Mrs. Thomas

If any good thing shall go forward, something must be adventured.
--Sir Thomas More, Utopia

Foundations of Communication II
Upper School English 11/12 OR Communication Elective

COURSE DESCRIPTION:  This course is designed to introduce and reinforce overall reading comprehension and writing skills and processes needed for independence in academia and life.  Active Critical Reading as well as a flexible writing process are taught and practiced to automaticity.  Text includes selected essays, fiction, journalism, and poetry and use of film, as appropriate.

GOALS:

1. Students will become aware of the need to integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening to optimize learning.
2. Students will learn and use an Active Critical Reading approach for academic text using adaptable strategies for pre-reading, involved reading of text, and post-reading.
3. Students will learn how to approach and complete academic writing tasks using a discursive, dynamic, multi-step process.
4. Students will learn the relationship of reading and writing and practice reading/writing integration as a necessary study skill.
5. Students will learn to use writing as a mode of learning.
6. Students will learn to use technology to assist in the writing process.

OBJECTIVES:

1. To understand individual learning preferences, strengths, and weaknesses and how that affects academic performance, especially reading and writing.
2. To learn the stages of an Active Reading Process and practice to automaticity.
3. To expand and enrich vocabulary.
4. To learn Latinate and Greek prefixes, roots, and suffixes.
5. To apply the stages of an Active Reading Process to grade-level texts in all disciplines.
6. To learn strategies for reading comprehension for demanding academic text, including but not limited to identification of the main idea, supporting information, inferences, and vocabulary in context.
7. Introduction of language as a tool for oral and written communication in a variety of genres.
8. Review and practice of the stages and purposes of the writing process.
9. Introduction and practice of expressive modes such as anecdotes, limericks, news stories, brief personal narratives, and various modes of essays.
10. Review and practice of varied sentence patterns and their accompanying punctuation.
11. Review and practice of various types of academic paragraphs.
12. Strategies for analyzing writing tasks and self-monitoring.
13. Strategies for completing a multi-step/multi-task research project.