Discourse: Critique and Evaluation (COM103)

The integration of critical thinking processes into the teaching of writing is essential at the foundation level as it enables students to develop higher-order thinking which they can apply to articulate their ideas in writing. The critique and evaluation of discourse enables students to view writing as dialogue and inquiry. This course develops students’ abilities to ask good questions and to explore them through reading and research. It enables students to see the relationship between critical reading and informed writing which, in turn, develops students’ ability to view their writing from the reader’s perspective.

• Understanding Rhetoric
• Evaluations As Enquiry
• Presenting Your Critique

• Discuss the inquiry process and the importance of asking good questions in reading.
• Identify the writer’s main claim and purpose of writing.
• Write the writer’s thesis statement and the key related claims and reasons.
• Present the writer’s claim, reasons, evidence and assumptions in the arguments.
• Develop your position and assertions pertaining to the key issues of the discourse using concession and refutation process.
• Use external resources to synthesise the perspectives of others in own writing.