Skagit Valley College

Catalog Course Search Details

 Course Title:   Advanced Composition

 Title Abbreviation:   ADVANCED COMPOSITION

 Department:    ENGL

 Course #:    103

 Credits:    5

 Variable:     No

 IUs:    5

 CIP:    230101

 EPC:    n/a

 REV:    2019


 Course Description  

The advanced study of and practice in writing within academic contexts. Includes the planning, researching, writing, and revising of academic essays and the integration of appropriate scholarly sources.

 Prerequisite  

Prerequisite: Grade of 2.0 or higher in ENGL& 101.

Additional Course Details

Contact Hours (based on 11 week quarter)

Lecture: 55

Lab: 0

Other: 0

Systems: 0

Clinical: 0


Intent: Distribution Requirement(s) Status:  

Academic Communication  

Equivalencies At Other Institutions

Other Institution Equivalencies Table
Institution Course # Remarks
CWU 102
OTHER Meets GURs at 3 BIS
U of W 182
WSU WL103 ENGL201
WWU 203

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, the student will be able to:

  1. Understand the various rhetorical strategies used by professional writers and become aware of their own strategies, as well as those demonstrated by other students
    • Demonstrate an understanding of the uses and limits of various strategies.
    • Demonstrate an understanding of specific tactics to be used and avoided in scholarly essays.
  2. Use research techniques
    • Demonstrate the attitude of understanding, respect, and need for scholarship.
    • Locate and use a variety of scholarly sources appropriate to the field of study.
    • Accurately document the source of ideas and the location of ideas.
    • Select and use a documentation style appropriate to the field of study.
  3. Demonstrate writing skills
    • Discriminate between informational reporting and analytical expository writing.
    • Focus on assertations large enough for complex development but limited enough for careful analysis.
    • Control a discussion comprised of several subdivisions and interactions with outside material.
    • Incorporate within the paper accurate and appropriate paraphrase, summary, and quotation including blending, splicing, and synthesizing.
    • Use a variety of persuasive techniques to develop essays as appropriate to the essay's purpose and within the discipline.
    • Apply the conventions of standard written English.
    • Maintain a scholarly tone throughout the paper.
    • Apply a writing process that includes a conscious use of prewriting, planning, composing, revising, and editing.
    • Represent objectively the perspectives and arguments of others.
  4. Demonstrate critical thinking skills
    • Organize complex elements of argument in a logical, coherent fashion.
    • Develop arguments in which the details of the logic and argument are clearly stated.
    • Draw major and subordinate conclusions warranted by evidence, reasoning, and evaluation.
    • Support conclusions with appropriate evidence, both personal analysis and researched.
    • Use a variety of evidence for developing argument, balancing summary, paraphrase, quotations, and origional prose and adequate evidence from a variety of credible sources.
    • Establish the significance of the project for the audience (scholars) and the author.

General Education Learning Values & Outcomes

Revised August 2008 and affects outlines for 2008 year 1 and later.

Course Contents

  1. Research techniques: respect for scholarship, use of a variety of sources, documentation of sources.
  2. Rhetorical strategies: uses and limits of various strategies.
  3. Writing skills: development and support of a thesis that allows for some depth of analysis; incorporation of paraphrase, quotation, summary; application of conventions of standard English and of expectations within a discipline; representation of diverse perspectives.
  4. Critical thinking: argument and support; evaluation of evidence; consideration of diverse points of view.