Weekly
Assignments: EBS 014/015-603
Bergen
Community College
Division
of Arts and Humanities, English Department
Fall
2009 (9/3/09-12/21/09): English Basic Skills
Instructor:
Jacqueline DiChiara
TENTATIVE
COURSE SCHEDULE
Week
1: Course Introduction (Chapter 1)
Class placement discussion,
mastery test discussion, diagnostic test administered, syllabus
discussed and signed, homework buddies
Week 2: Reading
Comprehension (Chapter 3)
Main ideas, topic sentences, supporting
details, response and reaction questions, the umbrella concept, webbing and outlining for a paper, brainstorming and organizing basic ideas into an outline
Task 1: Brainstorm, Web, and Outline about the following essay question:
If you were to develop a Mt. Rushmore representing Today, whose faces would you select and why?
Week
3: Paragraph Development (Chapter 3, 7, 8)
Arguing a thesis,
providing examples, exploring viewpoint, journaling
Week 4:
Paragraph Structure and Organization (Chapter 10, 11)
Cause and
Effect, Compare and Contrast, individual and collaborative writing
revision
Task 2 Due: How-To Essay; Essay 1 Due: Compare and Contrast Essay
Week 5: Mechanics and Word Use (Chapter 4, 7, 10,
11)
Signal words, transitions, assessing the reading and writing
performance of peers, use of a holistic rubric to evaluate and judge
writing quality
Task 3 Due: Character Diary
Week 6: Summarizing a Reading
Selection (Page 622)
Summarizing given material, reading
comprehension; Task 4 Due: News Article Summary
Week 7: Grammar and Punctuation (Chapter 25,
27)
Conducting a Student Interview: Oral and peer editing, analyzing basic grammar mistakes,
subject/verb agreement, verb tense; Task 5 Due (Student Interview 2 Paragraphs)
Week 8: More
Grammar and Punctuation (Chapter 29, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38)
Oral and
peer editing, pronouns, commas, colons, semicolons, apostrophes
Essay 2 Due: Practice Mastery Test 1
Week 9: Reviewing the 6 Criteria of the Mastery Test Rubric
(Chapter 6)
Organization, support and development, coherence,
sentence skills, appropriateness, and content; collaborative group
work
Week 10: Demonstrating Knowledge of the Writing Process
(Chapter 2)
Pre-writing, writing a first draft, using a holistic
rubric to assess writing, brainstorming
Week 11: More
Demonstrating Knowledge of the Writing Process (Chapter 2, 5)
Peer
revising, peer editing, publishing, collaborative revising and
editing, individual writing conferences, presentations of
essays
Week 12: Writing Coherent and Developed
Paragraphs Around a Single Idea (Chapter 18)
Beginning to
brainstorm and gather sources, completion of a 4 paragraph essay,
group work, presentations of essays
Essay 2 Due
Week 13:
Demonstrate Knowledge of the Library's Components; Using MLA (Chapter
19)
Using the library for research, bring in library books to
class based on a chosen topic to analyze and discuss for research
purposes; what to do with the information you find regarding how to
cite using MLA; gathering sources; what is MLA?
Task 5
Mastery
Test Administered (exact date and time TBA)
Week 14:
Effectively Utilizing the Various Components of the Library (Chapter
20)
Research Project, creating an outline for a first draft;
Research Project Outline Due
Week 15: More Effectively
Utilizing the Various Components of the Library (Chapter 20)
Writing
the research paper
Week
16: Course Conclusion (Chapter 20)
Writing the research paper;
Final conferences, student course evaluations, edit, revise, and
publish research project, research project presentations
Final
Research Project Due
