There is a quote that has been passed down many years and is most recently accounted to P.T. Barnum, “There is a sucker born every minute.” Are you that sucker? If you were, would you like to be “reborn?” The goal of this book is to help you through that “birthing” process. Critical thinking and standing up for your ideas and making decisions are important in both your personal and professional life. How good are we at making the decision to marry? According to the Centers for Disease Control, there is one divorce in America every 36 seconds. That is nearly 2,400 every day. And professionally, the Wall Street Journal predicts the average person will have 7 careers in their lifetime. Critical thinking skills are crucial.

Most literature students are introduced to literary theory and writing about literature as separate subjects, though the two are intimately linked in the practice of literary scholarship. Literary scholarship is guided by literary theories and expressed through writing; it doesn’t make sense to learn each in isolation. Literary theories are intellectual models that scholars use to understand stories, novels, poems, plays, and other texts. Different theories prioritize different historical, social, or methodological concerns. The authors believe students of literature should learn about many literary theories so they can discover which interpretive tools work best for them when they write about literature in their classes (and beyond). This book aims to help students build up a personal toolbox of interpretive possibilities.

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.

This course is designed to introduce students to the study, analysis, and interpretation of literature across multiple genres. Key topics include literary genres and conventions; how to read and write about literature; literary analysis; and readings and responses in the genres of poetry, drama, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Primary literary works and critical responses are included, as well as a collection of writing assignments aligned with course content and learning outcomes.

This course was developed by faculty at Ivy Tech Community College, using original materials, as well as materials from NDLA.

Literature in the Humanities is an introduction to the study of the characteristics, conventions, and socio-historical contexts of the major literary forms, including the analysis and interpretation of literary elements and devices, and the application of literary theory and criticism. This course is designed to encourage a deep appreciation of literature, hone critical thinking skills, and to illustrate the importance of literature as an expression of the human cultural experience.

LIT2000, as well as all Humanities General Education courses, approaches the concept of culture as a system of meanings allowing groups and individuals to give significance to the world and mediate their relationships with each other and their known universe. Humanities courses are distinguished from traditional Liberal Arts disciplines through an emphasis on interdisciplinarity and comparative cultural contexts. Through these approaches to cultural texts and artifacts, the humanities attempt to investigate, contest, analyze, and synthesize the phenomena of human agency and subjectivity both within and between cultures. By pursuing these forms of inquiry we may better understand our world and our places within it. 1

"... When I first started teaching in 2015, I realized that many of my students didn’t fully appreciate that their stories were compelling. But then they started writing about growing up hearing gunshots and sirens at night, using fire escapes as basketball hoops, and a ritual I’d never heard of: dancing at Thanksgiving. One student wrote about how he and his brother, at ages 11 and 14, had to fend for themselves after their father was deported. As the students listened to each other, mesmerized, they came to realize that their own stories have the same effect on other people. That motivated them to learn literary techniques to weave their experiences into cohesive, artful narratives.

Many of the writers have since graduated and have become teachers and nurses; others are still in school or, having graduated, are struggling to find the kinds of jobs that they envisioned having, once they had earned a college degree. Yet, however their careers and their lives pan out, they know that continuing to cultivate their writing will give them some measure of power. Their stories of resilience and creativity reflect how American culture is enriched by their presence. To know them is to love them."

This is an anthology in progress of literature in English. It is designed to be a transatlantic anthology, with examples of texts written in the British Isles, but also colonial America, wand the United States. Many of the texts have been freshly edited and annotated to provide authoritative and curated editions for the use of students and general readers, and to create an alternative to expensive print anthologies. Over time, all of these texts (and more) will be edited and annotated to use the full resources enabled by the digitization of literary works. Please feel free to comment on these texts; we hope to improve the anthology based on the needs of readers.

The anthology is designed to work well on desktop and laptop computers, but also mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. We include the hypothes.is plug-in, which allows readers to add their own layer of annotation to the texts–to underscore key passages, add notes, ask questions. Go to www.hypothes.is for more information on how the plug-in works.

This is very much a work in progress. Some texts have been edited and annotated fully; others partially; others not at all. Author biographies are being drafted; material is being added. Keep checking back for updates.

This project is open-access, and the texts are available for anyone to use as they wish. We also invite others to join in the project by editing and annotating texts of their own, which can be incorporated in the site to create a free, open-access anthology of reliable works for use in the classroom.

Let’s start with an inescapable fact: you’ll be writing and communicating for the rest of your life whether you’re a second grade teacher, a corrections officer, an ER nurse, or a district manager at Target. You don’t want to sound like an idiot on paper or in person. People lose interviews, jobs, and respect when they write or communicate poorly. Simply put, developing effective writing and speaking skills can help you succeed far beyond the classroom.

This handbook is the product of much collaboration. In creating this resource, the faculty at KCC have attempted to distill their collective wisdom about writing and present that material in a concise and accessible way. This is by no means a complete reference for every English question you might encounter in your life; however, it is a collection of common issues and areas of concern that professors across all disciplines address.

