In college, a typical social sciences or humanities course requires 15-25 pages of writing per quarter – that’s up to 100 pages of writing in 4 courses over 10 weeks.
To prepare students for upper-level analytical writing, this course will sharpen students’ essay-writing skills, beginning with the standard five-paragraph essay but moving into the argumentative, claim-driven essays expected at the AP and college level. Essays will be issue-based and students will learn to take an argumentative position, support it with evidence, make connections between multiple sources, and produce critical insight. Besides covering the fundamentals of writing, this course challenges students to break out of the five-paragraph formula to create a sophisticated collection of essays.