Browse OER Textbooks from the University of Minnesota's Open Textbook Library. These textbooks are authored and peer reviewed by faculty or other accredited subject matter experts. Many of these textbooks are actively used to teach OER based courses at instiutions across the United States.
Design Discourse: Composing and Revising Programs in Professional and Technical Writing addresses …
Design Discourse: Composing and Revising Programs in Professional and Technical Writing addresses the complexities of developing professional and technical writing programs. The essays in the collection offer reflections on efforts to bridge two cultures — what the editors characterize as the "art and science of writing" — often by addressing explicitly the tensions between them. Design Discourse offers insights into the high-stakes decisions made by program designers as they seek to "function at the intersection of the practical and the abstract, the human and the technical."
How closely can or should writing centers and writing classrooms collaborate? Beyond …
How closely can or should writing centers and writing classrooms collaborate? Beyond Dichotomy explores how research on peer tutoring one-to-one and in small groups can inform our work with students in writing centers and other tutoring programs, as well as in writing courses and classrooms. These multi-method (including rhetorical and discourse analyses and ethnographic and case-study) investigations center on several course-based tutoring (CBT) partnerships at two universities. Rather than practice separately in the center or in the classroom, rather than seeing teacher here and tutor there and student over there, CBT asks all participants in the dynamic drama of teaching and learning to consider the many possible means of connecting synergistically.
This book offers the "more-is-more" value of designing more peer-to-peer learning situations for developmental and multicultural writers, and a more elaborate view of what happens in these peer-centered learning environments. It offers important implications—especially of directive and nondirective tutoring strategies and methods—for peer-to-peer learning and one-to-one tutoring and conferencing for all teachers and learners of writing.
In Placing the History of College Writing, Nathan Shepley argues that pre-1950s …
In Placing the History of College Writing, Nathan Shepley argues that pre-1950s composition history, if analyzed with the right conceptual tools, can pluralize and clarify our understanding of the relationship between the writing of college students and the writing's physical, social, and discursive surroundings. Even if the immediate outcome of student writing is to generate academic credit, Shepley shows, the writing does more complex rhetorical work. It gives students chances to uphold or adjust institutional codes for student behavior, allows students and their literacy sponsors to respond to sociopolitical issues in a city or state, enables faculty and administrators to create strategic representations of institutional or program identities, and connects people across disciplines, occupations, and geographic locations. Shepley argues that even if many of today's composition scholars and instructors work at institutions that lack extensive historical records of the kind usually preferred by composition historians, those scholars and teachers can mine their institutional collections for signs of the various contexts with which student writing dealt.
This book has been a part of my pandemic journey with a …
This book has been a part of my pandemic journey with a goal of building English language learner resources, gathering up what I have learned about anti-racist, culturally responsive, and decolonization approaches. I know that I have not nearly met this goal in this single resource and that there is so much more to do. I am simply starting on the collective path and am so humbled to join fellow colleagues in the work of rewriting the myths and false narratives of our field. This goes well beyond one specific discipline. It is a call to all educators and all institutions to choose love in action, to choose change.
Short Description: A retired master teacher of English and Comparative Literature teams …
Short Description: A retired master teacher of English and Comparative Literature teams up with his son, a History professor, on a new version of the writing manual he wrote and used for decades at the University of California, Davis.
Word Count: 16769
ISBN: B005JJW848
(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)
Mathematical Reasoning: Writing and Proof is designed to be a text for …
Mathematical Reasoning: Writing and Proof is designed to be a text for the first course in the college mathematics curriculum that introduces students to the processes of constructing and writing proofs and focuses on the formal development of mathematics. The primary goals of the text are to help students:
· Develop logical thinking skills and to develop the ability to think more abstractly in a proof oriented setting.
· Develop the ability to construct and write mathematical proofs using standard methods of mathematical proof including direct proofs, proof by contradiction, mathematical induction, case analysis, and counterexamples.
· Develop the ability to read and understand written mathematical proofs.
· Develop talents for creative thinking and problem solving.
· Improve their quality of communication in mathematics. This includes improving writing techniques, reading comprehension, and oral communication in mathematics.
· Better understand the nature of mathematics and its language.
This text also provides students with material that will be needed for their further study of mathematics.
Welcome to composition and rhetoric! While most of you are taking this …
Welcome to composition and rhetoric! While most of you are taking this course because it is required, we hope that all of you will leave with more confidence in your reading, writing, researching, and speaking abilities as these are all elements of freshman composition. Many times, these elements are presented in excellent textbooks written by top scholars. While the collaborators of this particular textbook respect and value those textbooks available from publishers, we have been concerned with disenfranchising students who do not have the resources to purchase textbooks. Therefore, we decided to put together this Open Educational Resource (OER) explicitly for use in freshman composition courses at Texas A&M University. Thanks to a generous grant from Dean David Carlson of the Texas A&M University Libraries, this project became a reality. It is a collaborative endeavor undertaken by faculty in the libraries and English Department as part of the Provost’s Student Success Initiatives at Texas A&M and continues to be a work in progress. Combined, Dr. Terri Pantuso, Dr. Kathy Anders, and Prof. Sarah LeMire have over 30 years of experience in writing and research instruction. Our goal is for students to leave this course as critical thinkers, polished writers, and informed citizens who can engage in civil public discourse. Gig ‘em, Ags!
