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EWRT2 CRITICAL THINKING, READING AND WRITINGEwrt2
PRIVATE RESPONSIBILITY IN PUBLIC SPACES
EWRT 2 – CRITICAL THINKING
SPRING 2007
Class Time: MW 1:30 – 3:40
Maryalice Bonilla
bonillamaryalice@fhda.edu
Office: F41-G Office Hours: M 11:00-12:00; MW 6:00 - 6:30; T 11:00 - 12:00 or by appointment
Phone: 408 864-8883
Required Texts: Current Issues and Enduring Questions, 7th ed., Sylvan Barnet
and Hugo Bedau
Lord of War, Andrew Niccol (film)
Recommended: Collegiate level dictionary; a thesaurus; Diane Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference or any writing reference; a three ring binder to keep handouts, schedules, copies of completed work and work in progress.
Objectives: EWRT 2 is a 5-unit course designed to enhance critical thinking and writing skills. You will be reading a variety of authors in our main text, Current Issues and Enduring Questions (CIEQ). Both in groups and in whole-class instruction, you will analyze arguments, the quality and relevance of assumptions, and understand patterns of organization. We will be learning informal logical fallacies and understanding how they occur. The assignments are intended to refine your critical thinking and writing skills. You will learn, as a means to approaching analysis and writing of argumentation or evaluation, various domains of argumentation, such as induction, deduction and a variety of informal
and formal logical fallacies. You will learn and apply with understanding analysis versus evaluation, differentiate between major and minor premises, learn MLA citation, detect informal logical fallacies, understand audience and purpose and purposeful choice of language and tone.
Assignments:
Essays: You will write five essays, typed and double-spaced. You must submit all supporting work, drafts, outlines, etc., with your final draft. All work should be typed and double-spaced.
Homework: You will have a number of homework tasks to complete. These are designed to prepare you for the succeeding directed instruction. Curricularly speaking, they are “into” activities, intended to give you a chance to activate schema, establish some prior knowledge, and generate advance questions. There is no “busy work” and the homework has points that will bear on your grade. Some homework assignments are summaries. These also are intended to give me insight into your current critical reading abilities, as well your ability to deconstruct arguments. Do not miss these opportunities to gain critical information.
Quizzes: I give quizzes to measure your ability to participate, specifically, I will be checking for your completion of the reading assignment. You will not be able to participate effectively if you have not read as most collaborative work is derived of our reading assignment; this will hinder your effective participation in group work as well. Most quizzes are not announced.
The Research Project: This is a the major project of this course. You will write a research paper of seven pages in length, not including the works cited page/s or cover sheet. There is a structured procedure for this and for each stage of this effort there is a required product and points attached that fall into “homework” points.
The Final: The final exam for this course will be an in-class essay on the final date. The purpose of this evaluation is
to evaluate your critical reading, your ability to analyze, evaluate
and respond to an argument.
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