ENGL C102 Critical Thinking Through Literature
CATALOG COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this composition course for transfer to four-year
institutions, students will continue development of
composition and critical reasoning skills begun in ENGL C101
through advanced study of imaginative literature (novels,
poetry, drama) and arguments. The course emphasizes
critical analysis, principles of logic, and presentation of
carefully-reasoned written arguments. Students will write
at least five expository and argumentative essays, including
some requiring substantive research showing the student’s
ability to analyze and evaluate source material and to
generate and develop independent topics of inquiry (total:
8,000 words).
REQUISITES
Prerequisites: English C101
COURSE OBJECTIVES
- construct longer, more complicated units from the
variety of modes learned and practiced in C101; demonstrate
how different combinations of the modes help clarify subject
and purpose as a writer;
- identify and address a specific audience, and clearly
state an argument of interpretation or evaluation (thesis);
- support a thesis with a sufficient variety and number of
appropriate examples, taking into consideration readers’
objections and opposing points of view;
- control diction and tone for both audience and the
rhetorical purpose for writing, using stylistic elements of
increasing complexity and effectiveness, such as absolute
phrases and repetition for emphasis and coherence.
- identify premises, both explicitly stated and
implied;
- distinguish among facts, inferences, assumptions and
implications;
- recognize fallacious reasoning, including but not
limited to hasty generalization, post hoc ergo propter
hoc, non-sequitur, ad hominem, ad populum, false
dilemma, and false analogy;
- reason inductively from words, word patterns,
themes and structures to form generalizations, and
deductively from explicit statements about genre and other
literary conventions, drawing conclusions about texts based
on those statements;
- identify the basic characteristics of basic literary
genres and use critical language (plot, character, setting,
tone, point of view, structure) to discuss and study works
of literature;
- interpret literature by decoding, clarifying, drawing
conclusions and speculating about underlying assumptions;
- demonstrate familiarity with the vocabulary, approaches,
and procedures of the current schools of literary criticism.
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This course is also
offered as
an Honors Program course.
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