Expository Reading and Writing Course

Fall 2016

Instructor: Ms. Carmen Garcia, M.A

Email: cgarcia@davincischools.org
DB: http://misscarmengarcia.weebly.com/
Office hours: Wednesday Mornings 8:00-8:55am or Appt only
Turnitin.com Login Information:
Class ID:
Password: research101
Course Description:
The goal of the Expository Reading and Writing Course is to prepare college-bound seniors for the literacy
demands of higher education. Through a sequence of rigorous instructional modules, students in this year-long,
rhetoric-based course develop advanced proficiency in expository, analytical, and argumentative reading and
writing. The students focus on reading, comprehending, and responding to nonfiction and literary texts by
engaging in active reading and writing processes. The writing modules also provide instruction in the research
methods and documentation conventions. Students will gain an awareness of the rhetorical strategies used by
authors and apply them in their own writing. Through the various texts, students will: examine critically the
relationship between an authors argument or theme and his/her audience and purpose; analyze the significance of
structural and rhetorical strategies; and examine the social, political, and philosophical assumptions that underlie
the text. Students will be expected to use this process independently when reading unfamiliar texts and writing in
response to them. Course texts include contemporary essays, newspaper and magazine articles, editorials,
reports, biographies, assorted public documents, nonfiction texts, and full-length literary selections.
This Expository Reading and Writing Course is considered by the State University of California (CSU) system as
a college ready course. If a student passes this course with a grade of A, B, or C during both semesters, then that
student is exempt from taking the English Placement Test for the CSU campuses and is automatically eligible for
the first college level English course.
Course Goals and Student Learning Outcomes:
o To enable students to analyze, interpret, and apply the rhetorical strategies of a variety of expository and
literary texts.
o To foster students ability to create and support written arguments based on readings, research, and
personal experience.
o To increase students usage of cognitive and metacognitive strategies for approaching various academic
reading and writing tasks.
o To promote independent academic literacy practices in college-bound students, including the ability to
use reading and writing processes recursively and reflectively.
o To prepare students to meet the standards of the CSU English Placement Test and the California
English/Language Arts Common Core Content Standards.
ESSENTIAL SKILLS:

Analysis- Students will be able to analyze, evaluate and synthesize multiple sources, including primary
documents, contemporary essays, newspapers and magazine articles, editorials, reports, biographies, and
assorted public documents, nonfiction texts, and full- length literary selections.
In doing so, they will answer these questions:
Evidence: How do we know whats true or false? What evidence counts? What type of evidence is
used?
Viewpoint: How might this look if we stepped into other shoes, or looked at it from a different
direction.
Connection: Is there a pattern? Have we seen something like this before?
Significance: Why does this matter?
Inference: Based on what you know, what can you conclude? What if it were different?
Content- Students will be able to organize, develop, and support ideas and reasons through well-chosen
examples and personal experiences.
Format- Students will be able to write effectively using a variety of sentence structure and a clear command of
language through grammar, usage, and mechanics. Appropriate college level formatting (ie. MLA, Chicago
Style, APA) required.
Habit of Accountability is the habit of consistently meeting deadlines and following directions
Habit of Quality is the habit of consistently investing your personal best effort to create a product that is
strong, accurate and beautiful
Academic Honesty:
Plagiarizing
DaVinci Schools expect all students to adhere to the highest standards of academic honesty in all academic
activities. Plagiarism that is, the intentional or unintentional borrowing of another persons ideas, images,
research, or data without citation -- is a serious breach of academic integrity that results in sanctions, including
dismissal from the university.
Any of the following actions, without giving full credit to the original source, is plagiarism:

Direct duplication, by copying (or allowing to be copied) anothers work, whether from a book, article,
Web site, video, and another students assignment, a test, an exam or any other source;
Paraphrasing anothers work so closely that the essential meaning, and form should be credited to
someone else;
Piecing together sections of the work of others into a new whole;
Producing assignments in conjunction with other people which should be your own independent work.

Please consult Diana Hackers online reference at

http://www.worwic.edu/Media/Documents/LibraryResources/MLA%20Style.pdf in regard to the proper citation
of sources and Hackers A Writers Reference, 7th ed., pp. 344-347 for specific guidance on avoiding plagiarism
while taking notes, summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting from sources.
Students committing plagiarism or academic dishonesty will also be subject to disciplinary action from DaVinci
Schools.

Evaluation Criteria:

The final evaluation will address the extent to which students have met the learning objectives listed above, as
demonstrated in:

Active contributions to classroom discussion demonstrating constructive dialogue with peers

Depth and critical perspective in papers and exams
Development of understanding of the selected texts and analytical skill over the course of the term.

Expository Reading and Writing UNITS:

Unit 1: Whats Next? Thinking about life after high school
Description: This unit focuses on supporting students as they confront choices they have to make about life
after high school. As students enter the final year of their education, they are likely to begin thinking about their
future. This unit provides students with an opportunity to begin to consider not just what they wish to do after
high school but how well prepared they are for life after high school.
Unit 2: Racial Profiling
Description: This unit is designed to provoke students to take a stand on the controversial topic of racial
profiling. The issues surrounding this topic are complex and entangled in related subjects to the extent that a
change in one area might dramatically affect other claims in an argument. Students will be prompted to
articulate what they have discovered so they understand metacognitively how to develop an argument by
deconstructing an article that demonstrated the effective use of all three persuasive appeals for a single purpose.
Unit 3: Gender
Description: This unit will allow students to interrogate gender norms, and the ways social pressures enforce
those norms. The unit will alow students a deeper understanding of relationships between language, gender,
culture, and identity. The final writing assignment invites students to transform their words into social action.
Unit 4: Into the wild
Description: This unit explores the nonfiction, full- length work, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer who
investigates the life, ideologies, and mystery of Christopher McCandless. Students will be able to understand
character and authorial intentions, understand independent word learning strategies, text structure, information,
and ideas that will support interpretations and arguments about the text.
Projects:
General Election Project- Students will redesign the voter guide to appeal to a younger audience age 18-24.
The project will include research and information of the present 2016 General Election propositions and
candidates.
Shark Tank Project- Students will research various components of their social solution and create a
professional, market research portfolio that will include product details and research. This portfolio will detail
the factors that contributed to the planning, design, and implementation of the final product.