The Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) is a rhetoric-based English Language Arts course designed to prepare students for the literacy demands of higher education and modern careers. Developed by the California State University (CSU) system, this course emphasizes the in-depth study of expository, analytical, and argumentative text.

Through a series of thematic modules, students analyze complex nonfiction texts and literary works to examine how writers use rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), structural strategies, and language to achieve their purpose. Students will learn to read critically, evaluate claims, conduct research, and construct clear, persuasive arguments in their own writing.

Students will be expected to increase their awareness of the rhetorical strategies employed by authors and to apply those strategies to their own writing. They will read closely to examine the relationship between an author’s argument or theme and his or her audience and purpose, then analyze the impact of structural and rhetorical strategies, and examine the social, political, and philosophical assumptions that underlie the text.

By the end of the course, students will be expected to use this process independently when reading unfamiliar texts and writing in response to them.