Academic Reading & Writing Course 1

Running head: A PROPOSAL FOR AN ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING COURSE

A Proposal for Designing an Academic Reading and Writing Course

Final Course Design Project

Eman M. Eltukri

University of Southern California

EDHP 521- Course Design for Language Learning

May 07th, 2009

A Proposal for an Academic Reading and Writing Course

 Academic Reading & Writing Course 2

With the growing number of Libyan students granted scholarships to study in the United

States, students in Libya need assistance in academic English reading, writing and thinking

skills. Furthermore, students are not familiar with most of the TOEFL and GRE readings

because they are more related to the history and culture of the United States.

Accordingly, I would like to design a course that qualifies those students to succeed in

their studying experience in the United States. I would like to design a course that aims at

developing better understanding of the complex nature of academic readings, improving their

writing skills and enhancing their critical thinking via using authentic samples of academic

texts which are related to the American history and culture.

My rationale as a teacher is integrating the four skills of language whatever the purpose of

the class was. I agree with Graves (2000) in that "the four skills are the channel or modes for

using and understanding the language" (p.47). Therefore, although the course will be

explicitly focusing on teaching reading and writing, attention will be also paid implicitly to

develop students' communicative competence and grammar.

I believe that when teachers are clear about their teaching plan; it helps them design

appropriate materials (Graves, 2000). From this perspective, this paper seeks to present a

proposal for designing a reading and writing course that is related to academic purposes

based on the needs of the prospective students. It will provide information about students'

population, place and purpose; highlight the assessment that will be used; the goals and

objectives that will be achieved and how the course will be organized. Course plan is subject

to change in order to meet the students' needs.

Context

Population
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 3

The prospective students are adult Libyans who are either teaching assistants and/or

master's degree holders from different majors at the University of Garyounis in

Benghazi, Libya. They all have scholarships to study towards their different degrees in the

United States. Their levels of English proficiency are upper intermediate and their first

language is Arabic. There are four classes. Each has an approximate number of 20 students.

The classes consist of males and females whom ages range between 24 to 30 years. The class

is a two hour daily session for 5 weeks.

Place

The proposed course will take place in the city of Benghazi, Libya at the Garyounis

Language Center which is an extension of the University of Garyounis. It is located in

downtown Benghazi- separate from the University campus. It was remodeled recently. It

consists of about 100 classrooms, a huge library and a language laboratory. This center

provides different language courses such as English, Arabic, Italian, French, etc. The

teaching staff is either the University's professors or teaching assistants. There are two

different types of classrooms; halls and typical classrooms both of which are provided with a

whiteboard. The capacity of the classroom differs from one to another. The proposed class

will take place in a medium size classroom that has a capacity of about 25 students. Course

instructors can be provided with audio recorders. There is also a photocopier where you can

copy any number of pages.

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to help students who are going to pursue their higher studies

towards their doctoral and master's degrees in the United States be prepared academically for

reading, writing and thinking skills explicitly as well as speaking and listening implicitly. The

reading and writing passages will be based on the American culture and history in order to

familiarize students with them.

 Academic Reading & Writing Course 4

Needs Assessment

In order for the students to benefit the most from the learning process, the following needs

assessment phases will be conducted (appendix I):

Pre- course needs assessment

Gathering useful information about my prospective students will help me design a course

that meets their interests and needs. Therefore, I will conduct a questionnaire (appendix II)

before the course begins to gather information about the students' background in English as

well as some personal information in order to know more about the learners, their level of

language proficiency, and their knowledge about the American culture. Moreover, I will

carry out extensive interviews with staff members and administrators in order to gather as

much different information as possible about the students and similar courses that had been

.taught before

Initial needs assessment

For this phase, on the first day of our class meeting, I will hand a paper that contains an

open-ended question about students' expectations about the course, what they would like to

improve in particular in the area of academic reading and writing, what they already know

about the American history and culture, their learning preferences and any concerns or

thoughts that they might have. Through this writing activity, I will be able to gather

information about students' objective and subjective needs (Brindely, 1989 & Nunan, 1988)

as will as to diagnose their strengthens and weaknesses.

Ongoing needs assessment

As the course progresses, I would like to receive responses from the students about it.

