At the completion of this course, the student should be able to:

1. Read analytically to understand and respond to diverse academic texts.
2. Compose thesis-driven academic writing that demonstrates analysis and synthesis of sources as appropriate to the rhetorical situation.
3. Demonstrate strategies for planning, outlining, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading written work.

Additional course objectives:

1. Write extended expository text-based compositions, including a research paper, that synthesize readings and extend ideas gained from class discussion.
2. Formulate an arguable thesis and substantiate it through analysis, logical and systematic organization, supporting evidence, and clarity of expression.
3. Use diction and tone appropriate to the academic community and the purpose of the specific writing task.
4. Use a variety of sentence structures.
5. Use vocabulary appropriate to audience and the sophistication of the writing task.
6. Proofread for, and revise, errors in language and mechanics to the degree that the nature and frequency of errors do not become distracting.
7. Use research techniques, textual citations, and MLA documentation.
8. Produce a collaborative report in a written or multi-media format.
9. Analyze college-level expository, narrative, and argumentative non-fiction prose written on a level of difficulty equivalent to the public letters of Martin Luther King, Jr. ("Letter from the Birmingham Jail"), the social commentary of Joan Didion ("Slouching Towards Bethlehem"), the essays of Richard Rodriguez ("Toward an American Language").
10. Comprehend and evaluate the author's line of reasoning, the overall main point, and the kind of evidence or development presented.
11. Identify the author's intended audience and rhetorical purpose for addressing that audience.
12. Draw comparisons to other works.
13. Draw reasoned inferences based on careful reading of a text.
14. Critique texts and sources.
15. Recognize differences in value systems based on culture in a given text.
16. Apply academic ideas and theoretical models to personal and real-life experience.

1. Read, analyze, and evaluate diverse texts, primarily non-fiction, for rhetorical strategies and styles.
2. Apply a variety of rhetorical strategies in academic writing, including well-organized essays with effective theses and support.
3. Develop varied and flexible strategies for generating, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading formal writing.
4. Analyze rhetorical choices in students' own and peers' writing and effectively provide and incorporate feedback.
5. Write in various genres and modalities, including low stakes, analytical, argumentative, collaborative, reflective writing, synthesis, literature review, and other forms.
6. Exhibit acceptable college-level control of mechanics, organization, development, and coherence.
7. Identify, evaluate, and effectively integrate material from source texts through paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting using appropriate documentation conventions.
8. Compose a minimum of 5,000 words of formal writing across major assignments.
9. Write a total of at least 8,000 words: Thesis-driven compositions, the shortest of which will be 750 words, and journal responses to assigned readings.
10. Formulate arguable thesis statements.
11. Synthesize texts and student ideas in student writing.
12. Employ rhetorical features in writing, such as structure, analysis, and insight.
13. Write essays that are readable, an appropriate volume, and on task.
14. Focus on patterns of error and methods of correction.
15. Evaluate the credibility and relevance of a variety of sources (print/non-print/electronic).
16. Read a minimum of two book-length works (including anthologies), supplemented at instructor's discretion by additional readings, handbook, reference, and/or rhetoric.
17. Complete a sequence of reading assignments arranged in order of relatively less difficult to more complex, taking into consideration such factors as overall number of words or pages, complexity of syntax, level and range of vocabulary.
18. Analyze prose for main idea, support, organizational pattern, rhetorical form, style, voice, and purpose.
19. Analyze prose for genre and cultural context.
20. Apply basic concepts of critical thinking, including assumptions from which arguments are developed, logical use of evidence, and internal consistency.
21. Determine how the author's assumptions on the reader's background, knowledge/experience, and purpose contribute to the organization of the text.
22. Examine connections among resources, e.g., personal experiences, course texts, and other materials.
23. Evaluate points of view, development of arguments, and ideas in texts.
24. Analyze the effects of culture on written form and content.

Not applicable.

Methods of formative and summative evaluation used to observe or measure students' achievement of course outcomes and objectives will include primarily academic writing, which may include timed/in-class writing.

Methods of evaluation are at the discretion of local faculty.
Collaborative projects
Tests and quizzes
Write a total of at least 8,000 words: a minimum of three untimed, formal essays (in-class or online) and two timed, informal essay exams (in-class or online)
Final examination: a composition or other written project to be completed within the allotted two-hour period

Lectures
Discussions
Structured small-group exercises

An anthology, or appropriate Open Educational Resources (OER) containing culturally diverse college-level essays, articles, or other texts.

A college-level handbook on writing and documentation or evidence of similar writing pedagogy.

Course texts may include book-length works.

Texts used by individual institutions and even individual sections will vary. The list of representative texts must include at least one text with a publication date within seven (7) years of the course outline approval date.

At least two full-length books (including an anthology), primarily focusing on non-fiction; supplemented with additional readings or handbook. The following are suggested texts for the course:

Behrens, Laurence, and Leonard J. Rosen. Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, 14th ed. 2018.
Bullock, Richard, et al. The Norton Field Guide to Writing, with Readings and Handbook. 2019.
Hacker, Diana, and Nancy Sommers. A Writer's Reference, 10th ed. 2021.
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Berkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing with Readings, 5th ed. 2021.
Mott, Valerie. College Writing Handbook. Open Educational Resources, 2020:  https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide/

The following are suggested single author non-fiction books for the course:

Jamail, Dahr. The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. 2020.
Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist. 2019.
Mann, Charles C. The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World. 2019.
Moraga, Cherríe. Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir. 2020.
Tufecki, Zeynep. Twitter and Teargas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. 2018.
Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life after Warming. 2020.

1. Reading non-fiction essays and at least one book-length work
2. Collaborative presentation in response to readings
3. Writing formal analyses of readings in college academic essay format