Higher Education Textbooks

Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future

Author: Inoue

Publisher: WAC Clearinghouse

License: CC BY-NC-ND

In Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies, Asao B. Inoue theorizes classroom writing assessment as a complex system that is "more than" its interconnected elements. To explain how and why antiracist work in the writing classroom is vital to literacy learning, Inoue incorporates ideas about the white racial habitus that informs dominant discourses in the academy and other contexts. Inoue helps teachers understand the unintended racism that often occurs when teachers do not have explicit antiracist agendas in their assessments. Drawing on his own teaching and classroom inquiry, Inoue offers a heuristic for developing and critiquing writing assessment ecologies that explores seven elements of any writing assessment ecology: power, parts, purposes, people, processes, products, and places.

(17 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)

Beyond Dichotomy: Synergizing Writing Center and Classroom Pedagogies

Author: Corbett

Publisher: WAC Clearinghouse

License: CC BY-NC-ND

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.

(8 reviews)

Information Literacy: Research and Collaboration across Disciplines

Author: Maid

Editors: D'Angelo and Jamieson

Publisher: WAC Clearinghouse

License: CC BY-NC-ND

This collection brings together scholarship and pedagogy from multiple perspectives and disciplines, offering nuanced and complex perspectives on Information Literacy in the second decade of the 21st century. Taking as a starting point the concerns that prompted the Association of Research Libraries (ACRL) to review the Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education and develop the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2015), the chapters in this collection consider six frameworks that place students in the role of both consumer and producer of information within today's collaborative information environments. Contributors respond directly or indirectly to the work of the ACRL, providing a bridge between past/current knowledge and the future and advancing the notion that faculty, librarians, administrators, and external stakeholders share responsibility and accountability for the teaching, learning, and research of Information Literacy.

(9 reviews)

Read more about Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research

Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research - 4th Edition

Editors: Pantuso, LeMire, and Anders

Publisher: Texas A&M University

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research(4th Edition) is a premier Open Educational Resource (OER) designed to bridge the gap between critical thinking and rhetorical mastery. This edition refines the art of academic inquiry, offering students a transparent and accessible framework for deconstructing complex claims and constructing evidence-based positions. By prioritizing digital literacy and diverse perspectives, it empowers learners to navigate today’s information-saturated landscape with analytical precision. Comprehensive yet concise, this textbook remains an essential, cost-free solution for fostering scholarly voice and civic engagement in the modern composition classroom.

(14 reviews)

Open Research

Authors: Pitt, de los Arcos, and Farrow

Publisher: OER Hub

License: CC BY-SA

If you have an interest in openness, open education, research skills or want to find out more about the impact of Open EducationalResources (OER), then this resource is for you. You could be:

(7 reviews)

Oregon Writes Open Writing Text

Author: Kepka

Publisher: Open Oregon Educational Resources

License: CC BY

This textbook guides students through rhetorical and assignment analysis, the writing process, researching, citing, rhetorical modes, and critical reading. Using accessible but rigorous readings by professionals throughout the college composition field, the Oregon Writes Writing Textbook aligns directly to the statewide writing outcomes for English Composition courses in Oregon.

(6 reviews)

The Information Literacy User's Guide: An Open, Online Textbook

Authors: Bernnard, Bobish, Bullis, Hecker, Holden, Hosier, Jacobson, and Loney

Publisher: Open SUNY

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Good researchers have a host of tools at their disposal that make navigating today's complex information ecosystem much more manageable. Gaining the knowledge, abilities, and self-reflection necessary to be a good researcher helps not only in academic settings, but is invaluable in any career, and throughout one's life. The Information Literacy User's Guide will start you on this route to success.

(19 reviews)

Write Here, Right Now: An Interactive Introduction to Academic Writing and Research

Authors: Tucker and Chafe

Publisher: Ryerson University

License: CC BY

Write Here, Right Now: An interactive Introduction to Academic Writing and Research utilizes PressBooks to create and host a writing e-textbook for first year university students that would effectively integrate into the flipped classroom model. The textbook could also be used for non-flipped classroom designs, as the embedded videos, diagrams and linked modules would act as an all-in-one multimedia textbook geared towards multiple learning styles and disciplines. The components of the textbook, including the embedded videos, could be swapped in and out in order to accommodate a professor’s best idea of his/her own course design.

(4 reviews)

WAC Partnerships Between Secondary and Postsecondary Institutions

Editors: Blumner and Childers

Publisher: WAC Clearinghouse

License: CC BY-NC-ND

Working with educators at all academic levels involved in WAC partnerships, the authors and editors of this collection demonstrate successful models of collaboration between schools and institutions so others can emulate and promote this type of collaboration. The chapters in this collection describe and reflect on collaborative partnerships among middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities that are designed to prepare students for the kinds of work and civic engagement required to succeed in and contribute to society. The WAC partnerships celebrated in this collection include frameworks to build connectivity between institutions while addressing Common Core State Standards, academic and non-academic collaborations around science education, WAC partnerships in Argentina and Germany, and both long- and short-term collaborations.

(2 reviews)

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