This reading anthology is a curated collection of openly licensed full-text essays and stories on a variety of subjects, designed to be used for discussions and writing assignments. The anthology is organized according to three levels of reading difficulty, but instructors can easily mix and match reading selections.

This course introduces students to the genres of science-fiction and fantasy, focusing on major themes and how speculative fiction addresses contemporary human concerns.

For students and others who read it, this style manual quickly becomes a favorite resource. Whether planning a paper, running a grammar check, completing a report, composing an email, puzzling over a usage or grammar issue, or writing a resume or online portfolio, you are bound to find the material and examples you need in Style for Students Online. Drawing from his breadth of experience as a tutor, teacher, editor, and creative writer, Joe Schall provides technical writing advice that spans from the conceptual to the niggling. Thoughtful, practical, up-to-date, and rich in pith, Style for Students Online should be bookmarked as one of your oft-visited websites.

This anthology is a curated collection of openly licensed primary texts, organized thematically, designed to be used as a reader in English composition courses. Includes personal essays, literature, video and audio files, Web writings, and long-form journalism, along with customizable assignments and instructor resources. This anthology was initially curated by Lumen Learning using materials from a variety of open sources.

The writings in this book were collected from students and their professors at Lansing Community College. The requirement was that the writings included needed to be something that had been submitted for a class at LCC and that it received a 3.0 or better. I wasn’t looking for perfect work. I was looking for good work. I hoped that the OER (Open Educational Resource) that resulted from this collection would help students and faculty learn about what teachers and students here were thinking and writing about. I hoped that student writers would feel some pride and satisfaction at seeing their work published and acknowledged as being good. I wasn’t worried about perfection, but I did ask instructors about what they would have recommended that students continue to work on to improve their writing, because especially student writing is a process. As I edited this work, I added a bit of punctuation and fixed some spelling, standardized fonts, and indicated paragraphs, but for the most part left the mechanics as they were. I wanted readers to be able to see the work that was submitted as it was submitted complete with mechanical flaws.Of course in writing classes we also work to polish format, but as one faculty member said to me, you have to have something to say!

The idea of perfection is worth consideration. Some of my colleagues seemed reluctant to encourage students to submit work because they seemed worried that the student work wouldn’t be good enough or would somehow reflect on them as instructors. But I know they give 3.0’s and 4.0’s and I know that students do work instructors judge as good enough. I especially liked hearing from the instructors who participated about what they valued; I think students and other instructors may also find that interesting. Over and over again I heard instructors value novelty, risk taking, and a clear writing voice.

I am grateful to the students who submitted their work and my colleagues who sat and talked with me about their students’ work. I am also grateful to the Lansing Community College Board of Trustees who agreed to fund this sabbatical project. The sabbatical I took during the Spring Semester of 2020 gave me time to reflect and celebrate the writing of students and think about and read more about publication of students’ writing. I am also grateful to Associate Professor of Integrated English Amy Larson—OER Project Manager and Professor of Economics James Luke who both consulted with me about creating this text to be housed at Open LCC. Thanks also to Lydia Warnke, one of the Department of Integrated English staff who helped me work on the formatting required by Open LCC. I would never have made the deadline without her help. Finally, thanks to Professor of Integrated English Jill Reglin who was my Sabbatical Committee Mentor; her encouragement was invaluable.

Because this is an OER perhaps a couple more examples were added during the summer of 2021. I hope other students will be inspired to add their pieces\ or at least develop more confidence about their writing in the future. To that end I have include the release form used for this project in the appendix. There is also a brief annotated bibliography discussing publishing student writing. Doing this research helped me see that there is a long history of discussion about publishing student writing and only beginning to be much current work on the topic. I hope to find more scholarly work being done about blogging, podcasts, and using modern media forms of publishing, but that is research for another day.

This English Composition textbook is adapted from Writing for Success with additional scaffolding and context for ESL students. Level: TLEE, 1 below TLEE; Skills: writing, reading, student success

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.

In the age of Buzzfeeds, hashtags, and Tweets, students are increasingly favoring conversational writing and regarding academic writing as less pertinent in their personal lives, education, and future careers. Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Thinking and Communication connects students with works and exercises and promotes student learning that is kairotic and constructive. Dr. Tanya Long Bennett, professor of English at the University of North Georgia, poses questions that encourage active rather than passive learning. Furthering ideas presented in Contribute a Verse: A Guide to First-Year Composition as a complimentary companion, Writing and Literature builds a new conversation covering various genres of literature and writing. Students learn the various writing styles appropriate for analyzing, addressing, and critiquing these genres including poetry, novels, dramas, and research writing. The text and its pairing of helpful visual aids throughout emphasizes the importance of critical reading and analysis in producing a successful composition. Writing and Literature is a refreshing textbook that links learning, literature, and life.