Course

Developmental Writing

Important Notice

This course is not active. Please contact Department Chair for more information.

Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Department
English Upgrading
Course Code
ENGU 0350
Credits
3.00
Semester Length
15 weeks
Max Class Size
18
Method(s) Of Instruction
Tutorial
Typically Offered
To be determined

Overview

Course Description
This is a course for students who wish to develop their expression of ideas in different written formats, including letters, reports, and essays. The course is designed for students who lack experience with practical writing tasks and who are preparing for entry into vocational and career programs or preparing to take the GED exam. Emphasis is placed on the process of generating appropriate material for difference audiences and expressing this in standard written English.
Course Content
  1. Strategies
    • generating ideas and accessing information
    • setting purpose and recognizing needs of the audience
    • planning design and organizing material
    • initial drafting techniques
    • obtaining and handling feedback
    • redrafting and editing
    • proofreading and producing final copy
  2. Standard Written Expression
    • mechanics and punctuation (end marks, commas, apostrophes, quotation marks, semi-colons, and capital letters, etc.)
    • usage errors (verb forms, agreement, inflections, pronoun reference, and fractured idioms, etc.)
  3. Syntactic and Semantic Control
    • sentence construction (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences)
    • sentence variety (use of infinitive phrases, appositives, and other adjectival and adverbial constructions)
    • avoiding sentence errors (fragments, run-ons, faulty parallelism, dangling modifiers, etc.)
    • use of abstract and specific language
    • choice of appropriate words (formality, connotation, precision, etc.)
Learning Activities

A combination of instructional methods will be used in order to balance instructional efficiency with individual student needs.  Small group instruction, individual assistance (in lab tutorial or scheduled appointments) and student directed learning will be selected where appropriate and possible.

The student will be expected to maintain regular attendance and progress and to undertake independent learning as directed.  Regular feedback and information progress reports will be available from the instructor.

Means of Assessment

A mastery model of on-going evaluation will be used.  A student will have completed the course when he/she has demonstrated through satisfactory completion of exercises and assignments that the course objectives have been achieved. 

Where formal tests of specific skills are used, mastery will be defined as a score of 80 percent or more.

Progress will be monitored on a regular basis by the instructor in consultation with each student.

Learning Outcomes

The aims of this course are for students:

  1. To develop confidence and experience using the process of writing;
  2. To augment experience and effectiveness at composing a variety of practical writing assignments;
  3. To gain initial experience with forms of writing that promote the development of analytical and critical thinking abilities;
  4. To gain initial experience with the techniques and styles of essays and reports;
  5. To improve awareness and control of the degrees of language formality suitable for different writing tasks;
  6. To improve ability to make appropriate word choices;
  7. To demonstrate growth in ability to create texts characterized by effective unity, organization and support;
  8. To demonstrate growth in ability to convey feelings, ideas and opinions in appropriate written formats;
  9. To demonstrate initial competency constructing multi-paragraph compositions.
Textbook Materials

Students may be required to purchase a textbook.

Requisites

Prerequisites

ENGU 0250 or ENGU 0256 or permission of instructor

Corequisites

No corequisite courses.

Equivalencies

No equivalent courses.

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see

Institution Transfer Details for ENGU 0350
There are no applicable transfer credits for this course.

Course Offerings

Winter 2025