Online Programs

What we'll do

This course is designed for advanced learners with a passion for reading and writing. We’ll read complex texts at or above the 4th grade level while learning critical reading strategies, literary analysis skills, persuasive writing, and creative writing techniques. You will also engage with peers in written discussion forums, test your knowledge of the texts with weekly quizzes, and submit longer pieces of writing for your instructor’s review. Your instructor will provide in-depth written feedback on your work each week, too, helping you develop your reading and writing skills as the course progresses.

What we’ll learn

• Critical reading strategies
• Persuasive writing techniques
• Creative writing techniques
• Writing fundamentals including grammar, organization, sentence structure, and clarity
• How to use quotes as textual evidence
• Important concepts for analyzing literature
• How to revise your writing using your instructor’s feedback

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Engage collaboratively in online discussions about various topics, texts, and issues, build on others’ ideas and express their own clearly
• Demonstrate comprehension of key details from two or more texts on the same topic in order to write knowledgeably
• Write short, persuasive pieces using information from the book to support your claims
• Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what it says explicitly and when drawing inferences from it
• Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences
• Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations
• Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information
• Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer's purpose. Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details
• Compare and contrast the point of view from which different stories are narrated, including the difference between first- and third-person narrations
• Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics (e.g., opposition of good and evil) and patterns of events (e.g., the quest) in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures
• Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence
• Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content

How we'll measure learning

Student achievement is measured through comprehension quizzes, discussion forum posts, writing rubrics, and rigorous instructor feedback that students will receive in writing each week. This course is aligned to Common Core’s English Language Arts standards for Grade 4.