ENGL000: Pre-College English

Welcome to ENGL000: Pre-College English

Specific information about this course and its requirements can be found below. For more general information about taking Saylor Academy courses, including information about Community and Academic Codes of Conduct, please read the Student Handbook.

Course Description

Improve your writing ability in this introductory course by learning how to read actively and apply the core components of effective writing.

Course Introduction

Effective writing skills are necessary for success in college and in your future career. This course is designed to improve your writing ability. Pre-College English coursework focuses on basic writing skills, emphasizing four keys to good writing: unity, support, coherence, and sentence-level skills. You will also learn about the importance of writing and some considerations to keep in mind when approaching a writing task.

In Unit 1, you will learn why writing is important and how it differs from speech. You will learn how to identify purpose and audience and some important features of effective writing, including the four keys to good writing. You will also learn about prewriting strategies that can help you plan out a writing task. Unit 2 will go into greater depth about the first two keys of good writing: unity and support. You will learn how to write an effective topic sentence and support it with evidence. You will also learn about anticipating reader questions and using specific detail and description to make your writing come to life. Unit 3 will focus on the third key to good writing: coherence. You will learn about how to organize and connect ideas in ways that are logical and easy for readers to follow. In Unit 4, you will learn about the fourth key to good writing: sentence-level skills. This will include learning about sentence structure and avoiding common errors, punctuation, consistency, and word choice. In Unit 5, you will learn how to write a multi-paragraph essay. This will include learning how to write effective introductions and conclusions, write a thesis statement, and apply the keys to good writing on a larger scale.

You should keep a writing notebook (or have a designated place to save your work on your computer) and use it throughout the course to write your responses to prompts and practice activities. This course will help prepare you for ENGL001: English Composition I. This course assumes you have a strong command of the English language. If you do not, you should consider taking our English as a Second Language (ESL) courses first.

This course includes the following units:

• Unit 1: The Importance of Writing and Getting Started
• Unit 2: Unity and Support
• Unit 3: Coherence
  
• Unit 4: Using Sentence-Level Skills to Proofread and Polish a Piece of Writing
• Unit 5: Writing a Multi-Paragraph Piece of Writing

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

• explain the many purposes and value of writing;
• identify key features of effective writing;
• consider audience when writing;
• plan and compose effective paragraphs and multi-paragraph essays;
• demonstrate how to support ideas with evidence and specific details;
• describe how to organize and show relationships between ideas; and
• apply sentence level skills such as correct sentence structure, word choice, and punctuation to improve a piece of writing.
  

Throughout this course, you will also see learning outcomes in each unit. You can use those learning outcomes to help organize your studies and gauge your progress.

Course Materials

The primary learning materials for this course are readings, lectures, and videos.

All course materials are free to access, and can be found in each unit of the course. Pay close attention to the notes that accompany these course materials, as they will tell you what to focus on in each resource, and will help you to understand how the learning materials fit into the course as a whole. You can also see a list of all the learning materials in this course by clicking on Resources in the navigation bar.

Evaluation and Minimum Passing Score

Only the final exam is considered when awarding you a grade for this course. In order to pass this course, you will need to earn a 70% or higher on the final exam. Your score on the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you may take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt. Once you have successfully passed the final exam you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate.

There are also end-of-unit assessments in this course. These are designed to help you study, and do not factor into your final course grade. You can take these as many times as you want to, until you understand the concepts and material covered. You can see all of these assessments by clicking on Quizzes in the course's navigation bar.

Tips for Success

ENGL000: Pre-College English is a self-paced course, which means that you can decide when you will start and when you will complete the course. There is no instructor or set schedule to follow. We estimate that the "average" student will take 29 hours to complete this course. We recommend that you work through the course at a pace that is comfortable for you and allows you to make regular progress. It's a good idea to also schedule your study time in advance and try as best as you can to stick to that schedule.

Learning new material can be challenging, so we've compiled a few study strategies to help you succeed:

• Take notes on the various terms, practices, and theories that you come across. This can help you put each concept into context, and will create a refresher that you can use as you study later on.
• As you work through the materials, take some time to test yourself on what you remember and how well you understand the concepts. Reflecting on what you've learned is important for your long-term memory, and will make you more likely to retain information over time.

Technical Requirements

This course is delivered entirely online. You will be required to have access to a computer or web-capable mobile device and have consistent access to the internet to either view or download the necessary course resources and to attempt any auto-graded course assessments and the final exam.

• To access the full course including assessments and the final exam, you will need to be logged into your Saylor Academy account and enrolled in the course. If you do not already have an account, you may create one for free here. Although you can access some of the course without logging in to your account, you should log in to maximize your course experience. For example, you cannot take assessments or track your progress unless you are logged in.

For additional guidance, check out Saylor Academy's FAQ.

Fees

This course is entirely free to enroll in and to access. Everything linked in the course, including textbooks, videos, webpages, and activities, are all available for no charge. This course also contains a free final exam and course completion certificate.