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English 1

English 1 General Information

  • 4 units
  • Transferable
  • Letter Grade Only
  • Required for AA-T/AA/AS Degrees

English 1 is a transferable, college-level English course. Students develop advanced reading, writing, and critical thinking skills.


Course and Student Expectations
Expect to spend time in and out of class:

  • Reading and analyzing full-length books
  • Synthesizing ideas from multiple sources as you write an essay
  • Conducting research, with the support of the instructor

Students who choose English 1:

  • Have solid experience reading books and writing academic essays (from high school or college classes)
  • Have effective strategies for annotating a text and separating out main points from details
  • Are aware of how to quote and cite texts
  • Are comfortable reading 50-75 pages per week or feel ready for the challenge
  • Are comfortable writing essays of 1500 words (5-7 pages, double-spaced) or feel ready for the challenge

English 1 is a transferable, college-level English course. It is required for all certificates and AA-T/AA/AS degrees and is offered for a letter grade only. The class earns 4 units, and helps students develop advanced reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. Students work with full-length books, synthesize multiple sources in their writing, and conduct research, with the support of the instructor. It is often chosen by:

  • students who have solid experience reading books and writing academic essays (from high school or college classes).
  • students who have effective strategies for annotating a text and separating out main points from details.
  • students who understand MLA conventions of quoting and citing text.
  • students who are comfortable reading 50-75 pages per week.
  • students who are comfortable writing essays of 1500 words (5-7 pages, typed).

Students who would benefit from extra support while completing English 1, may enroll in the FREE non-credit class, English 215: Support with Writing and Reading.

Some sections of English 1 will be offered with an attached English 215, taught by the same instructor. Students will enroll in both courses, but the noncredit class is FREE.

Special Programs will also offer English 215 as support for their students taking English:

The following is a short excerpt from the text “A Talk to Teachers,” by James Baldwin 

Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time. Everyone in this room is in one way or another aware of that. We are in a revolutionary situation, no matter how unpopular that word has become in this country. The society in which we live is desperately menaced, not by Khrushchev, but from within. To any citizen of this country who figures himself as responsible – and particularly those of you who deal with the minds and hearts of young people – must be prepared to “go for broke.” Or to put it another way, you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won’t happen. Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of education in the first place. It would seem to me that when a child is born, if I’m the child’s parent, it is my obligation and my high duty to civilize that child. Man is a social animal. He cannot exist without a society. A society, in turn, depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for granted. Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it – at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change. 

Baldwin, James. “A Talk to Teachers.” Delivered October 16, 1963, as “The Negro Child – His Self Image”; originally published in The Saturday Review, December 21, 1963, reprinted in The Price of the Ticket, Collected Non-Fiction 1948-1985, Saint Martins 1985.

Education & Institutionalized Inequality: Essay #1

Directions
Write a 5-7 page argumentative essay, based on the topic below. Support your thesis and related claims with sufficient evidence drawn from the full-length text We Gon' Be Alright, the essay “A Talk with Teachers,” and at least one additional course reading. Plan to integrate a minimum of 8 quotes from the reading into your argument. The quotes may be used as support for your claims or as definitions of key terms. 

Use MLA 8 guidelines to format the citations and the document (12 point New Times Roman Font, 1-inch margins, double spaced).

Topic
Over the last several weeks, we discussed how education has been used as a tool of assimilation. We have noticed how schools encourage students and communities to uphold the status quo, thereby reproducing systemic inequality. We have also read about ways individuals and educators resist assimilation and see schooling as an opportunity to challenge inequality. 

In your essay, develop a synthesized argument based on the following questions: 

What are the most significant real and/or perceived barriers in the education system and how do these barriers contribute to systemic inequality? What are some of the most effective strategies for resisting assimilation and/or challenging inequality through schooling?

Texts

  • We Gon' Be Alright by Jeff Chang (required)
  • "A Talk with Teachers" by James Baldwin (required)
  • "Theories of Inequality" handout with excerpts from Mario Barrera
  • "Whose Culture has Capital?" by Tara J. Yosso
  • "Justice Not Grit" by Paul Gorski
  • "The 4 I's of Oppression" by John Bell