Course Outline of Record

Item	Value
Curriculum Committee Approval Date	12/05/2023
Top Code	493084 - English as a Second Language - Writing
Units	5 Total Units
Hours	90 Total Hours (Lecture Hours 90)
Total Outside of Class Hours	0
Course Credit Status	Credit: Non-Degree Applicable (C)
Material Fee	No
Basic Skills	Basic Skills (B)
Repeatable	No
Grading Policy	Standard Letter (S),  Pass/No Pass (B)

Course Description

Formerly: ESL G115. This course is the third course of the ESL Academic Writing sequence for multilingual students who need proficiency in academic English. It equips students with essential skills in critically reading, analyzing, and interpreting college-level texts, enabling them to craft well-structured essays. Emphasis is placed on developing a central idea, logical paragraph sequencing, and integrating diverse perspectives to bolster analysis. Additionally, research skills are honed to incorporate into essays. Successful completion prepares students for freshman composition. NOT DEGREE APPLICABLE. Not Transferable.

Course Level Student Learning Outcome(s)

1. Course Outcomes
2. Compose a cohesive essay that is governed by a thesis statement, support, logical transitions, appropriate conclusions, and rules of standard written English.
3. Compose an essay in response to published materials that are linguistically and conceptually challenging.
4. Compose an essay in response to a specified prompt that illustrates content, structure, development, and language use.
5. Develop an essay with support from primary and secondary sources.

Course Objectives

• 1. Employ the role of audience, purpose, tone, and connotation in written text by adjusting the writing to complement audience, tone, and connotation.
• 2. Examine academic texts to establish the writers intent, viewpoint, and lexicon syntax choices.
• 3. Construct a thesis statement with efficacious support, incorporating evidence from both primary and secondary sources.
• 4. Identify and use prevalent academic vocabulary.
• 5. Identify how choice of vocabulary and grammar influence syntax in writing.
• 6. Apply recurring collocations often used in academic writing.
• 7. Apply thematic patterns in paragraphs to better build fluidity, organization, cohesiveness, and intelligibility.
• 8. Demonstrate self-editing techniques to gain control of academic writing, not elimination of errors.

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Lecture Content

Academic Reading Reading Strategies Establish the writers purpose. Recognize and examine the authors viewpoint. Evaluate the authors utilization of rhetorical techniques and circumstances to create a compelling argument for readers. Examine the authors strategic use of lexicon, connotation, and tone to convey concepts to a specified audience. Recognize discourse markers (e.g., sentence connectors, pronoun reference) that show relationships between concepts. Identify the writers incorporation of secondary sources in a text and analyzing how the sources reinforce rather than control the writers text. Develop critical writing skills by questioning and reacting to the text. The Construction of Meaning: Comparing the Text with the Readers Context Connect the text to individual experience. Connect the text to current/past events. Connect the text to additional texts. Academic Writing Rhetorical Context: Identify Foundational Structures and Their Importance Recognize and evaluate audience, complementing audience with the writers intent and tone. Recognize and evaluate intent in writing, complementing intent with audience and tone. Identify and assess tone in texts, complementing tone with intent and audience Apply rhetorical devices to specific writing assignments and their rhetorical context. Composition Creation: Conceiving and Developing Text Utilize various techniques to create ideas. Utilize various techniques to create support for an argument. Utilize various methods of organization to match with the rhetorical situation. Utilize lexical and syntactical features for continuity, clarity, and language-producing fluen cy. Incorporating Sources Differentiate between quotes, summaries, and paraphrases. Cite and attribute credit to secondary sources of information. Provide support for an argument by utilizing quotes, summaries, and paraphrases. Record notes, citations, and bibliographies. Revision/Editing Strategies Reanalyze ideas and organization to accomplish overall revisions that establishes cohesion and clarity. Identify and utilize strategies to build on the lexical and syntactic styles that develop cohesion, clarity, and comprehensibility in writing. Improve techniques for unity and clarity. Understand the significance of self-editing to build linguistic accuracy. Re-examine syntax, mechanics, grammar, and reference to attain cohesiveness, intelligibility, and comprehensibility. Use autonomous techniques to gain control of academic language instead of eliminating error. Academic Vocabulary Identify academic vocabulary commonly used in academic discourse. Apply techniques to better understand challenging vocabulary in authentic texts. Acknowledge the significance of lexicon variation. Differentiate collocations. Distinguish syntactic effects of employing synonyms. Define techniques to examine and modify vocabulary selections to enhance correctness, diversity, and finesse. Apply self-directed vocabulary acquisition techniques. Academic Grammar/Language Punctuation: appropriate use of commas and semicolons in the above-mentioned sentence types.  Identify problems related to syntax, lexicon, and semantics in writing. Recognize grammatical sentence structures typically employed in academic written communication (e.g., simple, compound, complex, and compound complex.) Repor ting verbs and the limited range of verbs in atypical academic communication. Cohesive techniques to clearly indicate relationships between clauses and sections of the greater discourse (e.g., coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and conjunctive adverbs). Pronoun references between clauses and sentences to indicate connections between and within sentences.