This will be done through written reflections from the students and in-class discussions. Also,

in order to track my students' progress and see the effectiveness of what we have already

done and make any adjustments if necessary, there will be quizzes after finishing every unit.
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 5

Goals and Objectives

Following the KASA framework (Grave, 2000), my main goals are that students develop

Knowledge about academic reading and writing; secondly, students gain Awareness of the

American history and culture; thirdly, students acquire the necessary Skills to approach an

academic text; and finally, students have a positive Attitude toward their academic writing.

The following lists my goals and objectives:

Goal 1. Students improve academic reading skills.

Objectives: By the end of the course, students will be able to:

.Comprehend texts through using a variety of reading strategies .1

.Acquire a vast number of vocabularies .2

.Analyze and critique texts .3

Goal 2. Students will improve academic writing skills.

Objectives: By the end of the course, students will be able to:

,Compose essays, journal entries and short papers using appropriate structure .1

.patterns and rhetorical devices

.Summarize and paraphrase information learned from the reading passages .2

.Take notes to prepare for tests and writing assignments .3

Goal 3: Students will become familiar with relevant topics related to the American history

and culture.

:Objectives: By the end of the course, students will be able to

1. Expand their understanding of the American history and culture.

2. Demonstrate knowledge of issues that they might face in the American standardized

tests.

Organization of the Course

 Academic Reading & Writing Course 6

The duration of the course is 5 weeks. The class will be meeting everyday of the week;

each class is a two-hour session. The units of the course will be organized

topically/categorically. The syllabus (Appendix III) will be consisting of 5 units each of

which contains 3 texts and different activities. Each unit contains topics that are important

issues today in the American history and culture like "Electing the President", "Freedom of

Expression", "Slavery: The Early History of African American", "A Country of Immigrants",

"\All Men are Create Equal", " Is the American Dream Still Possible?", "Fast Food" and

"English as a Global Language". Moreover, through reading those topics, students will learn

different reading and writing strategies such as surveying, speed reading, taking notes using

maps, scanning to find specific information and summarizing, understanding the text via

.pictures, finding support for the main ideas and writing reflections

As stated previously, my aim is to improve students' academic reading and writing

explicitly and their communicative competence implicitly. Accordingly, the approach that I

will be following is the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) (Richards & Rodgers,

2001). The TBLT is "based on the use of tasks as the core unit of planning and instruction in

language teaching" (Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p.223). Students will learn a variety of

reading and writing strategies and skills as well as develop their communicative competence

through engaging in tasks where they work most of the time in pairs or groups.

Each lesson (Appendix IV) starts with pre-reading tasks such as discussion questions or

writing reflections that activate students' schema or surveying the content of the chapter, so

that they can get an overall idea about the topic and what they expect to learn. Then, students

engage in post-reading activities which are tasks that ask students to demonstrate their

understanding of the text in such ways as answering reading comprehension questions or

.looking for the main idea

Course Text and Materials

 Academic Reading & Writing Course 7

The material choice for the course will be Academic Encounters: American Studies

Reading, Study Skills, Writing by Jessica Williams, CUP 2007. The book serves the

goals and objectives of the course.

The reasons for choosing this book is that it provides the students with a variety of reading

strategies via authentic academic reading passages that are related to the American history

and culture which might be of help for those students who are going to study in the US. Also,

the activities in the material prepare students to standardized tests such as TOEFL and GRE

readings and writings. Furthermore, the reading and writing are integrated in a way that

makes the writing practice based on the reading section. In other words, in both pre-reading

and post-reading activities, in addition to practicing reading strategies, students will have

different writing tasks such as summarizing, outlining, taking notes and writing reflections.

Moreover, there is a writing task after every post-reading activity in which students write

paragraphs or essays that are related to the topic of the reading passage.

Although I believe the book I chose meets the needs of the course, I would like to

supplement the course with other materials such as realia like newspapers and

magazines, internet recourses, as well as handouts that clarify specific areas which

students might need to improve like punctuations or certain grammatical rules.

