Students are asked to write a brief essay to their new ELA teacher advising them of their likes/dislikes of the course and thier interest in being in the advanced class. 

In this class, you will read, think about, and (I hope) enjoy important examples of what has become one of the most popular literary genres today, if not the most popular: the novel. Some of the questions we will consider are: Why did so many novels appear in the eighteenth century? Why were they—and are they—called novels? Who wrote them? Who read them? Who narrates them? What are they likely to be about? Do they have distinctive characteristics? What is their relationship to the time and place in which they appeared? How have they changed over the years? And, most of all, why do we like to read them so much?

This is a project that is helpful for students to develop a mixtape of sorts without the burden of an essay style submission. If it is done correctly, students will have 1000+ words submitted for a homework or proiect. 

This resource provides lecture notes and writing assignments for the study of a novel - in this case, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. These notes and assignments, however, can be adapted and applied to practically any novel. Unless otherwise noted, this resource is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.

essay exam and multiple choice question exams for OER film text Cinema Scenes

Product-based assessment is an evaluation method that focuses on the final outcome or product created by students as a measure of their learning. This approach emphasizes the application of knowledge and skills to produce tangible results. A module designed for product-based assessment includes specific guidelines, tasks, and rubrics that serve as a framework for assessing student performance. Rubrics, in particular, provide a clear set of criteria and standards for evaluating the quality of the product, ensuring consistency and objectivity in the assessment process.  

This resource provides lecture notes and writing assignments for the study of poetry. While specific poems are presented here, these notes and assignments can be adapted and applied to practically any thematic group of poems.  The unit contains several modules. The first posits the work of African American poet Langston Hughes as poems that establish a legacy of oratorical poems addressing social issues faced not only by African Americans, but by any and all Americans, especially the historically disenfranchised.  The unit explores poems in Hughes' legacy, focusing on three poems by African American poets Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Alexander, and Amanda Gorman, who composed U.S. presidential inaugural poems. The second module explores nature poetry. Students read and analyze poems that explore, ponder and sometimes celebrate the relationship between human beings and nature. Ultimately, students compose poetry explication essays. The third module explores the book-length prose poem "I Remember" (Joe Brainard), teaching students to locate and make use of peer-reviewed articles.  Additionally, students write their own "I Remember" poems. Included are introductory lecture, discussion , short writing, explication , and several other assignments. Unless otherwise noted, the materials in this unit are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.

The Process of Research Writing is a web-based research writing textbook (or is that textweb?) suitable for teachers and students in research oriented composition and rhetoric classes.

This module presents a series of quotations about thinking. Students are asked to consider whether or not they believe the ideas about thinking are valid ones. After reviewing the quotations, students are asked to select one quotation they believe is true and has a valid point about the thinking process, and a second quote that they believe is not true or valid and explain these in two short essays. These quotes are presented in a slide format for class presentation and in a document form for review after the presentation or if the teacher does not want to make the quotes a group presentation. The slide format can also be used for class discussion of the quotes without a followup assignment. Both the slide presentation and the document handout have the suggested assignment details.  

Reframing Art History, an open-access multimedia world art history "textbook," gives you a guided journey through the living, breathing, meaningful side of art history. We’re less concerned with names and dates than with meaning and movement. With chapters developed by a group of more than 40 experts, it showcases art and history from the bottom up.

The Response Paper assignment asks students to synthesize themes and concepts, offer critique, and pose questions related to the representation of Black immigrants in American culture. The resource also offers a grading rubric. 

This course explores the city through writing—listening to the voices of poets, short story writers, novelists, journalists, critics, historians, ethnographers, urbanists, musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists. Through extensive reading that informs their work on a longform story, students will join the chorus of storytellers to richly represent the variegated city. Our focus is on three nonfiction forms—essay, memoir, literary narrative—with special emphasis on the writer-editor relationship and on revision as a heuristic to better thinking.

This short fiction unit provides lectures regarding specific texts, discussion assignments, a short writing assignment, and resources for writing a character analysis essay. Unless otherwise noted on the individual pages, the materials in this resource are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.

Sample instructions and assessment rubric for an essay on C. Wright Mills' concept of the sociological imagination. Students are challenged to apply the sociological imagination to an element from their own biography. I use this in my Introduction to Sociology course in Canada. 

A Personal Narrative Essay is a creative form of writing that explains a memorable event in a student's life. Like other types of essays, it follows a specific structure and includes an introduction, several paragraphs of body content, and a conclusion. The main purpose of a personal narrative essay is to convince the reader of why the applicant would be a good fit for the college or university they apply to.

This mini lesson on prewriting strategies for 5th-8th graders is designed to help students generate ideas for a personal narrative essay in which the writer tells a story about a real-life experience.  Prewriting is particularly important because it helps the student plan how to start the narrative essay and to think about the details to include.  The four strategies covered in this lesson (using sentence starters, freewriting, listing, and mind mapping) can help writers select which personal experiences have the most significance for them.  If the writer feels a strong connection to their topic, then it will be easier for them to convey a message and write an effective narrative essay.Sentence starters is a technique to help students understand the need to focus on a personal experience and can help them frame the initial sentences of their essay.  Freewriting helps writers get started without overthinking, which can cause more anxiety and sometimes leads to writer's block.  Freewriting helps students write continuously for a set period of time in order to get initial thoughts on paper. Listing and mind mapping are brainstorming techniques which are both helpful in generating essay topics, themes, and supporting details.Throughout the lesson, students can practice each technique, so that by the end of the lesson they can begin writing the first paragraph of their personal narrative essay.

Learn how to write an expository essay with opinion, reason and evidence while creating your very own comic strip!
With superhero Captain Opinion and her sidekicks, Reason and Evidence, the viewer goes on a fun adventure into the world of opinions and the importance of supporting them with lots of reasons and evidence.
Learning Objective:
Have students write an expository essay that establishes a central idea in a topic sentence; includes supporting sentences with simple facts, details, and explanations; and contains a concluding statement.

This resource is useful in a first-year composition course. The examples are intended for a literature-based composition class. There are also examples of opening strategies intended for an expository composition class. The Word version will give both types of examples.