WR 090 Fundamentals of Writing

1. Recognize sentence boundary issues and effectively edit final drafts.
2. Use student and published writings as models for rhetorical and organizational choices.
3. Able to critically read college-level texts and begin to analyze and synthesize these texts.
4. Use organization, thesis, and development in a college-level paper.
5. Write coherent paragraphs to include topic sentence, detailed support, with clear transitions; Demonstrate focus in a unified piece of writing.
6. Use the following rhetorical and organizational patterns: narrative (required); expository and/or compare & contrast (required); definition (optional). Produce an approximate total of 4,000-5,000 word-processed words for submission during the course of a term.
7. Locate audience, purpose, and voice in writing including recognizing that writing can be intended for different audiences.
8. Recognize individual strengths and weaknesses when revising; edit drafts to final essays; and to collaborate in peer revision of written work.
9. Recognize and use resources available to assist with the writing process.
10. Demonstrate a clear understanding of plagiarism and of strategies to avoid it; use of MLA Works Cited page, recognition of in-text quotes, and framing direct quotations.

• 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 
  • Ability to recognize sentence boundary issues and edit final drafts 
  • Gain familiarity with course resources available to help with sentence boundary issues, such as the handbook and online resources 
  • Gain familiarity with academic support services of the college, including: the library, Study Skills Center and Tutoring, and the Writing Center. 
• 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 
  • Summary, paraphrase, and synthesis 
  • Use the following rhetorical and organizational patterns: narrative (required); expository and/or compare and contrast (required); definition (optional)  
• 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 
  • Aware of key citation and documentation tools in order to avoid plagiarism, including: 
    • Introduction to quotation, quotation framing, and in-text citations 
    • Introduction to MLA Works Cited page