Common Course Outline

Course discipline/number/title ENGL 0960: Introduction to College Writing

Catalog Description

Credits 4
Hours/Week 4
Prerequisites (Course discipline/number) None
Other requirements Students should score appropriately on the college placement guidelines.
MnTC Goals (if any) NA

Course Description

In this writing-intensive course, students will practice the process of writing as a recursive practice and learning strategies for planning, drafting, and revising their own work. Students will read and analyze others’ writing and respond to it critically. The aim of the course is to prepare students for college-level writing.

Date Last Revised (Month, year)

November, 2025

Outline of Major Content Areas

  1. Rhetorical Awareness
  2. Adapting voice, tone, format, and vocabulary for specific audience and context
  3. Writing for a range of purposes
  4. Process
  5. Recognizing the importance of time to develop ideas and improve writing.
  6. Receiving and responding to feedback from a variety of sources, which may include tutors, instructors, and peers.
  7. Adapting the writing process for varying contexts, which may include multi-modal formats to reflect the needs of an increasingly digitally literate society.
  8. Focus/Structure/Organization
  9. Analyzing the role of a paragraph within a longer text.
  10. Writing focused and developed paragraphs, both stand-alone and as part of multi-paragraph essays.
  11. Organization of paragraphs to support a text’s main idea.
  12. Employing effective transitions to aid reader comprehension.
  13. Development and Support
  14. Creation of a controlling idea based on context.
  15. Development and support of the controlling idea with examples and other types of evidence.
  16. Explanation how the selected evidence supports the controlling idea and the overall purpose.
  17. Critical Thinking
  18. Analyzing a text to better understand how the pieces relate to the overall meaning.
  19. Differentiating between the student’s ideas and the ideas of others.
  20. Summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting material and providing context.
  21. Responding to the ideas of others.
  22. Clarity and Conventions
  23. Writing clear, effective, and varied sentences.
  24. Revising content for accuracy and effectiveness.
  25. Revising and editing for grammar and mechanics.
  26. Revising and editing to control tone, style, voice, and word choice.

Learning Outcomes (General)

The student will be able to:

  1. Begin to demonstrate how writing can change based on the rhetorical situation.
  2. Employ a writing process involving invention, drafting, revision, and editing.
  3. Create texts that demonstrate a fundamental awareness of coherence and unity.
  4. Demonstrate an ability to present focused ideas in writing and sustain them through relevant and specific evidence.
  5. Demonstrate an ability to analyze and integrate the ideas of others.
  6. Revise and edit texts to make them comprehensible for specific audiences and writing contexts.

Learning Outcomes (MnTC)

NA

Methods for Evaluation of Student Learning

Methods may include but are not limited to:

RCTC Core Outcome(s)

This course contributes to meeting the following RCTC Core Outcome(s):

Communication
Students will communicate appropriately for their respective audiences.
Critical Thinking
Students will think systematically and explore information thoroughly before accepting or formulating a position or conclusion.

Special Information (if any)

None