Critical Thinking and Composition
Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have
long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion
too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the
discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one
present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You
listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the
argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him;
another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the
embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending on the quality of
your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows
late, and you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still
vigorously in progress.
-- Kenneth Burke The Philosophy of Literary Form (110-111)
Course Description
Students enrolled in English 1C should have developed sufficient writing and research skills
to meet the demands of college level writing. This course provides the additional opportunity
for students to review, reassess, and further develop their writing skills. This course is
designed to focus on logical reasoning and further develop analytical and argumentative
writing skills. Transfer Credit: CSU; UC.
Aims of the Course
An important aim of the course is to give you guided practice in developing clear and coherent longer papers of various types, including those that narrate an autobiographical incident, report information, discuss issues, speculate about causes and effects, present arguments, solve problems, and interpret texts. As you work on these and other kinds of papers, you will develop several related areas:
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your own "voice" in writing;
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a repertoire of writing styles appropriate to your purpose, audience, and occasion for writing;
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your ability to compose sentences and paragraphs in a variety of syntactic patterns and with sufficient specific details;
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your skill in reading, analyzing, and assessing longer pieces of expository prose by professional writers and peers;
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your sensitivity to the impact of language on differing readers and listeners;
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your ability to use appropriate research methods and materials efficiently, clearly, and effectively for all disciplines;
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your skill in writing prose that conforms to the features of standard written English.
Course Requirements
- Four in-class, timed essays (20%)
- Timed Writing (SAMPLE)
- Timed Writing (2 CRITICAL RESPONSES TO A TEXT)
- Timed Writing (REFLECTION)
- Three revised papers (30%):
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Short Writes (15%):
Extemporaneous writing based on knowledge and assumptions of a given issue.
Students will complete 3-5 shortwrites (some in-class, some as homework
assignments). Due
dates TBA as asignments are announced in class.
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"This I Believe..."
Modeled after the (contemporary) radio show -- based on Edward R. Murrow's
past radio show. Examples from the radio shows, go to: NPR's
webpage and browse around.
- Journal
(25%): consists of summaries and
responses to all readings
and any other short homework assignments.
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Two Annotated Bibliographies (10%): Students will
research two separate topics and construct
annotated bibliographies documenting and evaluating their findings, using Janice Walker's
online MLA Style formating. Both bibliographies will be posted to the web. The second
bibliography will reflect the research for the final paper.