Introduces the writing and thinking skills necessary to achieve success in a program of regular college study.  Areas covered include: critical thinking, syntax, paragraph structure, and the clear and effective composition of college-level essays.  Ath the end of the course, students may receive consideration for exemption from English 101 and placement directly into English 102.

Course Description
The purpose of English 100 is to help students begin to understand the thematic and mechanical conceptions of the writing that will be expected of them in college. It is intended to allow them prepare themselves for the tasks of college-level writing by specific and often intense attention to the processes they use to arrive at a written essay. The readings for English 100, drawn as they are from the same textbook as used in English 101, are meant to be challenging. However, unlike their counterparts in English 101, students in 100 will spend more time paying close attention to the cognitive issues underlying a more complex notion reading comprehension, such ideas as inference-drawing and reading critically in a way often defined as "strong" or "active" reading.

By the end of English 100, students should be able to

• think critically, and begin to rely on their inferential skills as a way of making meaning from written texts
• use language in correct and appropriate ways
• understand that writing is a process that begins with the comprehension of an idea, and moves through a number of revised drafts toward a completed product
• produce summaries and paraphrases and understand how and why those are useful skills
• write coherent essays that demonstrate an awareness of the rules of English, and quote from external texts for support of their point in appropriate and analytical ways