Course Description: COM 204 builds upon the skills acquired in COM 102 to develop further students' critical thinking and academic writing competencies. Students will read and respond to a variety of texts from different disciplines and produce a research paper using analytical and critical skills in response to non-literary texts.

Textbook: Behrens, L., & Rosen, L. J. (2000). Writing and reading across the curriculum. (7th ed.). New York: Longman.

Course Objectives:

• To enable students to become more attentive listeners, more thoughtful readers, more skilled writers, and more critical thinkers.
• To introduce students to different strategies for deciding upon, selecting, and accessing the wide variety of sources available for research.
• To train students in the ethical use of other people's ideas and writings and ultimately develop their sense of integrity as a producer of research papers.
• To enable students to appreciate the value of working in collaboration with, rather than in competition with, their peers.
• To heighten students' awareness of audience and provide opportunities for them to write for real audiences.
• To demonstrate the value of self and peer evaluation in conjunction with instructor evaluation.

Last Updated: February 21, 2002