Course Description
This is a seven week reading, writing and student skills course designed to assist those needing preparation for 200 and 300 level course work. Skills introduced/reviewed will include basic reading strategies appropriate to success and guided writing experiences designed to develop greater volume, clarity and precision of expression. Attention will be given to developing attitudes and behaviours appropriate to academic success. Reading materials will include newspaper and periodical articles and published essays as well as student essays.
Course Content
Reading
Students will be provided with guided experiences in:
- Reading critically and carefully materials from a variety of sources at varied levels of difficulty,
- Identifying the main idea/thesis,
- Identifying topic sentences,
- Distinguishing main ideas from supporting details,
- Recognizing biased, emotionally loaded language,
- Using context to deal with unfamiliar terms in reading,
- Text-marking techniques.
Writing
Students will be provided with guided experiences in:
- Free writing as a journaling and a prewriting technique,
- Webbing as a prewriting technique,
- Writing personal narratives and opinion pieces,
- Revising for clarity and vividness,
- Editing for those areas of mechanics and usage where there are demonstrated problems,
- Assessing positively each other's writing to identify areas of strength,
- Using audience response to inform the personal development of writing style and structure.
Student Skills
Experience and modeling will be provided in:
- Being punctual
- Arriving for classes prepared
- Meeting deadlines
- Using appropriate participation skills and developing cooperative learning skills
Learning Activities
Classroom instruction will include brief lectures, small and large group discussion, individual in-class and outside assignments. Students will keep a portfolio of course work, particularly writing, which will be regularly examined by the instructor. Feedback to students will be provided in class, in individual conference times and within the portfolio.
Means of Assessment
Ongoing progress will be monitored by the instructor and frequent feedback provided to each student. Portfolio contents will form the basis for a more thorough assessment and development of strategies for success. Course credit will be granted to students who consistently work toward course objectives and improve their readiness.
Learning Outcomes
The aims of the course are for students to:
Student Skills
- begin to develop appropriate attitudes and student skills necessary to academic success.
- acquire an initial familiarity with, and some confidence in, the discussion of ideas in an academic context.
- develop the values and skills of collaborative learning.
Reading
- begin to develop an awareness of varied kinds of texts and to employ strategies appropriate to aid comprehension.
- use title, subheads, illustrations and topic sentences to forecast meaning and scope.
- begin to use context cues as well as the dictionary/thesaurus to extend receptive vocabulary.
- begin to identify the author's main idea/thesis.
Writing
- begin to use webbing and free writing as prewriting strategies.
- begin to identify and self-correct sentence fragments and run-ons.
- move toward multi-paragraph compositions.
- improve depth and specificity in the writing of well-formed paragraphs.
- begin to make use of a thesaurus as a writing aid and as a means of moving receptive vocabulary into active use.
- begin to distinguish oral forms from the Standard English required for academic writing.
- actively consider audience in every writing assignment.
Textbook Materials
Materials supplied by instructor