Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Students write 2000-2500 words (10 pages) of revised, final draft copy, including at least one essay that incorporates source materials and employs citation conventions.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

1. Read to understand the use of rhetorical concepts (situation, audience, purpose, argument, inquiry, voice, tone, formality, & design)

2. Use composing and reading strategies for inquiry, comprehension, and critical thinking.

3. Practice locating, evaluating and using information effectively and ethically to construct a line of inquiry and encourage intellectual curiosity.

4. Use reading strategies to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with appropriate sources in support of a central idea.

5. Use writing conventions (content, form, format, citation) to meet the expectations of diverse audiences.

6. Use flexible strategies for pre-reading, reading, reviewing, rereading, correcting comprehension, drafting, revising, and editing.

This course may be designed and delivered with a diversity of approaches, respecting instructor autonomy and the needs of students. This list describes some activities that students might engage in to meet the outcomes listed above. It does not prescribe activities which must take place.

1. Read to understand the use of rhetorical concepts (situation, audience, purpose, argument, inquiry, voice, tone, formality, & design)

• Analyze texts in order to identify explicit and implicit ideas.
• Distinguish fact from opinion.
• Determine the author’s potential bias.
• Cultivate flexibility and skepticism as a reader.
• Explore relationship between audience and rhetorical choices in texts.

2. Use composing and reading strategies for inquiry, comprehension, and critical thinking.

• Use stages of reading.

• Develop self-reflection and metacognition.

• Adjust reading rate to needs of the text.

• Broaden use of vocabulary development strategies to learn and use new words.

• Use active reading strategies to formulate questions and develop a line of inquiry.

3. Practice locating, evaluating and using information effectively and ethically to construct a line of inquiry and encourage intellectual curiosity.

• Formulate a research query.

• Select appropriate sources of information.

• Identify and make use of steps in the research process.

• Maintain academic honesty by acknowledging all sources in written work.

• Refine connections between text, the student’s life, student’s knowledge of the world, and other texts.

4. Use reading strategies to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with appropriate sources in support of a central idea.

• Evaluate one’s own reading and writing processes.

• Accurately describe ideas in source material and relate them to one’s own.

• Evaluate one’s own writing skills and writing process to revise drafts to emphasize a central idea and the relevance of evidence.

• Notice commonalities and characteristics of different types of writing

• Practice emulating forms based on models

5. Use writing conventions (content, form, format, citation) to meet the expectations of diverse audiences.

• Focus writing through use of topic sentences or clear topics

• Construct unified essays

• Develop a variety of adequate and relevant support

• Practice use of writing conventions like mechanics and grammar

• Practice crediting source material using a recognized academic style.

• Shift form to meet audience needs.

6. Develop flexible strategies for pre-reading, reading, reviewing, rereading, correcting comprehension, drafting, revising,and editing.

• Adjust reading rate to the nature of the material

• Use critical thinking to evaluate increasingly complex and diverse information and sources for learning.

• Practice writing to learn.

• Improve essays through revision, incorporating peer and instructor feedback

• Examine interactions between structure, style, vocabulary, and purpose within complex texts.

Assessment may include, but is not limited to:

• Portfolio

• Timed, in-class essay writing

• In-class writing

• Out-of-class writing

• Responses to assigned texts

• Research tasks

• Group/individual work demonstrating comprehension strategies

• Group/individual work demonstrating vocabulary usage

• Book review/project of novel, biography, or autobiography

• Conference(s) with instructor

• Individual projects, such as journals, flash cards, outlines, maps, diagrams, multi-media compositions, note-taking methods, career exploration readings, Service Learning

• Midterm and comprehensive final

• Quizzes on vocabulary and correct usage

• Class participation

• Students meet with the instructor for two out-of-class conferences.

• Attendance policies vary with instructors: Students missing a week's worth of classes may not expect an A; those missing two weeks worth may not pass the course.

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)

• Identifying reasons to write;

• Understanding the relationship of the writer to the topic;

• Identifying which arguments one has a stake in;

• Understanding that the thesis is a contract between writer and reader;

• Writing for particular purposes and audiences;

• Supporting claims by the use of specific examples;

• Addressing style as a component of good writing;

• Reading other writers as models;

• Having respect for other points of view and developing sensitivity to the social and political implications of a variety of texts, including ones own;

• Understanding the elements that make up a piece of writing:

  • Sentences

  • Paragraphs

  • Tone

  • Introductions

  • Conclusions

  • Audience

  • Purpose

  • Summary

  • Paraphrase

  • Citation

Competencies and Skills:

Recurring themes and concepts that students will work with include

• Reading actively

• Using inquiry to explore ideas;

• Analyzing audiences for appropriate language and content;

• Identifying a writer’s stated or implied thesis

• Identifying author’s bias

• Analyzing the writer’s use of argumentation to affect audience;

• Using experience, observation and analysis as part of the creative process;

• Monitoring one’s own reading and composing skills and abilities;

• Developing strategies to correct errors in comprehension and composition

• Building vocabulary through context and word parts study;

• Summarizing, paraphrasing, and citing sources;

• Understanding correct sentence structure;

• Developing the ability to integrate and connect one writer’s ideas with another’s

• Recognizing and avoiding plagiarism.

• Identifying organizational patterns

• Adjusting reading rate to text