Humanities Textbooks

Writing and Literature: Composition as Inquiry, Learning, Thinking, and Communication

Author: Bennet

Publisher: University of North Georgia Press

License: CC BY-SA

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.

(18 reviews)

British Literature I Anthology: From the Middle Ages to Neoclassicism and the Eighteenth Century

Editors: Robinson and Getty

Publisher: University of North Georgia Press

License: CC BY-SA

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you British Literature I: From the Middle Ages to Neoclassicism and the Eighteenth Century. Featuring over 50 authors and full texts of their works, this anthology follows the shift of monarchic to parliamentarian rule in Britain, and the heroic epic to the more egalitarian novel as genre.

(19 reviews)

Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution

Author: Kurant

Publisher: University of North Georgia Press

License: CC BY-SA

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution. Featuring sixty-nine authors and full texts of their works, the selections in this open anthology represent the diverse voices in early American literature. This completely-open anthology will connect students to the conversation of literature that is embedded in American history and has helped shaped its culture.

(8 reviews)

Let's Get Writing!

Authors: Browning, DeVries, Boylan, Kurtz, and Burton

Publisher: Virginia Western Community College

License: CC BY-NC-SA

This introduction is designed to exemplify how writers think about and produce text. The guiding features are the following:

(19 reviews)

Interpreting Love Narratives in East Asian Literature and Film

Author: Wallace

Publisher: University of California, Berkeley

License: CC BY-NC

This book explores the role of traditional East Asian worldviews, ethical values, and common practices in the shaping of East Asian narratives in literature and film. It offers a specific method for this analysis. The interpretive goal is to arrive at interpretations that more accurately engage cultural information so that narratives are understood more closely in terms of their native cultural rather than that of the reader/interpreter. Current neuroscience related to processes of perception and the attribution of meaning form the basis for the theory of interpretation offered in the first half of the volume.

(2 reviews)

English Composition: Connect, Collaborate, Communicate

Authors: Inoshita, Garland, Sims, Tsutsui Keuma, and Williams

Publisher: University of Hawaii Manoa

License: CC BY

This OER textbook has been designed for students to learn the foundational concepts for English 100 (first-year college composition). The content aligns to learning outcomes across all campuses in the University of Hawai'i system. It was designed, written, and edited during a three day book sprint in May, 2019.

(23 reviews)

Prose Fiction: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Narrative

Author: Ribó

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

License: CC BY

This concise and highly accessible textbook outlines the principles and techniques of storytelling. It is intended as a high-school and college-level introduction to the central concepts of narrative theory – concepts that will aid students in developing their competence not only in analysing and interpreting short stories and novels, but also in writing them. This textbook prioritises clarity over intricacy of theory, equipping its readers with the necessary tools to embark on further study of literature, literary theory and creative writing. Building on a ‘semiotic model of narrative,’ it is structured around the key elements of narratological theory, with chapters on plot, setting, characterisation, and narration, as well as on language and theme – elements which are underrepresented in existing textbooks on narrative theory. The chapter on language constitutes essential reading for those students unfamiliar with rhetoric, while the chapter on theme draws together significant perspectives from contemporary critical theory (including feminism and postcolonialism). This textbook is engaging and easily navigable, with key concepts highlighted and clearly explained, both in the text and in a full glossary located at the end of the book. Throughout the textbook the reader is aided by diagrams, images, quotes from prominent theorists, and instructive examples from classical and popular short stories and novels (such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis,’ J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, or Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, amongst many others). Prose Fiction: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Narrative can either be incorporated as the main textbook into a wider syllabus on narrative theory and creative writing, or it can be used as a supplementary reference book for readers interested in narrative fiction. The textbook is a must-read for beginning students of narratology, especially those with no or limited prior experience in this area. It is of especial relevance to English and Humanities major students in Asia, for whom it was conceived and written.

(7 reviews)

Bad Ideas About Writing

Authors: Ball and Loewe

Publisher: West Virginia University

License: CC BY

We intend this work to be less a bestiary of bad ideas about writing than an effort to name bad ideas and suggest better ones. Some of those bad ideas are quite old, such as the archetype of the inspired genius author, the five-paragraph essay, or the abuse of adjunct writing teachers. Others are much newer, such as computerized essay scoring or gamification. Some ideas, such as the supposed demise of literacy brought on by texting, are newer bad ideas but are really instances of older bad ideas about literacy always being in a cycle of decline. Yet the same core questions such as what is good writing, what makes a good writer, how should writing be assessed, and the like persist across contexts, technologies, and eras. The project has its genesis in frustration, but what emerges is hope: hope for leaving aside bad ideas and thinking about writing in more productive, inclusive, and useful ways.

(14 reviews)

Reading the Bible as Literature: A Journey

Author: Ondich

Publisher: Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

License: CC BY-NC-SA

The Bible is one of the most published books in human history. It is also one of the most misquoted, misunderstood and misused books in human history. This happens because people are not always aware that the Bible is not a book, it is a collection of diverse writings. The Bible might even be called an anthology, and it will include everything from poetry to genealogy, pithy sayings to architectural mandates, mythology to letters. Knowing what one is reading helps one understand the ideas in the writings. We read letters in the context of who wrote them and who received them. We read sermons understanding the speaker's perspective may differ from the listener's perspective. So this text is an attempt to give historic, literary, geographical and cultural context to a complex and often poorly understood set of materials. This is very much an ebook, and needs to be used in that format. Pdfs and other printed versions will lose a great deal of the content.

(3 reviews)

Reading Rhetorical Theory

Author: Hallsby

Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing

License: CC BY-NC

This is a textbook that was originally designed for a 3000-level large lecture course on “Rhetorical Theory” at the University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities. An interdisciplinary tradition, rhetorical theory describes how speech, representation, and power are managed by techniques and technologies of communication. The plan of this book moves from rhetoric as an art of speech to rhetoric as a technology of power. The early chapters provide definitions and context for rhetoric as speech, middle chapters (e.g., on signs, symbols, visual images, argumentation, and narrative) describe rhetoric as representation, and the concluding chapters (e.g., on settler colonialism, secrecy, and digital rhetoric) elaborate on rhetoric as a technology of power. Of course, there is considerable overlap across these areas: the chapter on “rhetoric and ideology” sets the stage for later understandings of rhetoric as power; the chapter on “the rhetorical situation” hearkens back to the introductory understanding of rhetoric as speech. The book includes (audio and/or video) recordings with each chapter, as well as guidelines for proposed written assignments. Students using this resource should gain a thorough understanding of what rhetoric is, how it was practiced historically and today, and the ways that rhetoric wields an invisible influence over contemporary public and political life. Additionally, this book is designed for use across a variety of modalities, including in-person, online (synchronous/asynchronous), and hybridized formats. Additional resources (PowerPoint slides, quiz/exam questions) are also available to confirmed instructors upon request.

(2 reviews)

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