This semester, we will work with questions that do not have easy answers: What should a school, a company, a family, or a community do when a powerful technology helps some people and harms others? How should you decide what role artificial intelligence has in your own learning or work? What makes a source, a claim, or a solution worth trusting?

You do not need to arrive with the right opinions. You will learn to notice what matters, question the choices you have been given, and make a more responsible judgment when the answers are incomplete, people disagree, and every choice involves tradeoffs.

The quick version

• ENGL C1001 / V01C — Critical Thinking and Writing · 3 units · Fall 2026 · Ventura College

• This one Course Preview serves all three sections: CRNs 72948, 71380, and 70284.

• Fully online, with no scheduled class meetings. We work together each week in Canvas, on a schedule that can fit around a real life.

• No textbook to buy. Readings and course materials are free and available in Canvas.

• Class runs August 17–December 3, 2026. Canvas is planned to open early so you can get oriented before we begin.

This course asks a lot of you: honest reading, sustained inquiry, meaningful revision, and a willingness to sit with questions before rushing to an answer. It is not a course about sounding perfect. It is a course about becoming more attentive and discerning—and developing the writing and judgment practices that help you make decisions you can stand behind.

If you have taken C1000 with me: welcome back. You will recognize some of the rhythms—conversation, annotation, drafting, reflection, and collaborative grading. 

C1001 moves further into critical inquiry: not only “What does this text say?” but “What should we believe or do after we have looked carefully?”