This course develops students’ writing at the college level, using materials organized around essential parts of the academic writing process. Key topics include rhetorical situations; the editing process; types and modes of academic writing; the research process; citation practices; informative and persuasive writing.

This course is designed to introduce you to the writing, reading, and thinking skills you will need for success at the college level. The course will emphasize personal, reflective, and expository writing. It will also help you develop critical reading skills, which will assist you as you analyze specific writing techniques and strategies you can use to improve your own writing.

This assignment requires that students research the historical context of an environmental issue within their own communities and apply different types of organizing/advocacy tactics for instigating social change.

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Students explore the concepts of audience and purpose by focusing on an issue that divided Americans in 1925, the debate of evolution versus creationism raised by the Scopes Monkey Trial.

This is a short writing assignment given in the second semester of an introductory geology course. Students are encouraged to come up with ideas for places around the world that they wish to investigate with respect to geology. The instructor cross-compares lists and assigns locations maximizing global spread of the places covered. Students must review not only the geological history of the location but how society in that place is influenced by the underlying landscape (e.g., mining for resources, natural hazards, etc). Goals include a) encouraging their curiosity about geology with respect to places that may have meaning to them, b) strengthening research and writing skills, and c) using this assignment as a way to synthesize concepts learned in class as related to a particular location around the world.

Members of the Gordon faculty have collaborated on the authorship of this guide, and it is targeted directly at Gordon students to help them with their writing across the GSC curriculum. This guide provides at least three distinct advantages over other guides: it is specifically targeted to Gordon State students, it covers writing across the whole curriculum, not just English; and it is free.

Many approaches to crafting this guide were entertained, but the authors decided that what students really want from a composition guide are practical examples of writing that they might actually encounter in their classroom experiences at Gordon. Many guides try to do this, but this guide uses real Gordon professors and real Gordon class assignments as a starting point. This results in what we feel is a substantial improvement over other available writing guides.

In Module 11.3, students engage in an inquiry-based, iterative process for research. Building on work with evidence-based analysis in Modules 11.1 and 12.2, students explore topics that have multiple positions and perspectives by gathering and analyzing research based on vetted sources to establish a position of their own. Students first generate a written evidence-based perspective, which will serve as the early foundation of what will ultimately become a written research-based argument paper. The research-based argument paper synthesizes and articulates several claims using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence to support the claims. Students read and analyze sources to surface potential problem-based questions for research, and develop and strengthen their writing by revising and editing.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

Module 12.1 includes a shared focus on text analysis and narrative writing. Students read, discuss, and analyze two nonfiction personal narratives, focusing on how the authors use structure, style, and content to craft narratives that develop complex experiences, ideas, and descriptions of individuals. Throughout the module, students learn, practice, and apply narrative writing skills to produce a complete personal essay suitable for use in the college application process.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

What are “rules to live by”? How do people formulate and use “rules” to improve their lives? How do people communicate these “rules” to others? In this module, students consider these questions as they read the novel Bud, Not Buddy, Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, President Barack Obama’s Back-to-School Speech, “If” by Rudyard Kipling, and informational research texts. At the start of Unit 1, students launch their study of Bud, Not Buddy, establishing a set of routines for thinking, writing, and talking about Bud’s rules to live by. They read the novel closely for its figurative language and word choice, analyzing how these affect the tone and meaning of the text. In the second half of the unit, students engage in a close reading of the Steve Jobs speech, focusing on how Jobs develops his ideas at the paragraph, sentence, and word level. Students use details from the speech to develop claims about a larger theme. During Unit 2, students continue to explore the theme of “rules to live by” in the novel as well as through close reading of the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. Students analyze how the structure of a poem contributes to its meaning and theme. In a mid-unit assessment, students compare and contrast how Bud, Not Buddy and “If” address a similar theme. Unit 2 culminates with students writing a literary argument essay in which they establish a claim about how Bud uses his “rules”: to survive or to thrive. Students substantiate their claim using specific text-based evidence including relevant details and direct quotations from the novel. In Unit 3, students shift their focus to their own rules to live by and conduct a short research project. Students work in expert groups (research teams) to use multiple informational sources to research that topic. As a final performance task, students use their research to write an essay to inform about one important “rule to live by” supported with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, and examples.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

In this module, students read, analyze and evaluate informational and argument writing and build, through focused instruction, the skills required to craft strong and well-supported argument writing of their own. Through the study of a variety of texts, students learn to think of the products they use and consume everyday as part of a complex web of global production and trade that extends not only to distant lands but to the past as well.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

This is a great question you might be asking yourself, and if you’re not asking it, you probably should be. If you are a native speaker of English, you don’t even have to think about it to use grammar correctly, at least for the most part. If you have ever watched a child develop language, you know that, at a very young age, children know what is necessary for language to make sense.

Students will create a beginning resume that represents their current work experience and demonstrates their knowledge of rhetorical situations for professional writing.

