Courses

Back to EN110 Advanced Reading

'03-'04 Schedule

Faculty

Employment

Advanced Reading Course Outline

Revised 3/2003

Course Description

Advanced Reading is designed to improve students’ critical reading and thinking skills, increase analytical, inferential and evaluative comprehension, expand vocabulary skills, and employ effective study strategies for use across academic disciplines.

I. Course Objectives

General Objectives

The student will be able to:

1. Read critically by asking pertinent questions about a text, by recognizing assumptions and implications, and by evaluating ideas.
2. Read a literary text analytically, seeing relationships between form and content.
3. Read texts of different genres and disciplines accurately.

Specific Objectives

The student will be able to:

1.1 Ascertain the meaning of a passage by identifying main ideas, supporting details, and logical or narrative sequences.
1.2 Recognize the implicit assumptions and values underlying a written work.
1.3 Evaluate ideas presented in a text by determining their logical validity, their implications, and their relationship to ideas beyond the text.
1.4 Evaluate ideas presented in a text by determining the rhetorical structures used to persuade readers.
1.5 Distinguish between facts and opinions in a text.

2.1 Identify the tone, mood, and voice of a literary text through an analysis of its linguistic features and literary devices.
2.2 Identify the theme of a literary text and the ways it is embodied by formal elements.
2.3 Identify and analyze common semantic features such as connotation, denotation, and figures of speech.

3.1 Write a summary of a text that demonstrates an understanding of the main ideas of the text.
3.2 Write a paraphrase of a passage that demonstrates an understanding of the content of the passage.
3.3 State the main idea of a text.
3.4 Define unfamiliar vocabulary.
3.5 Locate facts and isolate details of a text.
3.6 Retain specific facts and details from a text.

II. Course Contents

The course contents are readings of essays, fiction, poetry and drama within the following thematic categories:

1. The Search for the Self
2. Personal Relationships: Parents and Children
3. Personal Relationships: Men and Women
4. Cultural Traditions: Popular Culture
5. Cultural Traditions: Art and Society
6. Science, the Environment and the Future
7. Freedom and Human Dignity
8. Education
9. Personal Values

III. Textbook

Shrodes, Caroline, Harry Finestone and Michael Shugrue. The Conscious Reader. 8th ed.
New York: Longman, 2001. (Website)

IV. Required Course Materials

None

V. Reference Materials

The student should have a dictionary. Copies of the Random House Webster’s Pocket American Dictionary are available at the bookstore.

VI. Instructional Costs

None.

VII. Method of Instruction

The instructor may use but is not limited to lecture, discussion, group discussion, group presentations, projects, quizzes, tests, videos, computer software and exercises in order to achieve the stated objectives of the course.

VIII. Evaluation

The instructor will create measurement instruments that demonstrate competency in the stated objectives. These may include multiple choice, short answer, and essay quizzes or assignments. The instructor will give a mid-term and final examination. A copy of the final examination should be given to the division chair.

IX. Attendance Policy

The COM-FSM attendance policy applies to this course.

X. Academic Honesty Policy

The COM-FSM academic honesty policy applies to this course.