Pre-College courses prepare students to succeed in English 101.

English 092/093: Developmental Writing

Read and Think Critically

•  Demonstrates ability to make reading connections in writing
•  Uses appropriate college level vocabulary and academic language 
• Summarizes accurately 
• Demonstrate an awareness of themselves as learners of Academic Language
• Actively participates in discussions concerning the interpretations of texts
• Reflect, evaluate and
•  draw conclusions about texts

Compose

• Develop own writing process based on exposure to various established methods
• Narrow scope of a topic for the purpose of development
• Create organized, unified, well-developed text
• Uses a variety of writing strategies including but not limited to description, narration, illustration, comparison, contrast and analysis

Revise

• Develop self-editing and/or error recognition skill
• Improve the ability to respond to critique from teachers and peers
•  Improve the ability to critique their own work and others
• Identify and break habits that detracts from effective writing

Editing

• Uses correct Word Forms 
• Uses basic verb tenses and forms appropriately
• Uses correct suffixes to signal verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs
• Uses accurate subject verb agreement
•  Improve sentence structure and variety; recognizes and avoid fragments and run-ons 
• Improves ability to write concise sentences 
•  Uses correct punctuation and mechanics

Revised 11/14/11

English 071/072/073/074 (STEPS)

Read and Comprehend at the 11th grade level;

• Understand and use vocabulary at level 9.5 or above;
• Demonstrate Reading Comprehension in their writing;
• Summarize short (500-1000 word) passages;
• Write essays of about 500 words that have a main point supported by appropriate evidence;
• Demonstrate coherence in writing (repeated key words, and signals of an overall plan);
• Identify the basic structural elements of simple and compound sentences (subject, verb, object, etc);
• Be able to edit their own writing to avoid errors in such things as verb tense, plurals, possessives, word order, word forms, etc.

READING
To progress to English 092 or 093, students will demonstrate the following abilities:

Vocabulary

In readings at Level 10 or higher,

• Use context clues to identify the meanings of unfamiliar words
• In essays, use vocabulary and phrasing appropriate to topic. 

Comprehension

• Using readings at Level 10 or higher,
• Read accurately on two or three of the appropriate programs in the Reading Lab
• Use pre-reading strategies such as scanning and skimming
• Identify main idea and major and minor supporting details
• Distinguish fact from opinion
• Make inferences and draw conclusions
• Identify purpose, audience, and point
• Combine use of dictionary and context clues to recognize connotations and levels of formality
• Write accurate summaries and paraphrases
• In essays and discussion, accurately synthesize information from two or more written sources 

Speed and Fluency

• Using readings at Level 10 or higher, read accurately at a speed of 250-300 wpm on one of the appropriate programs in the Reading Lab

WRITING

Language Mechanics

• Identify parts of speech and their functions
• Identify basic structural elements of sentences (subject, verb, object, phrase, dependent clause, independent clause)
• Edit reading responses, summaries, and essays of 500 words or more for mistakes in
• Five basic verb tenses (forms, shifts, and consistency)
• Subject-verb agreement
• Singular and plural word forms
• Pronouns (shifts, referents, forms)
• Noun, verb, adjective, and adverb forms
• Articles and other determiners
• Common collocations (see reading outcomes)
• Prepositional and participial phrases
• Adjective, adverb, and noun clauses
• Word order (subject-verb-object, position of modifying phrases and clauses)
• Complex parallel structure
• Possessives, contractions, and quotations
• Common homonyms (there, their, they’re, etc.)
• Use and punctuate correctly a variety of sentence patterns (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex)

Composition Skills

• Accurately paraphrase passage written at Level 10 or higher, avoiding plagiarism and identifying sources
• Accurately summarize reading written at Level 10 or higher without interjecting own opinions
• Respond appropriately to different kinds of prompts
• Follow a writing process (pre-write, outline, draft and redraft, revise (alter content), edit (correct mechanics), proofread (make final corrections)
• Apply skills developed in Dev Ed and ELI to respond to readings written at level 10 or above
• Write essays of 500 words or more that have thoughtful main point supported by appropriate evidence
• Maintain focus on point throughout essay of five or more paragraphs
• Use specific, concrete detail and avoid empty generalizations
• Connect ideas by using repeated key words, transition words, and signals of overall plan
• Structure paragraphs using narration, description, exposition, and comparison/contrast
• Use vocabulary, phrasing, and tone appropriate to topic and audience
• Use a word processor appropriately (including spell-checker) to write, revise, and edit

Critical Thinking Skills

• Distinguish between fact and opinion
• Reason credibly
• Qualify statements appropriately
• Recognize own biases and values and acknowledge perspective of others
• Synthesize information from two or more sources
• Respond to readings written at Level 10 or above with depth of thought that reflects understanding of original and expresses meaningful relationship to self and/or society
• Evaluate sources

 

English 106: Critical Reading in the Humanities

After completing this class, students should be able to:

• Identify patterns of organization which provide order to written text. 
• Identify and explain the rhetorical balance which must exist among the writer, the audience [reader], and the writing [text] in an example of expository writing
•  List strategies for distinguishing major ideas [thesis, theme, etc.] from the supporting details 
• Prepare an outline – using traditional outline criteria, a mapping technique, or a visual diagram – of a whole piece of text, so that the sequence of key ideas and their relationship to one another is traced through the entire work.
• Identify characteristics of and strategies for reading text in a variety of subject areas in the arts, the sciences, and the social sciences. 
•  Identify ways to read actively, rather than passively. 
•  Identify literal information in a given piece of text. Distinguish this information from information which can be inferred from the same text. 
•  Locate examples of fact in a given piece of text. Distinguish this information from information which can be classified as opinion. 
• Identify reading tasks at a variety of cognitive levels and distinguish them from reading tasks at other cognitive levels. 
•  Identify reading tasks associated with the learning paradigms of philosophers and/or learning theorists such as Plato, Bloom, etc. 
•  Identify criteria, which characterize a critical reader. 
•  Summarize a writer’s underlying, but unstated, assumptions in a given selection of text. 
• Select a piece of writing which contains symbolism and/or imagery, and explain how the writer’s use of figurative language enhances MEANING 
• Identify ways to evaluate the effectiveness of a selected piece of text based on the information it contains and the writer’s strategies for communicating that information.

English 089: Preparation for College Reading

There seems to be no recorded outcomes. The following is a course description:

English 089, Preparation for College Reading, helps students develop strategies for effective reading and critical analysis of textbook readings with emphasis on discipline differences. English 089 is coordinated with parallel reading lab sections that emphasize acquisition of vocabulary and development of literal and inferential comprehension skills.