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Statewide Required Objectives/Outcomes:
At the completion of this course, the student should be able to:
1. Read analytically to understand and respond to diverse academic texts.
2. Compose thesis-driven academic writing that demonstrates analysis and synthesis of sources as appropriate to the rhetorical situation.
3. Demonstrate strategies for planning, outlining, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading written work.
Expanded and Additional Local Objectives/Outcomes:
Critical Reading, Thinking, and Inquiry
1. Read, analyze, and evaluate a variety of college-level writings of various genres for content, context, and rhetorical merit with consideration of genre, tone, audience, and purpose.
2. Demonstrate, in writing and discussion, the conclusions of textual analysis, including an understanding of a text's argument and structure.
3. Critically read, analyze, discuss, and evaluate a variety of college-level writings to summarize, respond, make inferences, identify biases and assumptions, consider multiple perspectives, construct meaning from the target text, and make connections to their lived experiences and the world around them.
4. Apply a variety of discipline-specific skills and strategies that demonstrate the use of college composition conventions and discourse.
Writing
1. Per CALGETC standards, students will write, revise, and edit predominantly academic essays totaling at least 5000 words of formal writing (4,000 of which will be in final draft form in two or more essays).
2. Develop essays, following academic writing conventions, that respond to the assignment parameters and are logically and coherently organized, engage with relevant and sufficientsupport for claims, and demonstrate effective use of rhetorical (persuasive) strategies.
3. Engage a range of writing process strategies in developing essays.
Research, Information, and Learning Resources
1. Demonstrate facility with research techniques, such as use of library and online tools.
2. Locate and evaluate sources and their respective mediums to determine their relevance, credibility, and depth of knowledge.
3. Synthesize and respond to outside source materials to form evidence-based conclusions.
4. Evaluate outside source material for effective and ethical integration into writing assignments using Modern Language Association (MLA) format.
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Statewide Required Topics:
1. Read, analyze, and evaluate diverse texts, primarily non-fiction, for rhetorical strategies and styles.
2. Apply a variety of rhetorical strategies in academic writing, including well-organized essays with effective theses and support.
3. Develop varied and flexible strategies for generating, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading formal writing.
4. Analyze rhetorical choices in students' own and peers' writing and effectively provide and incorporate feedback.
5. Write in various genres and modalities, including low stakes, analytical, argumentative, collaborative, reflective writing, synthesis, literature review, and other forms.
6. Exhibit acceptable college-level control of mechanics, organization, development, and coherence.
7. Identify, evaluate, and effectively integrate material from source texts through paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting using appropriate documentation conventions
8. Compose a minimum of 5,000 words of formal writing across major assignments.
Expanded and Additional Local Topics:
I. Critical Reading, Thinking, and Inquiry
A. Pre-reading
1. Determining reading purpose
2. Identifying genre, purpose, and potential audience of a given text
3. Developing a critical reading plan based on assignment, reader's purpose, and the genre of the reading
B. Active Reading
1. Developing reading strategies, such as annotating, visualizing, and questioning
2. Using reading support resources (e.g. dictionary)
3. Making connections (intratextual, intertextual, and to lived experiences)
a. Distinguishing between knowledge/expertise/lived experiences
b. Identifying intratextual relationships
i. A text's thesis and supporting evidence
ii. A text's ideas and its details
iii. A text's rhetorical modes and the text's meaning
c. Synthesizing ideas from multiple texts
C. Analysis and Response
1. Determining a text's purpose
2. Comprehending a text's thesis
3. Identifying a text's methods of argumentation or use of rhetorical/Aristotelian appeals
4. Practicing close reading
a. A text's potential effects
b. Literary linguistic, imagistic, stylistic, and tonal patterns or peculiarities in a variety
of genres.
c. Explicit and implicit biases
5. Reading as a writer
a. Writer's use of organizational patterns
b. Writer's use of secondary source materials to support a given thesis
6. Recognizing styles of argumentation and rhetorical strategies
7. Analyzing styles of argumentation and rhetorical strategies
8. Critiquing styles of argumentation and rhetorical strategies
II. Writing
A. Writing Prompts and Assignments
1. Analyzing writing prompts and assignments to address all facets of the prompt completely
2. Developing a writing plan reflective of the rhetorical situation.
B. Writing Process
1. Using prewriting techniques, such as conducting research, brainstorming, free writing, mapping, clustering and outlining
2. Drafting assignments that may focus on thesis construction, paragraph organization and development, and evidentiary support of claims
3. Revising drafts for content, concision, clarity, organization, style, tone, and diction
4. Proofreading and editing for clarity, fluency, and use of academic writing conventions, such as syntax, sentence structure, sentence variety, grammar, punctuation, and other writing mechanics
