Intro to Advanced Composition [08/27/08]
WELCOME TO ADVANCED COMPOSITION
I. Course Title: Advanced Composition
II. Description: Instruction and practice in writing expository prose. Students use word-processing software to write and revise essays.
III. Purpose of Course: The course is designed to help students improve their writing processes, to improve students’ critical thinking skills, to increase the organizational effectiveness of students’ writing, and to develop students’ awareness of the importance of context in writing.
IV. Course Objectives: Advanced Comp. focuses much attention on helping students learn and foster the process of writing for academia. The course goals include helping students develop
Critical thinking skills, as reflected in substantive discussion of reading and writing;
An awareness of audience and purpose in their writing and in the writing of others;
Effective organization and idea development skills;
Appropriate style, diction, and voice in their writing;
Skillful argumentation, including use of detail and supporting evidence;
The ability to thoughtfully evaluate and productively revise their own work;
The ability to judiciously read and analyze works by professional writers and peers, and;
The ability to edit their own writing for usage, mechanics, and academic conventions.
V. Content Outline: The course attempts to meet the above objectives by helping students do the following, arranged in order of minimum competence to full competence:
1. Know the appropriate usage, mechanics, voice, and style to use in a given text.
2. Comprehend the benefits of adopting a recursive writing process and thereby of benefiting from multiple revisions.
3. Apply the evaluative strategies acquired through class discussion of readings to their own writing and to the texts they will incorporate as support for their writing.
4. Analyze the rhetorical strategies used by other writers in class readings and in the writing of other students.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of an argument and reflect that new found knowledge in effective arguments written by the student.
6. Writing assignments that move sequentially toward more sophisticated, rhetorically challenging requirements, including Narrative, Analytical, and Argumentative Writing.
Assessment:
Daily Work/ Participation/ Homework
Quizzes/Reading Checks
Timed writings
Assignments and Projects
Presentations
