The student will be able to:
Reading:

1. Critically read, analyze, compare, and evaluate multicultural argumentative prose from across the curriculum.
2. Conduct rhetorical analysis of texts and identify a text's premises and assumptions in various social, historical, cultural, psychological, or aesthetic contexts.

Writing:

1. Demonstrate mastery in writing text-based arguments, including interpretation, evaluation, and analysis, and support them with a variety of appropriate textual evidence and examples.
2. Use and analyze basic modes of argument, such as inductive and deductive reasoning techniques, recognizing fallacies, analysis, interpretation, and synthesis.
3. Find, analyze, interpret, and evaluate research material, incorporating them to support claims using appropriate documentation format without plagiarism.
4. Use style, diction, and tone appropriate to the academic community and the purpose of the specific writing task.

Critical Thinking:

1. Identify logic of argument (premises and conclusions).
2. Demonstrate understanding of formal and informal fallacies in language and thought.

Reading:

1. Read and analyze at least two book-length, college-level texts in separate or anthology form
   1. Comprehend and evaluate a text's main themes
   2. Draw reasoned inferences based on close reading of a text
2. Conduct rhetorical analysis of texts
   1. Analyze varieties in voice, rhetorical style and purpose in non-fiction genres
   2. Identify and analyze rhetorical devices in connection with a text's main themes
   3. Establish cultural and historical contexts for a text and determine how those contexts shape that writing

Writing:

1. Demonstrate mastery in writing text-based arguments, including interpretation, evaluation, and analysis, and support them with a variety of appropriate textual evidence and examples
   1. Based on writing a total of at least 6,000 words: Text-based, thesis-driven compositions, including a documented research paper, the shortest of which will be 750 words
   2. Practice writing both as a process of discovery and synthesis
   3. Draw connections that synthesize:
      1. Two or more texts
      2. The text(s) and the student's individual experiences and ideas
2. Use and analyze basic modes of argument, such as inductive and deductive reasoning techniques, recognizing fallacies, analysis, interpretation, and synthesis
3. Find, analyze, interpret, and evaluate research material, incorporating them to support claims using appropriate documentation format without plagiarism
4. Use style, diction, and tone appropriate to the academic community and the purpose of the specific writing task
   1. Develop advanced grammar, punctuation, and syntax, including editing for improved sentence variety and flow
   2. Identify and employ the conventions and strategies appropriate to writing with various disciplines

Critical Thinking:

1. Identify logic of argument (premises and conclusions)
   1. Distinguish denotation from connotation, the abstract from the concrete, and the literal from the inferential (including analogy, extended metaphor, and symbol)
   2. Draw and assess inferences and recognize distinctions among assumptions, inferences, facts, and opinions
2. Demonstrate understanding of formal and informal fallacies in language and thought
   1. Identify logic (premises/conclusions) and logical fallacies such as syllogistic reasoning, abstractions, undefined terms, name-calling, false analogy, ad hominem, and ad populum arguments
   2. Recognize and evaluate assumptions underlying an argument

Not applicable.

Write a total of at least 6,000 words: a minimum of three untimed, formal essays (in-class or online) and two timed, informal essays (in-class or online)
Additional assignments may include:
1. Class discussion in small and large group formats
2. Oral presentations
3. Quizzes and tests
4. Journals and portfolios
5. Social justice/service learning projects
6. Production of the students' own creative work

Lectures
Discussions
Structured small-group exercises

One critical thinking text and at least two additional book-length college-level texts of non-fiction literature presented in either separate or anthology form. To be supplemented at the instructor's discretion with additional readings, handbook, and/or rhetoric.

Suggested critical thinking, rhetoric, and college research textbooks:

Bullock, Richard, Michael Brody, and Francine Weinburg. The Little Seagull Handbook. 2021.

Paul, Richard, and Linda Elder. Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, 2nd ed. 2020.

Rottenberg, Annette. The Elements of Argument, 13th ed. 2020.

Suggested OER textbooks:

Gaglich, Emily, and Emile Zickel. A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre and Success in First Year Writing. 2020.

Suggested non-fiction books and anthologies:

Diavalo, Lucy, ed. No Planet B: A Teen Vogue Guide to the Climate Crisis. 2021.

Jamail, Dahr. The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. 2021.

Kaur, Valerie. See No Stranger: A Memoir of Revolutionary Love. 2020.

Kendhi, Ibrahim. How to Be an Anti-Racist. 2019.

Moraga, Cherríe. Native Country of the Heart: A Memoir. 2020.

Sacco, Joe. Paying the Land. 2020.

1. Reading and discussion of non-fiction texts from across the curriculum
2. Timed essays based on analysis of assigned reading
3. Formal analytical, text-based essays based on analysis of reading and research