20801201English 1
Course Information
Description
The first course in communication skills at the college level, developing student abilities in critical reading, writing, listening, and speaking, for both exposition and argumentation. The course emphasizes summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing information from sources, and develops writing for multiple purposes and audiences. The class assumes competence in English grammar and paragraph structure.
Total Credits
3
Course Competencies
  1. Apply a process-oriented approach to writing
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Self-Assessment
    Criteria
    Prioritize the writing process over the finished product.
    Interpret the assignment instructions for each writing task.
    Use flexible strategies for generating ideas, composing multiple drafts, peer-reviewing, revising with feedback, editing, and proofreading.
    Demonstrate prewriting strategies, such as brainstorming, clustering, or freewriting.
    Students demonstrate drafting strategies, such as outlining, writing in chunks, and multiple drafts.
    Demonstrate revising strategies such as adding, deleting, and moving content.
    Deliver peer feedback while upholding the principles of privacy, academic integrity, and accountability.
    Demonstrate editing and proofreading strategies, such as improving sentences and checking for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors.
    Reflect on the development and effectiveness of your composing processes, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and strategies for improvement.

  2. Develop voice, style, and inclusive language for multiple genres and audiences (E&I 3A)
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Self-Assessment
    Criteria
    Define what inclusive language means, which includes choosing words that don't exclude or offend any group, establishing a welcoming and respectful tone, and considering diverse readers in your writing. (E&I 3b)
    Interpret how texts written by authors from historically underrepresented or marginalized cultures use language, voice, or communication style for liberation.
    Develop your unique voice and writing style. (Right to your own language)
    Adapt your voice, language, diction, tone, or sentence structure for genre and audience.
    Demonstrate context-sensitive, inclusive language to meet the needs of diverse readers. (E&I 3b)
    Reflect on the social contexts and genres in which the use of standardized American English is advantageous.
    Reflect on how, why, and to what extent you might choose not to use standardized American English for composition.

  3. Explain the role and purposes of writing in culture (E&I 2D)
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Discussion
    Criteria
    Interpret the purposes and roles of writing in culture, such as storytelling, preserving cultural heritage, expressing cultural identity, and promoting cultural understanding.
    Investigate how writing has been used historically to promote or suppress certain cultural groups and how this has impacted cultural identity and representation. (E&I 2d)
    Explain the implications of valuing standardized American English above other varieties of English. (E&I 2b)
    Examine the prejudices and misconceptions that affect speakers of various English languages, creating negative stereotypes about historically marginalized groups. (E&I 2c)
    Explore how your communication with others has been shaped by your various individual and group identities within a diverse society. (E&I 2a)
    Reflect on how writing serves specific purposes and how you can actively use it to shape your world.

  4. Write college-level expository and analytical essays
    Assessment Strategies
    Written essays
    Criteria
    Produce a combined total of 18-24 pages of polished academic writing.
    Develop content to meet the goals of the assignment, the intended rhetorical purpose, and the conventions of an academic genre.
    Recognize various rhetorical strategies, such as ethos, pathos, logos, and rhetorical devices like metaphors, analogies, and hyperbole in written or visual texts.
    Apply the conventions for structuring expository and analytical genres.
    Write to explain things, such as definitions, narratives, or descriptions.
    Write to analyze things, such as comparative analysis, rhetorical analysis, process analysis, textual analysis, or critical analysis.

  5. Craft an arguable thesis
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Skills Assessment
    Criteria
    Define a thesis statement.
    Explain the components of a thesis statement, such as the topic, stance, and reasoning.
    Analyze what makes a thesis clear, specific, and arguable.
    Compose a thesis with a scope appropriate for the length, format, rhetorical purpose, and focus of your composition.
    Place your thesis effectively within your composition.
    Support your thesis with evidence that develops your reasoning.

