Academic English Reading and Writing

This class meets in person:

Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00 - 9:50 a.m.

CAHSS Building 504 – Room 2410

This class is intended for non-native speakers of English who want to develop advanced reading and writing skills. In the past, students have come from Japan, Korea, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Pakistan, and Thailand, among other countries. The class is designed for students who are on international exchange at CSUMB for one or two semesters, but all international and/or multilingual students are welcome. 

Occasionally, California-based students enroll in this class when they want to focus on their advanced English reading and writing skills, particularly students who are transnational—that is, students who have lived and gone to school in more than one country.

The best part of the class is having the opportunity to get to know students from other countries who are all interested in developing international perspectives and intercultural communication skills.

This is a discussion-based class, not a lecture class. A typical class session might include the following:

• Sentence structure or vocabulary warm-up activity

• Discussion of the assigned text of the week with classmates

• Brief teacher presentation on the topic of the week

• Group writing activity using shared Google docs to practice the topic of the week

• Activities to generate content for your major writing assignments.

By the end of the semester, you should be able to:

• Use reading strategies such as previewing, skimming, annotating, outlining, summarizing, and paraphrasing.

• Respond critically to a text, applying interpretation, analysis, and synthesis.

• Write in a clear, concise academic style, incorporating source material and using paraphrase and citation appropriately.

• Plan and carry out a research project in multiple stages, from identifying a topic to producing a final draft.

• Use a wide range of academic and subject-specific vocabulary to convey precise meanings.

• Employ proofreading and editing strategies to reduce errors in language use. 

You do not need to buy any books for this class. All of the materials will be available online, including scholarly articles written by CSUMB professors and published on Digital Commons. We will also read short excerpts from open-access writing textbooks, such as Writing Commons. Links to all assigned readings will be posted on Canvas. You can expect to read about 15–20 pages per week.

Reflections on Language and Culture (50 points total)

The purpose of this project is for you to think critically about language learning and culture in the context of your own and others’ experiences. Early in the semester, you will be paired with CSUMB student from a different class, and you will meet at least twice outside of class.

This project will be completed in three parts. You will write Reflection A before you meet your partner, and you will write Reflections B and C after you meet. Each reflection is about 400-600 words.

• Reflection A (Autobiography): This reflection will tell the story of your personal language learning and intercultural experiences so far.

• Reflection B (Biography): This reflection will describe what you learned about the language learning history of your cultural exchange partner.

• Reflection C (Cultural Comparison):  This is where you will compare and contrast your experiences and perspective with those of your partner.

At the end of the semester, you will review and revise your three reflections and put them together into one document. This will allow you to think about what you have learned about yourself and others through this exchange.

Reading Responses (25 points each)

The purpose of the two reading responses is to practice writing about assigned texts and expressing your own thoughts and ideas in relation to what you have read. These two assignments will help you develop skills of summary, analysis, and synthesis that you will need for your research paper. Each response is about 500 words.

1. Reading Response 1 (one article): Briefly summarize and respond to an assigned text with your own thoughts and reactions.

2. Reading Response 2 (synthesis of two articles): Bring together two texts from the same subject area to relate their ideas to one another and add your own thoughts and reactions.

Research Paper (50 points)

You will complete one longer paper (at least 1500 words) that requires research. In this paper, you will pose a question about an issue of international significance, find and read several scholarly and non-scholarly sources about your topic, and write a paper synthesizing a range of perspectives on the issue you have selected.

Through this assignment, you will develop skills for international scholarly research and writing and begin exploring a topic that you might write about in your future academic career.

Your research project is broken down into a series of smaller writing exercises. You will receive feedback on each exercise before completing the next one. You will also submit a full rough draft of your paper and receive detailed feedback before revising it for the final draft.