English T122: Critical Reading and Writing

Goals and Objectives:
T122 is a text-based course designed to develop critical reading and writing abilities. For the most part, the readings are short, non-fictional texts on controversial issues. Students are asked to determine the central point or thesis, to identify supporting material, and to assess the effectiveness of the readings. Students are also asked to express their own reasoned opinions on the social or cultural issues and questions of value raised in the texts.

Prerequisites:
Students must either be placed in the course or have taken English A100 or A105.

Critical Reading:
Students should understand the main idea of a text and identify the key supporting points. Depending on the assignment, students will examine one or more of the following:

• The rhetorical effectiveness of a text: Does the evidence support the claim? Do the appeals to the audience support the claim? (Critical outcome: effective skills in reading).
• The logical strengths and weaknesses of a text: What are its assumptions? What are the facts? What are the opinions? Are there logical fallacies? (Critical outcome: analytical and reasoning skills).
• The text's relation to the student's own acquired knowledge, values, and opinions gained from reading or experience. (Critical outcome: the ability to reflect upon and critique values).
• The differences between two texts or between a text and a student's own experience or beliefs. (Critical outcome: effective skills in reading and research).

Critical Writing:
Critical writing should arise out of the critical reading of texts and may take several forms:

• An evaluative essay expresses the main idea of a text, assesses its strengths and weaknesses, and expresses a critical judgment of its effectiveness. (Critical outcome: effective skills in writing).
• A response essay expresses a reasoned stance on an issue raised in a text. It should also apply conclusions about the issue to relevant examples or "real-life" situations. (Critical outcome: analytical reasoning skills).
• Students will work through several drafts of both their evaluative and response essays, receiving feedback both from their teachers and from their peers. Final drafts should be unified, coherent, and appropriately developed. (Critical outcome: effective skills in writing).

Grammatical Writing:
In their final drafts, critical papers should be revised and edited in accordance with the teacher's written or verbal corrections and should be relatively free of errors in spelling, punctuation, usage, and mechanics (see Grading Standards). (Critical outcome: effective skills in writing).

Writing from Sources:
Students should learn how to summarize, paraphrase, and cite sources. They should cite and document sources in accordance with the MLA system of internal citation and documentation. (Critical outcome: effective skills in research, reading, and writing).
The course requires at least 7000 words of student writing (including revisions), divided between evaluative and response essays. The writing typically is distributed among several (3-5) assignments of 750-1000 words, at least one of which is an in-class essay and one of which is source-based. The source-based assignment may call for an extended essay (1500+ words).
The target texts of this course are predominantly non-fiction. Individual teachers, however, may assign visual, imaginative, or filmic texts for analysis or response. Samples of such texts, however, will be introduced sparingly and only in the service of course objectives, for the chief aim of this course is to encourage critical reading and writing of non-fiction.

Texts:
Keene and Adams. Easy Access: A Writer's Guide and Reference (required.)
Rottenberg. Elements of Argument, or another approved text.
Any standard college dictionary

English T125: Writing about Literature

Prerequisites:
To enroll in English T125, students must have either passed or exempted English T122.

Goals and Objectives:
Like T122, T125 is a text-based course designed to develop critical reading and writing skills. This course involves literary texts, drawn from the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama and from traditional and modern periods. Teachers may also elect to include some films. Sections usually have a thematic or genre-based focus. The critical reading and the discussion of the texts will involve standard literary terms.

Critical Reading:
Students should understand the thematic point of narrative texts and the central idea, emotion, or experience expressed in lyrical texts. They should identify the literary elements that contribute to the point or feeling of a text. Teachers may introduce specific strategies of interpretation, such as formalist, historicist, feminist, or psychoanalytic; students should also learn to employ the standard terms of literary analysis. (Critical outcome: effective skills in reading).

Critical Writing:

• As in T122, critical or interpretive writing should arise out of a student's thoughtful reading of a text or texts. (Critical outcome: effective skills in research and writing).
• An interpretive essay expresses a student's reading of the text, including the student's understanding of the theme or thesis and how literary elements contribute to that thesis. Essays may treat more than a single text, comparing elements of various texts to arrive at an interpretive conclusion.
• As in T122, the following standards prevail: an interpretive essay should be unified, coherent, and appropriately developed.

Grammatical Writing:
In their final drafts, critical papers should be revised and edited in accordance with the teacher's written or verbal corrections and should be relatively free of errors in spelling, punctuation, usage, and mechanics (see Grading Standards). (Critical outcome: effective skills in writing).

Writing from Sources:
Students should learn about literary resources available in the library and on the internet. They should practice summarizing, paraphrasing, and citing sources and document them in accordance with the MLA system of internal citation and documentation. (Critical outcome: effective skills in research and writing).

As in T122, this course requires at least 7000 words of student writing, including revisions. The writing typically is distributed among several (3-5) critical essay assignments of 750-1000 words, at least one of which is an in-class essay, and one of which is source-based. The source-based assignment may call for an extended essay (1500+ words).

Texts:
Keene and Adams. Easy Access: A Writer's Guide and Reference. (Required.)
Abcarian and Klotz. Literature: The Human Experience, or a similar anthology or selection of texts.
Any standard college dictionary.