Assessment Plan

There will be different ways for assessing students' learning. I will be assessing

specifically the students' ability to approach academic reading and writing which is the

goal of the course. In addition to class activities and home assignments, there will be

reading and writing quizzes at the end of each unit (Appendix V, VII). This will help me

in assessing students' progress and see whether there is improvement in the students'

.reading and writing skills, if not, see what areas they still need to work on
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 8

For the evaluation part, by the end of the course I will be conducting a summative

assessment (Grave, 2000) to have an overall view about the students' achievement and the

evaluating the course. The types of the summative assessment that will be carried out are oral

and written feedback at the end of the course about the quality of the course, materials and

activities used and any other suggestions. The results of the evaluation will enable me to

retain the effective parts of the course and make necessary adjustments and changes for the

ineffective areas for future courses.

 Academic Reading & Writing Course 9

References

Brindly, G. (1989). The role of needs analysis in adult ESL progeamme design. In R. K.

Johnson (ed.), The second language curriculum. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press.

Graves, K. (2000). Designing language courses: A guide for teachers. Boston: Heinle and

Heinle.

Nunan, D. (1989). Syllabus design. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Richards, J. and Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching. New

York, USA: Cambridge University Press.

Williams, J. (2007). Academic Encounters: American Studies Reading, Study Skills, Writing.

USA: Cambridge University Press.

 Academic Reading & Writing Course 10

Appendix I

Stakeholder Data Collection Procedure Table

By
?When ?What data ?How ?From whom ?Purpose
?whom
Personal Questionnaire Teacher Students To develop some
Information knowledge about
Pre- and students' students' personal life
course language and language
background background
Information Interviews Teacher Faculty and To gather information
about similar Administrators about how similar
courses courses are conducted
Students' Writing Teacher Students To understand students'
expectations Activity expectations, learning
Initial and writing preference and diagnose
proficiency their writing proficiency

Students' Reflections Teacher Students To make any necessary

viewpoints and In-class adjustments
about the discussions
course
Ongoing Students Quizzes Teacher Students To determine students'
progress learning and the
effectiveness of the
course
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 11

Appendix II

A Sample of "Needs Assessment" Questionnaire

1. Name _______________________________

2. Major _______________________________

3. Age ________________________________

4. Degree ______________________________

5. Interests _____________________________

6. Have you ever been to the U.S.? Why? How long? When? Yes - No

_____________________________________________________________

7. Have you ever taken an academic English course before? If yes, where

and for how long?

______________________________________________________________

8. How do you rate your English language skills on a scale of 1-5, with 1

being the lowest and 5 being the highest:

• Reading 1 2 3 4 5

• Writing 1 2 3 4 5

• Speaking 1 2 3 4 5

• Listening 1 2 3 4 5

9. Are you familiar with the American history and/or culture? Yes - No

10. What do you hope the outcome of this course will be?

_______________________________________________________________

Appendix III
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 12

A Tentative Course Syllabus

Unit 1: Laws of the Land
Text(1) From Colonies to United States
Text(2) Electing the President
Text(3) Freedom of Expression
Week 1 • Surveying
• Speed reading
• Building new vocabulary
• Proverbs
• In-class essay "comparison"
Unit 2: A Diverse Nation
Text(1) America's First People
Text(2) Slavery: The Early History of African American
Week 2 Text(3) A Country of Immigrants
• Understanding the text via pictures
• Finding support for the main ideas
• Building new vocabulary
• Reflection
Unit 3: The Struggle for Equality
Text(1) All Men are Create Equal
Text(2) The Legacy of the Civil War
Week 3 Text(3) The Women's Movement
• Taking notes using maps
• Scanning to find specific information
• Building new vocabulary
• Summarizing
Unit 4: American Values
Text(1) The Roots of the American Values
Text(2) The American West
Week 4 ?Text (3) Is the American Dream Still Possible
• Skimming
• Note-taking Building new vocabulary
• Building new vocabulary
• Writing academic texts to describe group of tendencies
Unit 5: Global Transformation
Text(1) Fast Food
Text(2) Hip-Hop: The Culture and Music
Week 5 Text(3) English as a Global Language
• Visualizing the main ideas
• Understanding the function of different parts of the text
• Building new vocabulary
• Outlining

Appendix IV
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 13

A Sample of a Lesson Plan

DATE LESSON NO. UNIT CHAPTER TIME

------------ 26 4 7 2 hours (20 min break)
(Topic(s American Values from the Past: (2)The American West PAGE 150
1)Students understand the content of the topic from pictures
2)Students learn reading to find support for main ideas
Lesson Objective
3)Building students' vocabulary
Students write reflections
Teaching Aids Blackboard, book
Teaching Procedures Time

Preparing to read: 30 min

1. Students examine the pictures on page 149 from the American West.
2. Students discuss in groups of four the following questions:
- What do these pictures make you think of?
- Have you seen films or television programs that use similar images?
- Do you think these pictures show what life was really like in the old
American West?
3. Now, students read the text "The American West" on page 150.