Studying the Bible: The Tanakh and Early Christian Writings is a university-level, …
Studying the Bible: The Tanakh and Early Christian Writings is a university-level, textbook introduction to the study of the Bible, its literary forms, and historical and cultural contexts. This textbook is a companion to the Bible courses taught in the English Department at Kansas State University, in particular ENGL 470 The Bible, though it is available for use in other courses and contexts. This textbook examines the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Tanakh) and the early Christian writings of the New Testament. It is an introduction to the analysis of biblical texts, their histories, and their interpretations. The emphasis throughout this textbook is on the literary qualities of these biblical texts as well as their cultural and historical contexts.
The thirty chapters in this edited collection were selected from the more …
The thirty chapters in this edited collection were selected from the more than 500 presentations at the Writing Research Across Borders II Conference in 2011. With representatives from more than forty countries, this conference gave rise to the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research. The chapters selected for this collection represent cutting edge research on writing from all regions, organized around three themes—cultures, places, and measures. The authors report research that considers writing in all levels of schooling, in science, in the public sphere, and in the workplace, as well as at the relationship among these various places of writing. The authors also consider the cultures of writing—among them national cultures, gender cultures, schooling cultures, scientific cultures, and cultures of the workplace. Finally, the chapters examine various ways of measuring writing and how these measures interact with practices of teaching and learning.Edited by Charles Bazerman, Chris Dean, Jessica Early, Karen Lunsford, Suzie Null, Paul Rogers, and Amanda Stansell.
Writing the Nation: A Concise Guide to American Literature 1865 to Present …
Writing the Nation: A Concise Guide to American Literature 1865 to Present is a text that surveys key literary movements and the American authors associated with the movement. Topics include late romanticism, realism, naturalism, modernism, and modern literature.
Rhetoric Matters: A Guide to Success in the First Year Writing Class …
Rhetoric Matters: A Guide to Success in the First Year Writing Class offers students necessary concepts and practice to learn all the elements needed for successful first year writing and set the stage for future writing success in college. Chapter 1: The Introduction Chapter 2: Reading in Writing Class Chapter 3: Thinking and Analyzing Rhetorically Chapter 4: Writing a Summary and Synthesizing Chapter 5: The Writing Process Chapter 6: Structuring, Paragraphing, and Styling Chapter 7: Revising and Refining Chapter 8: Multimodal Reading and Visual Rhetoric Chapter 9: The Research Process Chapter 10: Sources and Research Chapter 11: Ethical Source Integration: Citation, Quoting, and Paraphrasing Chapter 12: Documentation Styles: MLA and APA
Robo Grader - When Artificial Intelligence (AI) Becomes the Evaluator of Writing …
Robo Grader - When Artificial Intelligence (AI) Becomes the Evaluator of Writing
Short Description: As schools, as well as the workplace, become more automated, and remote or distance learning/working becomes the “new normal,” understanding and leveraging artificial intelligence will become a critical skill. Order a print copy: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/alise-lamoreaux/writing-instruction-tips-for-automated-essay-graders/paperback/product-2rpzye.html
Long Description: My goal for this book is to create an understanding of what AEG can assess and provide tips for the best practices and skills to develop when facing AEG systems. There are many arguments regarding teaching to a test, and that Robo-grading is harming writing instruction, but regardless of those opinions, students are being evaluated on the basis of artificial intelligence and their transition to college or the workplace is being impacted. The testing industry is the clear winner in the standardized testing movement. Rather than making software recognize “good” writing, they will redefine “good” writing according to what the software can recognize. Considering the resources being put into perfecting Robo-grading, it’s likely that we will see rapid expansion in the use of artificial intelligence as an evaluation tool. It’s important to give students a chance to learn to “think” like a Robo-grader.
Order a print copy: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/alise-lamoreaux/writing-instruction-tips-for-automated-essay-graders/paperback/product-2rpzye.html
Word Count: 13854
ISBN: 978-1-63635-070-7
(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)
This text is a practical guide for linguists, and programmers, who work …
This text is a practical guide for linguists, and programmers, who work with data in multilingual computational environments. We introduce the basic concepts needed to understand how writing systems and character encodings function, and how they work together at the intersection between the Unicode Standard and the International Phonetic Alphabet. Although these standards are often met with frustration by users, they nevertheless provide language researchers and programmers with a consistent computational architecture needed to process, publish and analyze lexical data from the world's languages. Thus we bring to light common, but not always transparent, pitfalls which researchers face when working with Unicode and IPA. Having identified and overcome these pitfalls involved in making writing systems and character encodings syntactically and semantically interoperable (to the extent that they can be), we created a suite of open-source Python and R tools to work with languages using orthography profiles that describe author- or document-specific orthographic conventions. In this cookbook we describe a formal specification of orthography profiles and provide recipes using open source tools to show how users can segment text, analyze it, identify errors, and to transform it into different written forms for comparative linguistics research.
