ENGL 106 - Critical Reading in the Humanities

5 CR

Course focuses on developing higher level cognitive skills: critical reading and questioning of a wide selection of materials-philosophy, education, religion, literature, cultureto examine ways of knowing and thinking, engaging in thoughtful dialogue with peers (via seminars or class/group discussions) on college level material, developing the art of asking insightful questions to generate and advance relevant discussion. Required parallel lab (ENGL 180, 1 or ~ 2 credits) emphasizes vocabulary and comprehension skills.

Prerequisite(s): Placement by assessment.

Course Outcomes

Identify patterns of organization which provide order to written text.
Identify and explain the rhetorical balance which must exist among the writer, the audience [reader], and the writing [text] in an example of expository writing
List strategies for distinguishing major ideas [thesis, theme, etc.] from the supporting details
Prepare an outline - using traditional outline criteria, a mapping technique, or a visual diagram - of a whole piece of text, so that the sequence of key ideas and their relationship to one another is traced through the entire work.
Identify characteristics of and strategies for reading text in a variety of
subject areas in the arts, the sciences, and the social sciences.
Identify ways to read actively, rather than passively.
Identify literal information in a given piece of text. Distinguish this information from information which can be inferred from the same text.
Locate examples of fact in a given piece of text. Distinguish this information from information which can be classified as opinion.
Identify reading tasks at a variety of cognitive levels and distinguish them from reading tasks at other cognitive levels.
Identify reading tasks associated with the learning paradigms of philosophers and/or learning theorists such as Plato, Bloom, etc.
Identify criteria, which characterize a critical reader.
Summarize a writer’s underlying, but unstated, assumptions in a given selection of text.
Select a piece of writing which contains symbolism and/or imagery, and explain how the writer’s use of figurative language enhances MEANING
Identify ways to evaluate the effectiveness of a selected piece of text based on the information it contains and the writer’s strategies for communicating that information.

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