Post-reading Tasks:
1. Teacher discusses the reading and new vocabulary 40 min
2. Students reread the text to find support for the main ideas.
3. Individually, students highlight evidence in the text that supports each of
the following values (then each student checks with a partner):
(1)Self-reliance
(2)Optimism
(3)Taking risks
(4)Egalitarianism

Writing:
1. Students review the diary entries in the boxed text on page 151. 30 min
2. Students write reflections on what they think life was like for pioneer
families:
(5)For men
(6)For women
(7)For children
3. Teacher collects the papers and provides feedback.

Assignment:
* Students write the new vocabulary in their vocabulary notebook.

Appendix V
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 14

A Sample of Reading Assessment

Student's Name ________________________________________________

:Skim the following reading for one minute to answer the two questions below .1

• What is the topic about?

• What two businesses does it discuss?

THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MARKETPLACE

American business has changed a great deal since the days of Andrew Carnegie
and John D. Rockefeller. Monopolies are prohibited, and the government has
passed laws to make sure that workplaces are safe. Trade unions continue to
protect workers' rights, although these unions are not as strong as they were in the
past. Some in the business world argue that these changes have made it more
difficult for entrepreneurs to be successful. Yet there have been many examples of
extremely suc cessful entrepreneurs in recent years. Surprisingly, the factors in their
success are not very different from the factors in the success of the business
leaders in the past. The founders of these modern businesses all had good ideas for
a new product or service or simply a new and better way of running an old business.
They combined their ideas with a good education, hard work, and an understanding
that their busi ness would have to adjust constantly to changes in the market and in
. technology. Not surprisingly, many modern success stories involve technology

Three modern entrepreneurs

Larry Page and Sergey Brin met when they were students at Stanford University in
the 1990s. They realized that many of the Internet search engines that were
available at that time did not deliver the information that people were looking for.
They also realized that the most popular Web pages were usually the most useful.
Therefore, they created a new system: They put the Web sites that people visit the
. most first on the search results page
Page and Brin worked out of a friend's garage and borrowed money from friends
and family to develop their business. In 1998, they for mally introduced their search
engine, Google. When it began, Google got about 10,000 inquiries a day; the
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 15

number of inquiries quickly grew to more than 200 million a day. Today Google is
the most successful search engine in the world, and it performs an enormous
variety of searches in dozens of languages. It has also begun to offer other
services, such as shopping guides, news, satellite maps, e-mail, photo sharing,
. translation, and even help with dating
Sam Walton's success story is different. Walton did not even have a specific product
or service to sell. He had a concept - discount ing - which he applied to a huge variety
of products. With this concept, he created Wal-Mart, a discount retail chain. Walton
also used new business practices: He bought products in such large quantities that
he could demand very low prices from his suppliers; he bought directly from
manufacturers all over the world; he built enormous stores that sold everything from
toys to light bulbs at such low prices that smaller stores could not compete. Finally,
Wal-Mart was one of the first retail businesses to completely computerize its
operations, significantly increasing efficiency. The only computer system in the
country that is larger than Wal-Matt's belongs to the U.S. Department of Defense. Wal-
Mart was so successful that Sam Walton became one of the r ic h e s t mine nthe country.
Many people say that Wal-Mart has hurt small businesses and has not always treated
its workers and suppliers fairly; however, it very successful in the United States and
.around the world

