Spring 2007
Course Description
College Reading and Composition II is designed to develop critical thinking, reading and writing skills beyond the level of English 101. You will develop critical thinking by writing strong arguments based on poetry drama and fiction, as subject matter. We will be studying literature not merely as a body of texts to be covered, but also as a way of thinking to be mastered. Aims we will share are: how do we come to think about narration and drama (in which human deeds and situations are recounted or enacted), metaphor (in which one thing is presented in terms of another), and intertextuality (in which one text is seen as a development or transformation of earlier texts). You will learn to identify premises and conclusions and recognize patterns of faulty logic in developing arguments. You will learn to distinguish between deductive and inductive reasoning and will demonstrate this while utilizing research strategies. Additionally, you will become more proficient and confident in your powers of self-expression by investigating the varied ways in which you intuitively and consciously communicate your thoughts. This class is run as a workshop where you may feel free to ask and to pose questions, to join in class discussion, the purpose of which is discovery, not recitation. Class discussions, both online and face to face, will help you to clarify your own thinking on the topics we will cover, thus leading to the development of paragraphs and essays on these topics.This class will be conducted in a combination of online and on-campus class meetings. Weeknight class meetings will be online and we will meet on campus from 8 AM to noon on the following Saturdays: 4/21, 5/5, 5/19, with our final on Saturday, 6/2.The prerequisite for English 102 is a grade of “C” or better in English 101, or by permit. English 102 is acceptable for credit: UCLA–English 204; CSUN–English 255.We will use the following forms of internet communication: