

• Oregon or Portland guide

• culture guide to be compiled and published online

• formal complaint

• a reading/writing journal

*explanation of satisfactory attached

A. Grammar Review and Instruction

1. Phrases and Clauses

2. Verbs and Related Structures

3. Other Parts of Speech

4. Mechanics

B. Writing Process

C. Rhetorical Styles

D. Critical Thinking Skills

Competencies and Skills

A. Grammar and Mechanics

Phrases and Clauses

1. use simple, compound, and complex sentences

2. use adverb clauses

3. use adverb clauses in the conditional (real)

4. use adjective clauses

5. use noun clauses of reported speech

6. identify and correct sentence fragments, run-ons, and comma splices

Emerging competency

1. recognize restrictive and non-restrictive adjective clauses

2. recognize adverb clauses in the unreal and past unreal conditions

3. recognize noun clauses as subjects, objects, and subject complements

4 recognize reduced clauses as modifying phrases

5. recognize problems with parallel structure

Verbs and Related Structures

1. use verbs in the active and passive voice competently

2. use modals and related words correctly

3. use two-word verbs correctly

4. use subject-verb agreement with expressions of quantity

5. use direct and indirect speech competently

Emerging competency

1. recognize gerunds and infinitives competently

2. recognize perceptive and causative verb forms

Other Parts of Speech

1. use articles with common nouns

2. use pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, adjectives, and coordinating conjunctions

Emerging competency

1. recognize correlative conjunctions and transition words and phrases

2. recognize articles with generic nouns and with proper nouns

3. recognize appositives

Mechanics

1. identify and correct punctuation, capitalization, and spelling errors competently

B. The writing process

1. use prewriting skills, including brainstorming techniques, group discussion of topics, narrowing a topic, and outlining

2. develop ability to revise and edit (including using/doing peer response) multiple drafts

3. develop skills in organizing essays correctly:

a. create a thesis statement

b. create introductions in a variety of styles, each keeping the intended audience in mind.

c. develop supporting paragraphs that have clear topic sentences and adequate relevant supporting detail

d. develop ability to evaluate and improve an essay in the areas of coherence and unity of ideas and presentation.

4. conference twice with instructor

5. use assigned format for papers

C. Rhetorical Styles

1. competently use at least two of the following rhetorical styles in multiple-paragraph essays: descriptive narration or descriptive process, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, discussion

2. write one essay not tied to a particular rhetorical style

D. Critical Thinking Skills

1. use supplemental or textbook readings to generate ideas and vocabulary for writing assignments

2. appropriately incorporate examples or the thoughts of others

3. avoid plagiarism

4. demonstrate an awareness of audience and purpose

5. distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information

6. distinguish between facts and opinions

7. avoid bias and stereotyping in writing

8. identify topics of equal class for comparison or contrast and classification

9. distinguish between causes and effects

10. categorize information quickly

11. give a balanced presentation of opposing arguments on an issue

12. distinguish between subjective and objective evidence

13. distinguish between a thesis and a statement of fact

14. form a thesis based on assigned readings (or film as text) and support it with details and examples

15. understand the difference between narration/description and expository writing

Explanation of Satisfactory Essays

A satisfactory essay includes the following:

1. selection of a topic worthy of adult communication

2. selection of a rhetorical pattern that integrates well with the chosen thesis

3. appropriate language, detail, and tone showing originality and awareness of audience

4. an introduction which creates interest and fits with the rest of the essay

5. a clear thesis statement

6. paragraph development that thoroughly explains the thesis statement

7. appropriate topic sentences

8. a concluding paragraph

9. unity and coherence

10. seventy percent grammatical accuracy in these areas: verb tense, verb form, sentence form, agreement, word form, word choice, and word order, and punctuation; grammatical errors in other areas should not interfere with understandability

11. precise vocabulary (word form and word choice appropriate to context/purpose/audience)

12. appropriate transitions and other connectors

13. sentence variety

In addition to the above general criteria, the following essay-specific criteria will be used:

A satisfactory in-class essay

1. contains four or more paragraphs

2. includes development that is at least 70 percent as thorough as satisfactory out-of-class essays

3. demonstrates the ability to connect writing to specific reading or readings (at least one in-class essay will do this)

A satisfactory out-of-class essay

1. is a minimum of two typed pages.

2. demonstrates evidence of having been edited and proofread.