Instructors engaging with the following resource will discover a variety of pre-reading strategies for enhancing their students’ reading comprehension. The resource emphasizes the importance of activating students’ schemata, or prior learning, as a foundation for comprehending new material. Techniques like guided anticipation utilize thought-provoking yes/no statements to initiate conceptual learning, while cloze exercises actively engage students with filling in missing words based on their existing vocabulary. “Writing in the Round” is presented as a collaborative activity fostering an exchange of diverse views, while free writing encourages students to draw upon their memory for a creative exploration of related concepts. By the end of this resource, instructors will discover adaptable strategies applicable to various grade levels and subject areas, providing a comprehensive toolkit for promoting active reading and comprehension among their students.

Author: Sharon Haigler
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso

This text, or resource, aims to help all students in English composition classes and reading understand the connections and the cohesive aspect of reading and writing. The authors used their own years of teaching both reading and writing for all levels in college to explain concepts in a straightforward and clear manner for students. The goal is that this becomes a FREE resource – students can return to time and time again when they have questions or need a refresher even after their English composition course ends.  

In the Community is a textbook designed for adult English language learners. It takes an integrated skills approach, with listening, speaking, reading, and writing exercises in each lesson. The vocabulary and sentence structure are appropriate for an intermediate or even advanced proficiency level. It is not for beginners. The book is organized by conversation topics: forming and maintaining relationships, making requests, asking for permission, making apologies and excuses, and expressing opinions. Perhaps the nicest feature of this book is that it offers both an interactive e-text, in which students can type their own responses, and a printable version.

This two-part unit provides instructors with materials to encourage student development of information literacy skills. The unit can be understood as supplemental materials for the OER textbook Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research with particular focus on the research aspect of writing and argumentation, or the materials could be useful on its own, for instructors who do not teach with the Informed Arguments textbook. It addresses, most specifically, how to find and evaluate source material. It covers things like types of sources, biases, peer-review processes, and other information literacy skills helpful for successful college writing. It includes 1) general instructor notes, 2) an online discussion activity, 3) a quiz about evaluation of sources, 4) a Research Journal (short essay) assignment, 5) a rubric for the short essay, and 6) a further information resource guide for faculty about information literacy and the college classroom.

Part 1: https://pressbooks.library.tamu.edu/engl1301/chapter/research-and-argumentation-teacher-facing-lesson/
Part 2: https://pressbooks.library.tamu.edu/engl1301/chapter/research-and-information-literacy-student-facing-assignment/

Author: Michael Gardin
Editor: Mary Landry, C. Anneke Snyder
Supervisor: Terri Pantuso