Course Description
English 101A is a writing intensive, four credit course designed to help students practice the skills of close reading and critical analysis. Each week, you will be required to read assigned texts and respond to these texts through informal writing and class discussions. Three times during the semester, you will write well-developed essays that will each go through an extensive process of peer review before the completion of the final draft. In addition to the two 75 minute classes, you will also be required to attend a 50 minute Studio Session once a week. Studio sessions provide further guidance on issues of craft, such as invention, drafting, and revision. With additional studio instruction, 101A provides extra support for students’ reading and writing skills by offering small group class time with the instructor. Because of the small class size, students will have further opportunities to interact with the instructor and be engaged in small group discussions. Like art studio, adapted studio creates a learning play space for students to work creatively on projects while becoming mindful of effective writing habits.
Course Goals & Objectives
Goal 1: Rhetorical Awareness
Learn strategies for analyzing the audiences, purposes, and contexts of texts in order to strengthen reading and writing.
Student Learning Outcomes:
- 1A. Analyze a text’s genre and how that influences and guides reading and composing practices.
- 1B. Explain the purposes of, intended audiences for, and arguments in a text and how these are impacted by particular cultural, economic, and political contexts.
- 1C. Apply knowledge of rhetorical options in reading practices.
Goal 2: Critical Thinking and Composing
Use reading and writing for research, problem solving, critical thinking, action, and participation within and across different communities.
Student Learning Outcomes:
- 2A. Integrate evidence through methods such as summaries, paraphrases, quotations, and visuals.
- 2B. Support ideas or positions by discussing evidence from multiple sources.
Goal 3: Conventions
Understand how purpose, audience, and context relate to genre conventions such as structure, style, design, usage, mechanics, and citation practices.
Student Learning Outcomes:
- 3A. Follow contextually appropriate conventions for language use related to areas such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
- 3B. Apply contextually appropriate citation conventions.
Goal 4: Revision
Understand composing processes as flexible and collaborative, drawing upon multiple strategies.
Student Learning Outcomes:
- 4A. adapt composing and revision processes for a variety of technologies and modalities.
- 4B. produce multiple revisions on global and local levels.
- 4C. suggest useful global and local revisions to other writers.
- 4D. identify the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.
Goal 5: Reflection
Use meaningful, ongoing reflection to inform writing processes, foster the development of a writing identity, and think ahead to future writing situations.
Student Learning Outcomes:
- 5A. Narrate their processes and progress as writers throughout Foundations Writing courses.
- 5B. Recognize and articulate how their values, goals, and/or circumstances inform their choices as writers
- 5C. Assess how writing experiences and artifacts might influence future writing situations.
Updated 8/4/2021