Method(s) of Instruction

• Lecture (02)
• DE Live Online Lecture (02S)
• DE Online Lecture (02X)

Reading Assignments

Read varied academic texts for intensive reading practice to recognize the authors use of tone, intent, and connotation in writing. Read texts from different genres (e.g., college texts, journal articles, lab reports, etc.) to recognize the authors varying rhetorical devices, point of view, methods and manner of presentation, and lexical and syntactical decisions.

Writing Assignments

Pre-writing activities such as journals, blogs, quotation charts, outlines, and rough drafts that demonstrate the students ability to propose and articulate a thesis, argue this thesis with effective and appropriate support. Multiple drafts of in-class and take-home essays in response to a specified prompt. Writings will require students to develop and support a thesis following organizational structures and appropriate rhetorical context. Short writing assignments, summaries, and blogs to practice linguistic features, and lexical and syntactic devices used to develop cohesion, coherence, and linguistic fluency.

Out-of-class Assignments

Journal and blog writing exercises that illustrate the students self-editing strategies. Take-home essays that illustrate the students ability to propose and articulate a thesis, argue this thesis with effective and appropriate support from primary and secondary sources. Peer review and self-editing exercises that illustrate the students ability to recognize thematic patterns in paragraphs to revise writing for fluidity, organization, cohesion, and coherence. Short writes, summaries of readings, and weekly online blogs. Vocabulary logs with modified academic vocabulary. Self-editing exercises such as editing logs, error frequency charts and grammar

Demonstration of Critical Thinking

Students will critically analyze and evaluate peer compositions through group discussions and reviews, enhancing their understanding of diverse perspectives and writing styles. Key to this course is the development of abstract thinking in writing; students will articulate their views on complex issues in essays and research papers, honing their logical and evidence-based argumentation skills. The curriculum emphasizes understanding and applying correct grammatical structures to improve clarity and style, moving beyond mere memorization of rules. Additionally, students will refine their writing through rigorous editing and revision processes, focusing on clarity, conciseness, and coherence. This robust approach not only advances language proficiency but also sharpens students critical thinking in writing.

Required Writing, Problem Solving, Skills Demonstration

Methods to comprehensively assess students skills in writing, problem-solving, and practical application include applied performance, such as following directions and note-taking; various presentation formats evaluated by peers, teachers, or external assessors; in-depth projects and reports; a range of test types including fill-in-the-blank, cloze, dictation, and multiple-choice; observational assessments during individual and group activities; cooperative experiences in focus groups and team projects; and the compilation of student work portfolios. This multifaceted assessment strategy ensures a thorough and nuanced understanding of each students abilities and progress. experience (e.g., focus groups, student teams, study groups); portfolio of students work (e.g., completed assignments).

Eligible Disciplines

ESL: Masters degree in TESL, TESOL, applied linguistics with a TESL emphasis, linguistics with a TESL emphasis, English with a TESL emphasis, or education with a TESL emphasis OR bachelors degree in TESL, TESOL, English with a TESL certificate, linguistics with a TESL certificate, applied linguistics with a TESL certificate, or any foreign language with a TESL certificate AND masters degree in linguistics, applied linguistics, English, composition, bilingual/bicultural studies, reading, speech, or any foreign language OR the equivalent. Masters degree required.

Textbooks Resources

1. Required Duhigg, C. The Power of Habit, ed. Random House Trade Paperbacks (latest), 2014 Rationale: (latest) 2. Required Gladwell, M. Outliers: The Story of Success, ed. Back Bay Books (latest), 2011 Rationale: (latest)