How Arguments Work takes students through the techniques they will need to …
How Arguments Work takes students through the techniques they will need to respond to readings and make sophisticated arguments in any college class. This is a practical guide to argumentation with strategies and templates for the kinds of assignments students will commonly encounter. It covers rhetorical concepts in everyday language and explores how arguments can build trust and move readers.
Welcome to Mindful Technical Writing: An Introduction to the Fundamentals, an open …
Welcome to Mindful Technical Writing: An Introduction to the Fundamentals, an open textbook designed for use in co-requisite course pairings of developmental writing and introductory technical writing, or indeed in other lower-division college writing courses that focus on building study skills alongside effective workplace and academic writing skills. It offers a no-cost alternative to commercial products, combining practical guidance with interactive exercises and thoughtfully designed writing opportunities.
This book’s modular design and ample coverage of topics and genres means that it can be used flexibly over semester-long or stretch courses, allowing instructors and students to select the chapters that are most relevant for their needs. By blending new material with reviews of key topics, such as academic integrity, the chapters provide fresh perspectives on matters vital to the development of strong writing skills.
This book was made possible through grant support from Montana Technological University and the TRAILS OER program, funded by the Office of the Commissioner for Higher Education, Montana University System.
Technical writing courses introduce you to some of the most important aspects …
Technical writing courses introduce you to some of the most important aspects of writing in the worlds of science, technology, and business—in other words, the kind of writing that scientists, nurses, doctors, computer specialists, government officials, engineers, and other professionals do as a part of their regular work. The skills learned in technical writing courses can be useful in other fields as well, including education and social sciences.
Short Description: Return to milneopentextbooks.org to download PDF and other versions of …
Short Description: Return to milneopentextbooks.org to download PDF and other versions of this textNewParaBonczek Evory approaches the act of writing poetry from a practitioner’s perspective and as an act of play. The text provides strategies and detailed practices that nurture and maintain creative states necessary for all stages of writing.
Long Description: Bonczek Evory approaches the act of writing poetry from a practitioner’s perspective and as an act of play. The text provides strategies and detailed practices that nurture and maintain creative states necessary for all stages of writing.
Word Count: 58614
ISBN: 978-1-942341-49-9
(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)
This book has been created to provide a framework for building your …
This book has been created to provide a framework for building your skills in writing and critical thinking. It provides access to published samples from professional authors along with essay drafts from ESL students who have polished their skills in their respective writing courses.
The themes in the readings will give you a variety of topics to discuss with your classmates, which may inspire your own deeper thinking and writing. Overall, we hope that as you proceed through these chapters, you will build confidence and develop your voice in the classroom and beyond.
The reason why Randall Fallows wrote Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to …
The reason why Randall Fallows wrote Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis is simple; to help give students a better understanding of how to discover, develop, and revise an analytical essay. Here is how his 5 chapter book goes about doing just that:The first two chapters focus on the nature of an analysis and what’s involved in writing an analytical essay. First, Randall shows that analysis consists of a balance of assertions (statements which present their viewpoints or launch an exploration of their concerns), examples (specific passages/scenes/events which inspire these views), explanations (statements that reveal how the examples support the assertions), and significance (statements which reveal the importance of their study to personal and/or cultural issues).After showing why each feature should be present throughout an essay, he reveals how to ”set the stage“ for producing one of their own. He first helps students to evaluate their own views on a subject and to examine how these views emerge from their own experiences, values and judgments. He, then, shows them how to research what others have said about the subject and provides suggestions for evaluating and incorporating this research into their own perspectives.Finally, Randall discusses the nature of writing, not as a linear procedure, but as a recursive process where the discovery and clarification of a concept occur simultaneously.The remaining three chapters reveal more specific advice on how to develop an analytical essay.Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis by Randall Fallows is a great text to prepare any student to write analytical essays for the argument and persuasion courses.
EmpoWord is a reader and rhetoric that champions the possibilities of student …
EmpoWord is a reader and rhetoric that champions the possibilities of student writing. The textbook uses actual student writing to exemplify effective writing strategies, celebrating dedicated college writing students to encourage and instruct their successors: the students in your class. Through both creative and traditional activities, readers are encouraged to explore a variety of rhetorical situations to become more critical agents of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in all facets of their lives. Straightforward and readable instruction sections introduce key vocabulary, concepts, and strategies. Three culminating assignments (Descriptive Personal Narrative; Text-Wrestling Analysis; Persuasive Research Essay) give students a chance to show their learning while also practicing rhetorical awareness techniques for future writing situations.
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