  6. Apply active and critical reading strategies to a variety of college-level texts
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Skills Assessment
    Criteria
    Use active reading strategies to find, summarize, or visualize the ideas in a text for comprehension.
    Ask critical questions about what a text is expressing, why the author wrote it, the meaning of specific words or phrases, or the implications of the content.
    Analyze texts using strategies like evaluating the evidence, comparing the text with other viewpoints, recognizing rhetorical devices, considering the context, or drawing inferences.
    Share your perspective on texts, relating material to your own experiences or connecting it to other things you’ve experienced or read. (E&I 2c)
    Consider how descriptive, narrative, informative, or analytic writing can evoke empathy, amplify historically marginalized or underrepresented voices, challenge the status quo, and empower personal and collective liberation.

  7. Summarize complex arguments for multiple purposes
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Skills Assessment
    Criteria
    Compose a summary for an academic audience.
    Compose summaries for specific purposes, such as to inform, persuade, evaluate, draw conclusions, make connections, compare, or react to what you read.
    Interpret an author's rhetorical purpose, rhetorical context, and objectives.
    Analyze the structure of texts to understand how ideas are presented and how persuasion happens.
    Integrate content from sources into a summary using paraphrases and quotations.
    Distinguish your voice from that of the author you are summarizing.

  8. Conduct research from written sources to meet information needs
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Skills Assessment
    Criteria
    Interpret an assignment to determine the kind of research required.
    Investigate the role of the library in academic writing.
    Demonstrate divergent (e.g., brainstorming) and convergent (e.g., choosing the best source) thinking when searching for sources.
    Match information needs to appropriate search tools, such as library subscription databases or web search engines.
    Apply search techniques to execute basic search queries, such as generating search terms, simple Boolean logic, limiters, phrase searches, synonyms, truncation, or database filters.
    Demonstrate ethical research practices, including identifying and citing all sources used in your academic work, whether print, digital, or multimedia.
    Communicate your research accurately, using appropriate academic language and tone.

  9. Document source material according to MLA style
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, and/or Skills Assessment
    Criteria
    Integrate sources using attributive tags/signal phrases.
    Use MLA in-text citations to give credit to the original sources.
    Compile an MLA "Works Cited" page that lists all sources used in a composition.
    Apply the appropriate MLA citation model for different types of sources, such as books, e-books, electronic journal articles, websites, videos, or other media.
    Demonstrate MLA manuscript formatting conventions for p. 1 headings and page numbering.
    Demonstrate MLA punctuation rules, such as italics, quotation marks, and periods.
    Recognize what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid intentional and unintentional plagiarism in college.

  10. Analyze principles of aural and visual design for effective multi-modal composition
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, Discussion, and/or Skills Assessment
    Criteria
    Interpret a multimodal text, such as an infographic, video, podcast, website, blog, text message exchange, collage, poster, speech, story with images, social media post, ad, illustration, sculpture, etc., to determine the rhetorical strategies used, the audiences they target, and the messages they convey.
    Investigate how the choice of medium can impact how a message is received and understood by diverse audiences.
    Reflect on your composing processes for communicating in a text-only document versus a document that uses written, oral, non-verbal, or visual communication together.
    Use media ethically, documenting the creator and maintaining their copyright and intellectual property rights.

  11. Develop digital information literacy skills, including the ability to explain how AI-based tools work, their benefits and risks
    Assessment Strategies
    Written, Oral, Graphic, Discussion, and/or Skills Assessment
    Criteria
    Recognize misleading information, such as fake news, misinformation, disinformation, deep fakes, satire, “pink slime” journalism, or clickbait.
    Use fact-checking to verify sources, such as the reputation and expertise of the author, the publication or platform, and the quality of evidence presented.
    Utilize digital citation tools, such as the CITE function in library databases, or digital citation generators, such as Knightcite, to credit the ideas of others.
    Examine the social nature of the information ecosystem, which encompasses how information flows through society and the role of various elements, such as media organizations, social media platforms, and influencers.
    Examine the role of cognitive bias in shaping perceptions of information.
    Define basic principles, concepts, terminology, and technology related to Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) and LLMs (Large Language Models).
    Critique output from Generative AI tools for quality, authenticity, relevance, privacy, misinformation, or biases.
    Demonstrate ethical practices if using generative AI in writing, including citation, avoiding plagiarism, respecting privacy, and adhering to ethical guidelines.
    Explore the impact of digital technologies, like generative AI, on learning, writing, and communication.