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15.5.3: Natalie Peterkin's Course Map for College Composition

  • Page ID
    127155
    • Natalie Peterkin
    • East Los Angeles Community College & Mount San Antonio College
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    Overall course narrative

    In this class, we will explore writing in a variety of ways to master expository and argumentative forms of writing appropriate for college-level composition. Our readings will come from different kinds of non-fiction texts and focus on issues relevant in today’s world. We will deepen and challenge our understanding of language, identity, and cultural norms through writing a research paper. 

    In order to achieve all these goals, we begin with a summary and assessment essay in which you stick closely to an argumentative text in order to put its main ideas into your own words before crafting your own argument. Then, in essay 2, we begin to incorporate research into our summary and assessment. Finally, we write a paper focused on your own argument and extensive research.

    A Sample Essay Assignment Sequence for College Composition

     

    Course objectives (See the course descriptor for C-ID English 100)

     

    Essay Assignment 

     

    Preparatory activities and assessments

    • Read, analyze, and evaluate a variety of primarily non-fiction texts for content, context, and rhetorical merit with consideration of tone, audience, and purpose.

    • Integrate the ideas of others through paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting without plagiarism

    • Apply a variety of rhetorical strategies in writing unified, well-organized essays with arguable theses and persuasive support

    Essay 1: Summarize and assess an author’s argument

    Students summarize and assess an argument from a text chosen by the instructor. 

     

    • Integrate the ideas of others through paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting without plagiarism

    • Apply a variety of rhetorical strategies in writing unified, well-organized essays with arguable theses and persuasive support

    Essay 2: Incorporate sources while summarizing and assessing an author’s argument

    Students summarize, assess, and respond to an argument from a text chosen by the instructor.

    • Write timed/in-class essays exhibiting acceptable college-level control of mechanics, organization, development, and coherence

    Essay 3: Midterm Exam: close reading and analysis

    The midterm requires students to closely read a text and describe how it is persuasive. They can analyze the text’s organization, pathos, and so on.

    • Apply a variety of rhetorical strategies in writing unified, well-organized essays with arguable theses and persuasive support

    • Proofread and edit essays for presentation so they exhibit no disruptive errors in English grammar, usage, or punctuation

    • Find, evaluate, analyze, and interpret primary and secondary sources, incorporating them into written essays using appropriate documentation format

    • Proofread and edit essays for presentation so they exhibit no disruptive errors in English grammar, usage, or punctuation

    • Develop varied and flexible strategies for generating, drafting, and revising essays

    Essay 4: Create and research your own argument about a topic

    The research essay will require students to propose, narrow, and construct a research essay about an original, argumentative topic (subject to instructor approval). Students may focus on a specific type of argument, like definition, causal, evaluation, or proposal.


     
    • Write timed/in-class essays exhibiting acceptable college-level control of mechanics, organization, development, and coherence

    • Analyze stylistic choices in their own writing and the writing of others

    • Find, evaluate, analyze, and interpret primary and secondary sources, incorporating them into written essays using appropriate documentation format

    Essay 5: Final Exam: letter writing

    Students write a persuasive letter to their elected official arguing for local action about a controversial topic or change using primary sources such as government documents or studies.

     

    • Group discussions about real-world issues local to students

    • Discuss primary sources versus secondary and tertiary sources

    • Chapter 6: The Research Process 

    Attributions

    Content by Natalie Peterkin, licensed CC BY NC 4.0. Template adapted by Anna Mills from The Online Course Mapping Guide Course Map Template from the Digital Learning Hub in the Teaching + Learning Commons at UC San Diego, licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International License.


    This page titled 15.5.3: Natalie Peterkin's Course Map for College Composition is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Natalie Peterkin.