College of the CanyonsCollege of the Canyons

Courses

English 071

Beginning Reading and Writing Skills

English 071 builds writing skills at the sentence level and improves reading comprehension through the study of nonfiction pre-college level texts. The course also introduces the writing process and the basics of paragraph structure. Units do not apply to the associate degree and the course is offered credit/no-credit only.

The Student Learning Outcomes for English 071 are:

  • Employ the basic conventions of English grammar, syntax, mechanics, punctuation, and spelling at the sentence level and identify and correct problems with these in personal writing and in sample exercises
  • Compose non-source-based paragraphs utilizing the primary components and be able to distinguish between rhetorical formats
  • Demonstrate progress in acquiring basic academic reading skills, especially comprehension and summarizing of subject matter

To achieve the above stated goals, the Course Objectives for English 071 are as follow:

  • Recognize different parts of a sentence: subjects, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, and prepositions
  • Distinguish between homonyms or frequently confused words
  • Identify frequently misspelled words.
  • Demonstrate competency in recognizing and correcting agreement errors with subjects, verbs, and pronouns
  • Demonstrate competency in recognizing and correcting sentence boundary errors
  • Identify three main types of sentences: simple, compound, and complex
  • Name and apply rules of punctuation and mechanics
  • Compose paragraphs using key elements such as topic sentence, main ideas, supporting details, transitions, and concluding sentence
  • Recognize and define a variety of patterns of development in writing such as narration, description, and process analysis
  • Define elements of non-fiction such as main ideas and supporting details
  • Read actively by making marginal notes (SQ6R & HQR) and marking items for reference
  • Use contextual analysis to determine the meanings of words in texts
  • Use a dictionary and thesaurus effectively to recognize and define unfamiliar words
  • Increase reading rate (speed)