Columbia College Chicago
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605-1996
Bridge: English Studies
M-Th; 10:30-12:15
Room 316 (10:30-11:15)
Room 305 (11:20-12:15)
Lead Instructor: Danielle Aquiline
Co-Teacher: Perrin Carrell
Office: 623 S. Wabash, Suite 600
Office Phone: 312-369-8842
E-mail: daquiline@colum.edu
Course Description: The Bridge course in English Studies helps students position themselves within the college experience, most specifically in relationship with the academic obligations associated with English Studies: reading and writing. Students will use reading and writing to reflect on how the experience of college relates to the student in terms of their chosen field of study, core beliefs, experiences, ambitions, and cultural conversations. Working closely with their instructor and teaching assistant, students will engage in reading, response writing, essay writing, class discussion, and other creative work intended to aid students in their effort to become college-level readers, writers, and thinkers. Activities will range from reading skills practice; sentence and paragraph level basic writing skills practice; drafting and revising essays using Microsoft Word; and using e-mail, online discussion board and the Internet.
Course Goals and Objectives:
By the end of the Bridge Program, students who complete the reading and writing segment of the program successfully will be able to:
• Become fully engaged with the college experience at Columbia College Chicago, connecting the academic, social, and artistic aspects of critical and cultural inquiry with their own personal scholastic and career goals;
• Use a variety of study skills to improve their reading comprehension and connection with reading;
• Write no less than 20 pages of thoughtful, considered prose, including one 4-5 page college-level essay.
To support these overarching objectives, the Bridge reading and writing experience has the following more detailed objectives:
Reading
• Students will develop the habit of reading, allocating daily and weekly reading time.
• Students will use literature to stimulate personal reflection and response regarding their educational lives past, present, and future.
• Students will develop close, critical, reading strategies and skills.
• Students will develop their use of writing to facilitate comprehension, interpretation, and expression.
• Students will respond to readings through interpretive projects exploring their arts and communications interests.
Writing
• Students will understand what constitutes college-level writing, and therefore understand also the level of work and commitment involved in attending Columbia and becoming an arts and communications professional.
• Students will be able to use writing to analyze themselves, texts, and the world.
• Students will use Edited American English when they write in a college environment.
• Students will be able to use computer technology as an aid to writing and communicating.
Required Coursework:
Blog responses and questions
8 one page responses due daily
1 five page essay
An artistic translation of the five page essay
Assessment: At the end of the course, faculty members will give you either a “SC” or a “NSC” designation—“successful completion” or “not successful completion.” If you achieve a SC, you will meet with an advisor about spring classes. If you receive a NSC, you will meet with an advisor about other educational options you can pursue besides Columbia.
How to successfully complete this course:
1. Attend every class session.
2. Come to class on time.
3. Complete all reading assignments.
4. Complete all writing assignments.
5. Demonstrate your commitment to progress and improvement by working hard and developing your skills as recommended by instructors; follow suggestions for improvement.
Dismissal Policy: Students may be dismissed from the Bridge Program any time during the four-week session. Though every effort will be made to provide students with communication that the student is not performing at an acceptable level and that the student has deficiencies that need to be addressed, there is no guarantee that any warning will always be given, especially under circumstances of egregiously improper academic or inter-personal behavior.
Any student receiving a failing grade at the end of the program or who is dismissed during the four-week session will not be admitted to the College.
Texts: One of three single-authored books provided in class.
Materials: Notebook, thumb drive
Plagiarism: All the work you do in here should be your own. Plagiarism will not be tolerated.
Class Schedule and Due Dates: The English Studies course for Bridge has been designed to provide structure for increasingly rigorous engagement with reading and writing as academic practices. Every day, students will spend a 45 minute session posting questions and response on a class blog. Questions will, at first, be modeled by instructors and then posed by students. Overall, the goal is to provide students with the model for daily reading and extemporaneous response writing so often required of students at the college level.
A second 50 minute session will take the form of a writing workshop. Students will read aloud the one-page response that will be due each day. The instructor will model peer response practices and provide feedback on student writing on a daily basis. Simultaneously, during the writing workshop, students will meet one-on-one with the teaching assistants in their own tutoring sessions. In this way, Bridge provides students with an idea of what it will mean to appropriately and actively participate in writing communities across the college.
Week One:
M.8/1 Blog Questions: Teachers
Syllabus Introduction
Schedule Sign-up
Introductions and Ice-breakers
T.8/2 Blog Questions: Teachers
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #1 Due
Reading Due
Workshop
W.8/3 Blog Questions:_______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #2 Due
Reading Due
Workshop
Th.8/4 Blog Questions:_______________ & _______________
Reading Due
Reading Group
Week Two:
M.8/8 Blog Questions:_______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #3 Due
Reading Due
Workshop
T.8/9 Blog Questions:_______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #4 Due
Reading Due
Workshop
W.8/10 Blog Questions:_______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #5 Due
Reading Due
Workshop
Th.8/11 Blog Questions:_______________ & _______________
Reading Due
Reading Group
Week Three:
M.8/15 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #6 Due
Reading Due
Workshop
T.8/16 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #7 Due
Reading Due
Workshop
W.8/17 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
Reading Response #8 Due (Paper Proposal)
Reading Due
Workshop
Th.8/18 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
Reading Due
Reading Group
Week Four:
M.8/22 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
One-on-One w/ Perrin: _______________,_______________ & _____________
5-page Paper Due
Reading Due
Workshop
T.8/23 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
Letter to Oneself Due
Reading Due
Workshop
W.8/24 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
Reading Due
Reading Group
Th.8/25 Blog Questions: _______________ & _______________
Artistic Translation Due
Presentations
