Argument

   Students will be able to

• Assess the value of evidence in support of a position and its source
• Weigh the merits of an argument based on the relationship between claims and evidence
• Evaluate argumentative texts for persuasiveness, style and organization
• Identify issues in dispute and the positions that characterize them
• Differentiate between argument and opinion
• Identify and articulate arguments that run counter to favored positions
• Construct and execute a research plan that uses databases and other resources

Composing and Editing

  Students will be able to

• Use drafting, prolific writing and outline strategies to produce formal and informal writing
• Evaluate and compose thesis statements
• Create skillful openings and closings for research based academic writing
• Create annotated bibliographies and other informative texts with a post of view
• Use rhetorical strategies and appeals to analyze and create argumentative and informational texts
• Paraphrase, summarize, and quote appropriately
• Synthesize sources and integrate them into argumentative and informative writing
• Edit for clear, concise text and focused paragraphs

Managing Projects

Students will be able to

• Envision benchmarks for a project over time
• Use a work log to set goals and track progress
• Set goals for research and writing long projects

Planning Drafts

Students will be able to

• Use outlines to plan draft content
• Use concept maps and charts or organize ideas
• Create argument maps to clarify positions

Presentations

   Students will be able to

• Use strategies to help them draft and organize presentations
• Deliver well-organized oral presentation with and without media (Powerpoint, prezi, etc.)
• Use iMovie and Piktochart to create visual representations of information and digital essays
• Prepare and deliver a short presentations for audiences face to face and online

Reading Work and Commenting

   Students will be able to

• Compose observations of colleague’s work to help colleagues revise
• Analyze their own texts for the purposes of revision
• Apply instructor comments to revision

Representing Information

   Students will be able to

• Analyze data and ideas to choose graphic content
• Design a graphic plan
• Use charts and maps to represent information in note taking
• Create infographics to represent information to an audience

Research Strategies for Writing from Sources

   Students will be able to

• Use Library Databases to conduct research
• Evaluate sources for credibility
• Identify characteristics of scholarly, academic, general audience, and advocacy sources

Research Tools

Students will be able to

• Organize notes for a long term project
• Use note taking strategies that encourage accuracy and reflection
• Create working bibliographies

Technology

Students will be able to

• Use Google Docs, Google Drive to draft and organize work
• Use RefWorks to keep track of research
• Use programs to produce digital essays and infographics

Outcomes express courses goals. From a teacher’s perspective, they describe what students will study and learn, the important skills, concepts and knowledge the course is designed to teach. Because outcomes are expressed as actions, they enable students and teachers to assess progress. You’ll find the course outcomes expressed as actions on our website. This provides and overview of the major areas our course so the course can address the concerns of college writers who need to write from sources, make arguments, and write for different audiences.

At the heart of the matter is a question– How do I choose a topic worth writing about, or make a topic I may not be interested in worth writing about. Our course will address these as questions that writers answer all the time by looking out how we can move from identifying topics, which are broad areas of interests, to asking questions that help us focus our work, to identifying issues worth writing about, and finally, to making a claim of your own.

In a sense, every course you take that requires writing is a kind of structured  research project in which the teacher has organized the process. Within the teacher’s organization, you need to organize your own process of inquiry. We’ll begin by learning to use research as process of inquiry, a way of thinking through ideas, not just as a process of collecting information. We’ll study how to create a research plan that asks questions, evaluate sources and identify sources, reflect and focus so that we are not waiting to begin to write a paper– we are writing as we go.

Part of our work will be learning how to use tools that writers use to research long projects, such as note taking strategies that encourage accuracy and reflection, bibliographies and databases

As you conduct your process of inquiry, our course will be focused very specifically on the kinds of topics that lead to issues in dispute and problems that require solutions. You’ll be working on issues and problems in a way that divides our process into two, related phases: deciding where you stand so that you can make a claim about what people should think or do, and learning how to write texts that inform and persuade.

Although in a research project, these two phases overlap, as you move into the part where you’re creating a text for an audience, you become less concerned with what you want to say and more concerned with how you are going to say it.  We’ll be looking aspects of the writing process that include how to draft and plan. We’ll use tools like prolific writing, outlines, concept maps, argument maps and charts.

We’ll write two kinds of argumentative texts, informative and persuasive. We’ll look at these texts to learn how to articulate a clear point of view or thesis, organize your claims, open and close your essay, and integrate sources so that you paraphrase, summarize, and cite.

As part of this process, you’ll learn how to rewrite to clarify what you think and how you want to express yourself to your audience. This includes learning strategies to help you identify parts of a piece that need development. You’ll study how to develop a plane for rewriting that includes reflecting on your goals and what the audience requires.

Over time writers learn the importance of sharing their work with others. Hearing feedback helps you understand how the way others understand what you mean. So that you can become a more effective reader of your own work, you’ll read to learn how others solve the problems you’re trying to solve. You’ll compose observations of colleague’s work, learn to offer those comments skillfully, and learn how to Apply instructor comments

As your papers near completion, we’ll look at how you can edit to produce clear, concise text and focused paragraphs. In addition, we’ll look at how to use checklists to insure you submit papers that meet requirements.

One important transition in college writing– at every stage of writing– is learning how to work on projects that increase in complexity and happen over longer chunks of time than you might have in the past. Managing the process is central to the class. We’ll work with strategies that include Notebooks and Folders, calendars, charts and benchmarks

As a part of the course, we’ll look at ways to to draft and organize presentations, which include delivery, face to face and online.

In addition, we’ll be using technolgy that make writing and research more efficience, such as Google Docs and Google Drive, RefWorks  and Text to Speech software

We’ll also look at ways to present information using technology through platforms like Imovie as a part of making a digital essay and Piktochart, which we’ll use to create infographics that present data and concepts.