English 84

e-Mail:
daughdrill.j@mccd.edu

Phone:
(209) 381-6533

Office:
Communications Building
(C-18)
[view campus map]

Office Hours :
M 6-7 p.m., W 4-5 p.m. and 6-7 p.m. and F 12-1 p.m..
Or by appointment

English 41

Purpose and Rationale for the Course

This course attempts to further develop reading and critical thinking skills necessary for college level work. Through reading, learning activities, and discussions, students will become better critical readers and thinkers over the course of the semester. Students should be able to do the following by the end of the semester.

Reading Comprehension appropriate to college-level texts:

• Identify and paraphrase main ideas, supporting details, and inferences within reading selections
• Outline and map reading selections
• Determine the author’s purpose and audience
• Analyze rhetorical forms for development
• Analyze the extended meaning of texts through word choice
• Infer tone
• Analyze point of view

College-level critical reading and thinking skills:

• Recognize argument structures
• Evaluate authority and claims in arguments
• Recognize deductive and inductive reasoning
• Recognize and evaluate fallacies
• Examine language elements to decipher author’s meaning
• Apply critical reading and thinking skills to reading on the World Wide Web

Vocabulary development to decipher author’s meaning:

• Analyze denotation and connotation
• Identify figurative language
• Analyze tone and bias
• Identify different levels of diction

Lab

In addition to the lecture, students must also attend lab three hours per week. Students who do not make steady progress over the course of the semester will be dropped from not only the lab but the lecture as well. To ensure success in both the class and the lab, attend regularly and complete work as assigned.

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Required texts--Kill Your Idols edited by Jim DeRogatis and Carmel Carrillo.

Supplies--one 10x12 or larger clasp envelope; photocopies of your work as needed; formatted portable storage device (pen drive for example); 200 page notebook; lab folder

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Students will read regularly from Kill Your Idols and various handouts. We will investigate the concepts inferencing, summarizing, analyzing, and evaluating and apply those concepts to the above texts. Students will be regularly quizzed and tested on the critical thinking concepts and their application.

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Writing

After having discussed summary, analysis, and evaluation, students will write an interpretive paper, an analysis, and an evaluation of chapters from Kill Your Idols. The papers will address the rules for summary, analysis, and evaluation and utilize ideas from Kill Your Idols to meet all requirements of the assignments.

Regular attendance is expected, and I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. If a student misses a class, s/he can not make up the work, regardless of excuse, but s/he should get notes from a classmate. A student is allowed three absences; on the fourth absence, I drop the student. Stuents should also arrive on time and stay until dismissal; in other words, late arrivals and early departures are frowned upon. I do allow for one make up test if students have informed me before the test is taken. Notification after the test is taken will not be considered.

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Students are expected to act in a collegiate manner. Thus, cell phones iPods, and other electronic equipment will not be tolerated. Make sure these devices are inoperable during class time. Disruption of class will result in appropriate disciplinary action. Additionally, children are not allowed in class, for it is against the law. Finally, regular attendance, participation, and engagement are instrumental to your success in this class.

Grading will be decided by a point system; there are twelve hundred total points for the class, so students will be able to calculate their grades throughout the semester.