Integrated Reading and Writing Seminar

1. Integrated Reading and Writing Seminar Proposed by Debra Gibes, Parmis Johnson, and Julie Steffey,

2. Rationale for Proposal • Research shows that the longer students remain in developmental courses, moving up through multiple levels of developmental education prior to enrolling in college-level courses, the less likely they are to attempt or complete the necessary coursework that would lead to certificates or degrees. (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2008). • There are too many opportunities for these students to leave college before they succeed. • In answer to this problem, more and more colleges across the country are rethinking their approaches to developmental education and including opportunities for students to accelerate their progress toward college-level courses. • MCC is in a good position to offer students an accelerated option.

3. Course Content Rationale • The focus of the course is on integrating reading and writing instruction and assignments to accelerate student progress through the developmental pipeline more quickly than if they move up through English 098 and 099 and Reading 016 and 030. • This proposed course introduces developmental students to college-level reading, reasoning, and writing so that they are better prepared to succeed in English 101 and in the subsequent college courses across the curriculum. Thus, assignments will replicate the higher-level reading, writing, and reasoning skills needed in English 101, but extensive scaffolding and support will be provided as students work through these more difficult assignments.

4. Course Identification • Name: Reading Writing and Reasoning (supports the 3 main goals of the course) • Discipline: Academic Literacy (provides an organizational structure for reading and writing teachers to teach the course) • Prefix: ACLT • Number: 075 (allows for placement floor for introducing another pilot course) • Credit Hours: 5 (provides adequate scaffolding and support) • Maximum Class Size: 25

5. Course Prerequisite • Placement into English 098 or above and/or a score of 40(?) on the Accuplacer Reading placement test. *ACLT 075 will provide some instruction that is related to instruction in English 098, English 099, Reading 016, and Reading 030. Final determination of Reading placement score for prerequisite will be based on internal data from IR.

6. Course Description • “This accelerated course provides intensive and integrated instruction in college reading, thinking, and writing. It is designed to enable motivated developmental students to progress quickly to English 101 and other college courses. Graded S/U.” • Possibly may include: “ACLT 075 combines two semesters of developmental reading and writing (replaces ENG 098 and/or 099 and RDNG 016 and/or 030.

7. Themed Approach • Because ACLT 075 is an intensive five credit hour course that integrates reading and writing instruction around a central theme (selected by the classroom teacher), time is created for extensive scaffolding and support for developmental students as they tackle college-level assignments. Critical thinking about the course theme and readings will move to center stage, and as the reading and writing skills/strategies necessary to support and expand that thinking will be taught in the context of the theme, student learning will be accelerated.

8. Course Goals • ACL 098 teachers support three main goals for this integrated reading/writing course (following in the footsteps of two ATD leader colleges, Chabot College-California, and the Community College of Baltimore County): That students will develop increasing ability to • Independently read and understand complex academic texts • Critically respond to the ideas and information in those texts • Write essays integrating ideas and information from those texts

9. Course Objectives • Basic Reading and Writing Processes and Strategies: • Demonstrate ability to read as a meaningful process that includes using a variety of pre-, during-, and after-reading strategies. • Demonstrate ability to write as a meaningful process that includes pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing. • Demonstrate ability to applyappropriate reading and writing strategies for different purposes and situations. • Detect and correct major grammatical and mechanical errors in their own writing

10. Objectives (Cont.) • Integrated Critical Thinking Processes and Strategies: • Demonstrate ability to read, comprehend, reflect on, and respond to texts by professional writers and peers. • Demonstrate understanding of text structures in reading and writing: How a main idea is supported, developed, and organized. • Demonstrate ability to distinguish fact from opinion, make predictions, understand inferences, and understand sequencing (is sequencing different from text structure?). • Synthesize ideas from multiple readings and their own experiences and observations and develop them into focused, academic essays. • Demonstrate academic integrity by citing sources appropriately in their own essays, though not necessarily at mastery level.

11. Objectives (cont.) • Basic Student-Success Skills and Behaviors: • Use academic computing tools such as MS Word, Blackboard, and Webmail. • Participate appropriately in the social acts of reading and writing discussions, giving and receiving peer response, collaborating, and other class activities.

12. Teaching Materials • One class-shared book related to the class theme (preferably non-fiction) • One book selected by the student from teacher’s list of three or four related to class theme (could be from a variety of genres) • A variety of shorter readings related to the class theme in a variety of genres (but should be challenging for the students). These readings may be in an anthology or separate (perhaps posted on Blackboard or provided as handouts or links).

13. Student Evaluation • Portfolio: To include essay work and demonstration(s) of reading strategy application that meet satisfactory requirement based on a shared rubric. • Final Exam: Annotations of a selected reading and an essay based on reading • Coursework: Such as quizzes over readings, short writes, presentations, participation in discussions, writing workshops, group work. • To earn a final grade of “S,” students must satisfactorily complete at least 70% of the required work. (Weights of components to be determined, later)

14. Need for Options • The new course would not replace the traditional developmental reading and writing courses but would offer motivated students willing to make the commitment, an accelerated option. Successful ACLT 075 students would move straight to English 101 and other college-level courses, significantly reducing the number of developmental courses that they need, thereby saving time and money and increasing retention by eliminating potential exit points.

15. Course Initiation • Course can be initiated as a seminar; • Academic Literacy Designation will provide the organizational structure for both reading and writing teachers to teach the course after training. • Course should be offered for multiple semesters so that a sufficient amount of data can become accessible in order to adequately evaluate student success.