WR 080 Basic Writing

1. Use student and published writings as models for rhetorical and organizational choices.
2. Critically read college-level texts, begin to summarize and evaluate these texts, and use a Works Cited page.
3. Recognize and begin to write coherent paragraphs to include topic sentence and detailed support, with clear transitions, and demonstrate focus in a unified piece of writing.
4. Use the following rhetorical and organizational patterns: narrative or process (required); expository or definition (optional); summary and evaluation (required). 
5. Recognize that writing can be intended for different audiences.
6. Practice an essay writing process that involves invention strategies, drafting, peer review, revision, and editing.
7. Begin to identify individual strengths and weaknesses when revising; to edit drafts to final essays; and to collaborate on peer revision of written work.
8. Recognize and use resources available to assist with the writing process.
9. Understand the research and documentation process including a clear understanding of plagiarism and strategies to avoid it.

• Academic Discourse and Conventions
  • Participate in class discussion and activities
  • Develop active reading skills, including annotation, vocabulary development, and identification of the thesis and main idea of a source material
  • Engage with texts representative of college-level courses
  • Learn to recognize the rhetorical strategies used in a particular text
  • Practice summarizing, paraphrasing, analyzing, evaluating, and attributing the ideas of others in order to develop and discover original ideas
  • Gain familiarity with resources available to help with sentence boundary issues, such as the handbook, online resources, and college resources
• Organization, Thesis, and Development
  • Use planned, logical paragraph organization to emphasize a central idea and to create a clear beginning, middle, and end
  • Unity and coherence of paragraphs
  • Use transitions between sentences and paragraphs 
  • Summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize texts
  • Use the following rhetorical and organizational patterns: narrative or process (required); expository or definition (optional); summary and evaluation (required) 
• Audience, Purpose, and Voice
  • Begin developing an understanding how voice, tone, and formality inform written texts
• Writing Process
  • Prewriting: brainstorming, clustering, freewriting, etc.
  • Drafting
  • Thesis development
  • Peer review
  • Revising
  • Editing
  • Familiarity with tools and resources available to assist in writing improvement and development
• Research and Documentation
  • Plagiarism
  • MLA Works Cited page