Superstores versus small business

Until recently, stores in the United States were small stores. Even after the success of
big business in the time of Carnegie and Rockefeller the majority of businesses
remained small. Often a family owned a small store, and it was passed from the
parents to the children. In smaller cities and towns, the owners often knew all their
customers. Large stores like Wal-Mart are relatively new, but their numbers have
grown quickly. Today there are many of these "superstores," such as Best Buy, Home
Depot, and Office Max. These kinds of stores are different because of their size and
the relatively low cost of their products. Many of them follow Wal-Mart's example of
buying in large quantities so they can offer low prices. Unlike Wal-Mart, many
specialize in one particular kind of product, for example, computers, products for pets,
.or office supplies
Superstores are convenient for customers because they can find everything they
need in one place. However, they do not offer the personal connection between the
salespeople and the customers that was common in the days of small, family-owned
stores. The small stores' have struggled since the appearance of superstores because
small stores cannot compete. They cannot match the prices or the variety of the
products in the superstores. Many shoppers have gradually stopped going to the small
stores, and as a result, many of these business have had to close. Some Americans
regret these changes, and today there are communities that have decided they do not
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 16

want superstores. They prefer the personal connection and service they get at small
.stores, even if the prices are higher

.Name three important factors for success in the twenty-first century marketplace .2

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

3. Give two reasons why customers prefer Wal-Mart over small stores.

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

4. Reading for details: read the phrases in the left column. Put a check (√ ) under the name of
the company that the phrase describes. In some cases, the phrase applies to both
companies.
Google Wal-Mart
1. started with a good idea
2. pioneered new business practices
3. began in a garage with borrowed money
4. uses computer technology
5. can help you find a date
6. has been very successful
7. has many stores
8. is used more than 200 million times a day
9. offers services in many languages

Appendix VI
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 17

A Sample of Rubric for the Reading Assessment

Reading Test Key Answers

(Max. 15 Points)

1.
• What is the topic about? (1 point)

It is about extremely suc cessful entrepreneurs in recent years.

• What two businesses does it discuss? (1 point)

Google and Wal-Mart.

2. Name three important factors for success in the twenty-first century marketplace. (5
points)

Good education .

Hard work.

Understanding that the busi ness would have to adjust constantly to changes

in the market and in technology.

3. Give two reasons why customers prefer Wal-Mart over small stores. (3 points)

Customers can find everything they want in one place.

Low cost and variety of products.

4. Reading for details: read the phrases in the left column. Put a check (√ ) under the name of
the company that the phrase describes. In some cases, the phrase applies to both
companies. (5 points)
Google Wal-Mart
1. started with a good idea √
2. pioneered new business practices √
3. began in a garage with borrowed money √
4. uses computer technology √
5. can help you find a date √
6. has been very successful √
7. has many stores √
8. is used more than 200 million times a day √
9. offers services in many languages √
Appendix VII
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 18

A Sample of Writing Assessment

Student's Name ________________________________________________

Theme chosen _________________________________________________

1. Choose one theme of the following to write about

• Equal opportunity
• Self-reliance
• Optimism
• Hard work
• Risk taking
• Individual achievement
• Basic equality of all individuals

2. Write a four-paragraph essay (introduction, body, conclusion) answers the

following question: "In what areas of American life and history has the theme you
chose had a strong influence?"

3. Choose two examples of evidence that can help you illustrate the influence of
your theme.

4. Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that connects your theme with your
example.

5. Include some details to support how your examples show the importance of the
theme.

6. Make sure to provide…

a) an introduction that states a claim, or position statement and provides

the examples you will explain,

b) two body paragraphs, each with different examples of evidence to

support your position,

c) an appropriate topic sentence for each of the two supporting

paragraphs,
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 19

d) a concluding paragraph that restates your claim and summarizes the

main points as well as your opinion,

e) accurate grammar, transitions, punctuations and correct spelling.

Appendix VIII

A Sample of Rubric for the Writing Assessment

Writing Test

___________ :Name: ______________________________________ Final Grade

Excellent 4 = Very Good 3 = Good 2 = Needs Improvement 1 = Poor 0==5

Missing

Content Total

:Introduction .1
Hook____
Relevant to topic____
Thesis statement____

:Body .2
Paragraph 1
Topic Sentence____
Example____
Support____
Concluding sentence or transition____
Paragraph 2
Topic Sentence____
Example____
Support____
Concluding sentence____

:Conclusion .3
Transition____
Restate claim, summarize main points____
Opinion____

:Overall .4
Coherence____
Transition____
Grammar____
Punctuations____
Spelling____
 Academic Reading & Writing Course 20

:Comments
…………………………………………………………………………………………………