Virginia's "College and Career Ready English Performance Expectations" grade 12 capstone course contains high-interest contextualized content designed to give certain students an additional boost for competent and successful entry into college and careers. The course will add to students' preparation for critical reading, college and workplace writing, and career-ready communications by enhancing skills in reading, the writing process, and creation of effective texts, and effective communications (speaking, listening, and collaborating). The course will augment skills in critical reading; critical thinking; the fundamentals of academic writing; and exposition, persuasion, and argumentation. Through the writing process, students will refine topics; develop and support ideas and hypotheses; investigate, evaluate, and incorporate appropriate resources; edit for effective style and usage; and determine appropriate approaches for a variety of contexts, audiences, and purposes. Writing activities will include expository, persuasive, and argumentative texts. The course is designed for students who: (1) have satisfactorily completed the Standards of Learning English 11 course; (2) have achieved at least minimum proficiency on both the end-of-course English reading and writing assessments; and (3) are college intending, but may not be fully college ready. The course may also support students who meet the same academic requirements but plan to enter the work force (prepared for further work force training) directly after graduating from high school.