LACR 009 - Fundamentals of Composition I

3 credits

LACR 009 develops students’ critical reading and writing skills so that they may employ the writing processes expected at the college level. The emphasis is on reading comprehension and writing processes (analyzing, applying, and evaluating), as well as on the technical aspects of writing, specifically essay structure, paragraph construction, grammar, punctuation and spelling. As this course is six hours per week, one-to-one time with the instructor is built into the class, so students can work on individual reading and writing issues. By the end of this course, successful students will: 1. Develop critical reading and writing skills: describing, summarizing, evaluating, and interpreting. 2. Compose a thesis and support it in the body of the essay in well-structured paragraphs. 3. Analyze sources (locate the author’s thesis and evidence). 4. Apply source material through quotation, paraphrase, and summary. 5. Understand how to avoid intentional or unintentional plagiarism. 6. Access source material in the stacks of the library. 7. Recognize and edit patterns of grammatical error (sentence fragments, run-on sentences, subject-verb agreement, verb tense, punctuation, and spelling) to write clear sentences. Enrollment is based on performance on the English Placement Exam and SAT/ACT scores. This course does not count toward graduation. Successful completion will permit students to enter LACR 100 or LACR 101, depending on the teacher’s recommendation, in the following semester.