C. Content for Essays and Other Course Writing Assignments
1. Establishing a clear writing purpose for intended audience, rhetorical situation, and genre
2. Clarifying thesis
3. Creating supportive and unified paragraphs with topic sentences and text-based support
4. Documenting text-based support in Modern Language Association (MLA) format.
5. Practicing strategies to successfully write timed essays, such as analyzing the essay prompt or question, developing a thesis, outlining, managing time, and proofreading for clarity and wording
III. Research, Information, and Learning Resources
A. Source Material Research and Evaluation
1. Understanding the practice and purpose of research
2. Locating appropriate sources to meet the rhetorical situation
3. Evaluating sources and mediums for credibility and quality
4. Integrating sources into writing effectively
5. Using information ethically
a. Appropriate representation
b. Appropriate documentation
c. Appropriate attribution
6. Formatting research according to MLA guidelines
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Critical Reading, Thinking, and Inquiry
1. Weekly reading assignments (primarily nonfiction)
2. Participation in class discussions
3. Low-stakes reading assignments, such as
a. annotations
b. discussion boards
Writing
1. At least 5000 words (4000 of which will be in final draft form) of formal writing, including timed/in-class essays, which represent various types of academic essays, such as
a. synthesis-driven argumentative texts
b. literature reviews
c. narrative, expository, and analytical essays
2. Low-stakes writing assignments, such as
a. personal response papers
b. reading response journals
c. summaries
Research
1. Library research assignments, such as
a. an annotated bibliography
b. research sessions with a librarian
Other
1. Individual or group presentations or projects
2. Essay exams, objective exams, and/or quizzes
3. Optional field trips (ungraded)
Statewide Required Methods of Evaluation:
Methods of formative and summative evaluation used to observe or measure students' achievement of course outcomes and objectives will include primarily academic writing, which may include timed/in-class writing. Methods of evaluation are at the discretion of local faculty.
Expanded and Additional Local Methods of Evaluation: See table below.
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Statewide Representative Textbooks:
An anthology, or appropriate Open Educational Resources (OER) containing culturally diverse college-level essays, articles, or other texts
A college-level handbook on writing and documentation or evidence of similar writing pedagogy.
Course texts may include book-length works.
Texts used by individual institutions and even individual sections will vary. The list of representative texts must include at least one text with a publication date within seven (7) years of the course outline approval date.
Additional Local Representative Textbooks:
Online Educational Resources (OER) texts:
Handbooks:
Understanding Rhetoric: a Graphic Guide to Writing. 3rd ed. Losh. Elizabeth and Alexander, Jonathan and Cannon, Kevin. 2021
A Pocket Style Manual. 9th ed. Hacker, Diana and Sommers, Nancy. Bedford/St. Martin's. 2021
College Composition and Reading: Information and Strategies. 4th ed. Lukas, Linda. Kendall Hunt. 2017. (classic).
Rules for Writers. 10th ed. Hacker, Diana and Sommers, Nancy. Bedford/St. Martin's. 2022
They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 5th ed. Graff, Gerald and Birkenstein, Cathy. 2021
Writing that Matters: A Handbook for Chicanx and Latinx Studies. Heidenreich, L. and Urquijo-Ruiz, Rita. University of Arizona Press. 2024.
Essay Collections:
Emerging. 5th ed. Barrios, Barclay. Bedford/St. Martin's. 2022
Best American Academic Essays. Gornick, Vivian. 2023
Teaching Critical Thinking. Hooks, Bell. Routledge. 2009. (classic).
Collected Essays. Baldwin, James. Library of America. 1998. (classic).
Themed Readers:
Pursuing Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. 2nd ed. Parfitt, Matthew and Skorczewski, Dawn. Bedford/St. Martin. 2020
Food Matters: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. 3rd ed. Bauer, Holly. Bedford/St. Martin. 2021.
Non-fiction Full-Length Texts and Memoir:
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine. Tweedy, Damon. Picador. 2016. (classic).
Poverty, by America. Desmond, Matthew. Crown. 2023.
Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism. Nawaz, Maajid. Lyons Press. 2013. (classic).
Borderlands: La Frontera. 4th ed. Anzaldua, Gloria. Aunt Lute Books. 2012. (classic).
Between the World and Me. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. One World. 2015. (classic).
Education is Politics: Critical Teaching Across Differences. Pari, Caroline and Shor, Ira. Heinemann. 2000. (classic).
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Wiesenthal, Simon. Schocken. 1998. (classic).
The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Haley, Alex. Ballantine Books. 1992. (classic).
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name-A Biomythography. Lorde, Audre. Crossing Press. 1982. (classic).
The New Jim Crow. Alexander, Michelle. 2nd ed. The New Press. 2020
Fiction:
The Underground Railroad. Whitehead, Colson. Doubleday. 2016. (classic).
Americanah. Adichie, Chimamanda. Anchor. 2014. (classic).
America is in the Heart. Bulosan, Carlos. 2nd ed. University of Washington Press. 2014. (classic).
A Thousand Splendid Suns. Hosseini, Khaled. Riverhead Books. 2008. (classic).
A Gesture Life. Lee, Chang-rae. Riverhead Books. 2000. (classic).
When We Were Orphans. Ishiguro, Kazuo. Vintage. 2001. (classic).
The Handmaid's Tale. Attwood, Margaret. Anchor. 1998. (classic).
Multimedia Texts:
Black Panther: A Nation Under our Feet. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Marvel Worldwide, 2016. (classic).
To Pimp a Butterfly. Lamar, Kendrick. Top Dog Entertainment. 2015. (classic).