In this course, advanced ESL students will develop the foundational reading and writing skills to think critically and function effectively in academic programming. While acquiring composition skills at the sentence, paragraph, and essay level, they will write using a variety of rhetorical modes. Plagiarism will be discussed, and research skills, along with proper citation guidelines, will be taught. Furthermore, students will engage with, and understand, textual and graphical information in various formats, and learn how to assess reading content in terms of accuracy, authority, and culturally relevant and northern focused material. Finally, through independent novel study, students will progress from a personal interaction with a story, to an interaction rooted in a beginning level of literary analysis.

In addition to the development of reading and writing skills, students will improve their listening and speaking skills through structured group work and class discussion.