LibGuides: OER: Open Educational Resources: English & Writing

Textbooks

Writing, Reading, and College Success: A First-Year Composition Course for All Learners by Athena Kashyap &
Erika Dyquisto (2020): City College of San Francisco.

This OER is a revision of “Writing for Success” that includes instructional scaffolding for students who require additional support. New sections on college readiness and success, reading skills, the reading-writing connection, grammar, and an ESL compendium have been added.

LibreTexts

A Writer's Guide to Mindful Reading by Ellen Carillo (2017): University Press of Colorado.

Offering a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction by focusing on reading and writing, A Writer's Guide to Mindful Reading supports students as they become more reflective, deliberate, and mindful readers and writers by working within a metacognitive framework. The reading selections, assignments, and activities in this innovative textbook provide opportunities to apply and reflect on multiple ways of reading and writing, positioning students to develop a metacognitive awareness crucial to transferring what they learn about reading and writing to other courses and contexts.

College Skills: Intermediate English by Tania Pattison (2019): Coast Mountain College/BCcampus.

The goal of the book is to help students develop skills in reading, writing, language use, and study skills. The book is divided into ten units, each of which focuses on a specific theme; these include food, work, art, money, nature, and more. Reading skills sections focus on tasks such as identifying bias, determining author purpose, and making personal connections with the text. Writing skills sections enable students to develop their skills at the paragraph level though such tasks as comparing/contrasting, discussing causes and effects, and writing persuasive pieces; creative writing, blogging, and letter writing are also included.

Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence by Amy Guptill (2016): Open SUNY.

Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence is designed for students who have largely mastered the conventions of high-school level writing and are now rising to meet more the advanced expectations of college. Students will find in Writing in College a warm invitation to think of themselves as full, self-motivated members of the academic community. With concise explanations, clear multi-disciplinary examples and empathy for the challenges of student life, this short textbook both explains the purposes behind college-level writing and offers indispensable advice for organization and expression.

Writing for Success (2015): University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing.

Writing for Success is a text that provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition.

English 101 Grammar Guide by Adam Kaiserman (2019): College of the Canyons.

A text developed for use in English 101 courses at College of the Canyons in California.

College of the Canyons

How Arguments Work - A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College by Anna Mills (2019): ASCCC OERI.

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.

LibreTexts

Writing and Critical Thinking Through Literature by Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap (2020): ASCCC OERI.

This text offers instruction in analytical, critical, and argumentative writing, critical thinking, research strategies, information literacy, and proper documentation through the study of literary works from major genres, while developing students’ close reading skills and promoting an appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of literature.

LibreTexts

Writing Unleashed by Sybil Preibe, Ronda Maman & Dana Anderson (2019): North Dakota University System.

Welcome to Writing Unleashed, designed for use as a textbook in first-year college composition programs, written as an extremely brief guide for students, jam-packed with teachers’ voices, students’ voices, and engineered for fun. The link provided will take you to a Google Drive folder containing not just a text but many worksheets, resources, and supplemental materials.

Anthologies & Readings

88 Open Essays (Northwestern Michigan College)

Anthology of Medieval Literature (University of Central Florida)

British Literature I: Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century and Neoclassicism (University of North Georgia Press)

British Literature II: Romantic Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond (University of North Georgia Press)

Compact Anthology of World Literature I (University of North Georgia Press)

Compact Anthology of World Literature II (University of North Georgia Press)

Literature, the Humanities, and Humanity (Open SUNY)

Naming the Unnamable: An Approach to Poetry for New Generations (BCcampus)

The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature (PressBooks)

Towards an Open Anthology of Poetry (PressBooks)

Writing Spaces: Readings On Writing, Volume 1 (Grand Valley State University ScholarWorks)

Writing Spaces: Readings On Writing, Volume 2 (Grand Valley State University ScholarWorks)

Writing Spaces Web Writing Style Guide Version 1.0 (Grand Valley State University ScholarWorks)

Courses

The American Novel since 1945 (Open Yale)
In “The American Novel Since 1945” students will study a wide range of works from 1945 to the present. The course traces the formal and thematic developments of the novel in this period, focusing on the relationship between writers and readers, the conditions of publishing, innovations in the novel’s form, fiction’s engagement with history, and the changing place of literature in American culture. The reading list includes works by Richard Wright, Flannery O’Connor, Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, J. D. Salinger, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth and Edward P. Jones. The course concludes with a contemporary novel chosen by the students in the class.
Basic Reading and Writing (Lumen)
Basic Reading and Writing builds a solid foundation around core aspects of the writing process: critical reading; methodical writing; research and documentation; practical grammar and punctuation. An optional module introduces core principles for college success that help students understand and develop good habits to improve their performance in this and other college courses.
English Composition I (Lumen)
This course develops students’ writing at the college level, using materials organized around essential parts of the academic writing process. Key topics include rhetorical situations; the editing process; types and modes of academic writing; the research process; citation practices; informative and persuasive writing.
English Composition II (Lumen)
Builds skills in summarizing writings, techniques for rhetorical analysis, explains research concepts, pre-writing methods, thesis writing, citations, building bibliographies, and polishing final drafts.
English Composition I (Saylor)
This course is designed specifically for students in a university setting, the second unit will focus on academic writing. We will learn how to respond to an assignment or test question by using the "PWR-Writing" or "Power-Writing" Method (PWR: prewrite, write, revise) while learning the ins and outs of building a solid thesis and supporting that thesis with evidence. The remaining units will focus on good writing practices, from style to proper citation.
English Composition II (Saylor)
The intent of this course is to teach you how to prepare research for any discipline or subject. We will carefully explore and practice general research techniques and processes that you should be able to apply to many academic disciplines and in your job.
English Literature I (Lumen/SUNY)
ENG 243 develops skills in critical literacy, provides opportunities for self-expression, and promotes understanding of British texts from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 18th century, emphasizing the critical ideas and traditions of the British literary tradition. As a writing intensive course, ENG 243 will provide specific instruction in writing, especially literary analysis, and substantial written and oral feedback on formal writing, with the opportunity to revise at least one formal paper.
Fundamentals of Composition (Lumen)
Explores fundamentals of composition, offers many readings on a variety of current events and historical events.
Introduction to College Composition (Lumen/SUNY)
Introduction to College Composition was developed by Lumen Learning in collaboration with Cerritos College (Norwalk, CA). It is designed as a resource for the precollege English composition classroom. It aligns with ENG 020 and is the first of a three-course “Path to College Composition” series. All courses in this series focus on the same primary content areas: Critical Reading, Writing Process & Research Process.
Introduction to Literature (Lumen/SUNY)
Includes a variety of readings and modules on literary conventions, writing about literature, poetry, drama readings, and fiction and nonfiction.
Introduction to Theory of Literature (Open Yale)
This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose?
Modern Poetry (Open Yale)
This course covers the body of modern poetry, its characteristic techniques, concerns, and major practitioners. The authors discussed range from Yeats, Eliot, and Pound, to Stevens, Moore, Bishop, and Frost with additional lectures on the poetry of World War One, Imagism, and the Harlem Renaissance. Diverse methods of literary criticism are employed, such as historical, biographical, and gender criticism.
Pre-College English (Saylor)
Effective writing skills are necessary for success in college and in your future career. This course is designed to improve your writing ability, which is necessary for entrance into ENGL001: English Composition I, as well as for your ongoing success in other academic subjects. Pre-College English coursework focuses on active reading and analytic writing, with emphasis on organization, unity, coherence, and development. It also includes an introduction to the expository essay and a review of the rules and conventions of standard written English.