How Arguments Work takes students through the techniques they will need to respond to readings and make sophisticated arguments in any college class. This is a practical guide to argumentation with strategies and templates for the kinds of assignments students will commonly encounter. It covers rhetorical concepts in everyday language and explores how arguments can build trust and move readers.

Students are assigned unique roles and work independently to solve a complex problem from the perspective of their role (i.e. sociologist, educator, historian, etc.) Students then work collaboratively to present their findings and action plan to the "tribal council".

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Local changes in climate, flora, fauna, and the human population can be anecdotally explored through interviews with long time locals.

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This course is designed to introduce students to the study, analysis, and interpretation of literature across multiple genres. Key topics include literary genres and conventions; how to read and write about literature; literary analysis; and readings and responses in the genres of poetry, drama, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Primary literary works and critical responses are included, as well as a collection of writing assignments aligned with course content and learning outcomes.

This course was developed by faculty at Ivy Tech Community College, using original materials, as well as materials from NDLA.

In this writing assingment, students research and analyze the Dust Bowl. Students analyze data, analyze and integrate different sources of information, and present a well developed written argument.

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This assignment sequence seeks to stimulate students' thinking and writing about food production in the western Washington bioregion through a series of activities combining readings, class discussion, fieldwork, and writing assignments. Collaborative work in and outside of class culminates in students' interviewing local farmers and vendors at farmers markets and writing a surprising informative essay.

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Invisible Man follows its unnamed narrator as he journeys from the rural South to bustling Harlem, experiencing the barriers created by the color line in twentieth-century American life. The novel borrows heavily from jazz and blues forms as its narrator encounters fictionalized versions of major African American leaders like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey. Alternately comic and tragic, the novel explores the psychological effects of racism across U.S. social institutions, geographies, and social classes.

(Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop critical thinking skills by exploring topics in history, literature, and culture through primary sources. Drawing online materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, the sets use letters, photographs, posters, oral histories, video clips, sheet music, and more. Each set includes a topic overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide.)

1: Chapter 1 Reading Skills
1.1: Use Pre-reading Strategies
1.2: Annotate and Take Notes
1.3: The Reading-Writing Connection
1.4: Critical Reading and Rhetorical Context
1.5: Reading Strategies - Previewing
1.5.1: 3.4 Annotation Basics
1.6: Questioning Strategies
1.7: Inferences
1.8: Vocabulary
1.9: Reading Strategies - Taking Notes
1.10: Main Ideas and Supporting Details
1.11: Paraphrazing and Summarizing
1.12: How to Read Like a Writer
1.13: Key Takeaways
2: Chapter 2 Writing Process
2.1: Apply Prewriting Models
2.1.1: Outlining
2.1.2: Outlining
2.1.3: Drafting
2.2: The Writing Process - How Do I Begin? (Exercises)
2.3: The Reading-Writing Process
2.4: Steps in the Reading-Writing Process
2.5: The College Essay Assignment- Analysis, Rubrics, and Critical Thinking
2.6: Argument
2.7: Purpose, Tone, Audience, Content in an Assignment
2.8: Prewriting Strategies
2.9: Outlining
2.10: Key Takeaways
2.11: Revising and Editing
2.12: Chapter 4 Revising
2.12.1: Revising and Editing
3: Chapter 3 Essay Essentials
3.1: Writing a Thesis
3.2: Working Thesis
3.3: Elements of a thesis
3.4: Where is the thesis?
3.5: Tips for writing a thesis statement
3.6: Resources
4: Chapter 4 Writing Basics
4.1: Moving Beyond the Five-paragraph Theme
4.1.1: The Three-story Thesis- From the Ground Up
4.2: The Three-story Thesis- From the Ground Up
4.3: Three-story Theses and the Organically Structured Argument
4.4: Exercises
4.5: Verb tense
4.6: Passive and active voice
4.7: Run-ons, fragments, comma splices
5: Sentence Clarity
5.1: Chapter 5 Sentence Clarity
5.1.1: Sentence Variety
5.1.2: Coordination and Subordination
5.1.3: Parallelism
5.1.4: Writing Introductions
5.1.5: Writing Conclusions
5.1.6: Writing Summaries
5.1.7: Paraphrasing
5.1.8: Quoting

A freshman composition textbook used by the English Department of Virginia Western Community College (VWCC) in Roanoke, Virginia. It aligns with ENG 111, the standard first-year composition course in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). The ten chapter headings are:

1. Chapter 1 - Critical Reading
2. Chapter 2 - Rhetorical Analysis
3. Chapter 3 - Argument
4. Chapter 4 - The Writing Process
5. Chapter 5 - Rhetorical Modes
6. Chapter 6 - Finding and Using Outside Sources
7. Chapter 7 - How and Why to Cite
8. Chapter 8 - Writing Basics: What Makes a Good Sentence?
9. Chapter 9 - Punctuation
10. Chapter 10 - Working With Words: Which Word is Right?

This book was created by the English faculty and librarians of VWCC using Creative Commons -licensed materials and original contributions.