Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Alternatives to Agonism: Ethical Approaches to Argument in the Composition Classroom
Kristina Fennelly · The Pennsylvania Alliance for Design of Open Textbooks (PA-ADOPT) · 2025
This textbook urges students to reconsider traditional notions of argument by inviting them to explore non-adversarial approaches to the arguments that structure their academic and every day lives. After briefly exploring familiar aspects of the “argument culture”—a pervasive, warlike approach to polarizing issues—the textbook turns its attention to unearth more constructive approaches based in listening rhetoric, feminist rhetoric, Rogerian rhetoric, empathy, respect, civility, and an overall ethical treatment of argument. Using the context of a town hall meeting, students are guided in practicing deliberation, investigation, and content analysis of arguments that play out in public social media forums. Chapters feature class discussion exercises, sample essay assignments, and links to relevant Ted Talks, podcasts, and other multi-media sources. The textbook concludes with reflection pieces written by Kutztown University students, alumni, faculty, and staff who all seek to answer the prevailing question of this textbook: “What does it mean to be a worthy arguer?”
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Advanced Composition
Collette Bliss; Ashleigh Severson · University of Arkansas · 2024
Welcome to Advanced Composition! In this course, we embark on a journey through the art and craft of writing, exploring various forms, styles, and purposes of composition. Over the semester, we will delve into four distinct units, each designed to equip students with the necessary information to complete the four major assignments in the course.
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A Guide to Composition
Sandra Leonard · The Pennsylvania Alliance for Design of Open Textbooks (PA-ADOPT) · 2025
A Guide to Composition (2025) is an introduction to college writing and research. The text begins by defining basic principles of rhetoric and composition using popular texts such as advertisements, speeches, and news media. This textbook then moves to the specific genres of narrative and argument. Elements of the writing process are emphasized throughout the text in addressing writing center use, idea generation, library use, peer review, and ethical attribution including some discussion of A.I. Each chapter is written by current or former Kutztown University faculty and students, making it particularly well-suited to Kutztown University students; however, chapters two through eight are particularly inviting to wider audiences. Each chapter contains a number of writing process activities that may be useful as classroom activities or homework assignments.
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Music Composition & Theory
Justin Rubin · University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2024
A Step-by-Step Method for student composers to write in a variety of styles, genres, and forms. Driven by simple model examples and accompanied by audio samples, it is intended to develop individual creativity and confidence in writing and, in so doing, explore the student’s inherent expressive talents. Each chapter provides reference examples from the literature for the student to discover works by master composers.
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Supporting English Language Learners in First-Year College Composition
Breana Bayraktar; Elaine George; Nataliya Schetchikova · Virginia's Academic Library Consortium (VIVA) · 2023
Supporting ELLs in FYC is organized around five key essays, selected to coordinate with the essay styles commonly taught in first-year/first-semester composition courses. This organization is planned to offer instructors the flexibility to best support the pacing of the composition course. There are 2 expository, 1 narrative, and 2 argument essays. Each module includes one essay, with accompanying activities and supporting materials. Expository: Sweet, Sour & Resentful Expository: Why Rituals Are Good Narrative: Prison to Professor Argument: Fake News Argument: Misinformation
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Advanced Community College ESL Composition: An Integrated Skills Approach
Edgar Perez; Sara Behseta; Jenell Rae · Academic Senate for California Community Colleges · 2020
This book has been created to provide a framework for building your skills in writing and critical thinking. It provides access to published samples from professional authors along with essay drafts from ESL students who have polished their skills in their respective writing courses. The themes in the readings will give you a variety of topics to discuss with your classmates, which may inspire your own deeper thinking and writing. Overall, we hope that as you proceed through these chapters, you will build confidence and develop your voice in the classroom and beyond. Welcome to the world of academic writing!
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You, Writing! A Guide to College Composition
Kelli Hallsten-Erickson; Amy Swing · Minnesota State Colleges and Universities · 2025
This text is meant to be used in any first year College Composition class or as a general guide to college writing. The book focuses on writing as a process, not a product. The goal is to help students discover their own writing process, trying out different methods and strategies to find what works best for them.
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Critical Expressivism: Theory and Practice in the Composition Classroom
Tara Roeder; Roseanne Gatto · WAC Clearinghouse · 2014
Critical Expressivism is an ambitious attempt to re-appropriate intellectual territory that has more often been charted by its detractors than by its proponents. Indeed, as Peter Elbow observes in his contribution to this volume, "As far as I can tell, the term 'expressivist' was coined and used only by people who wanted a word for people they disapproved of and wanted to discredit." The editors and contributors to this collection invite readers to join them in a new conversation, one informed by "a belief that the term expressivism continues to have a vitally important function in our field."
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Composing Ourselves and our World
Elizabeth Burrows, Angela Fowler, Heath Fowler, and Amy Locklear · Auburn University at Montgomery
In the contents: 01: Part I- The Composition Process
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International Advances in Writing Research - Cultures, Places, Measures
Bazerman et al. · LibreTexts
The thirty chapters in this edited collection were selected from the more than 500 presentations at the Writing Research Across Borders II Conference in 2011. With representatives from more than forty countries, this conference gave rise to the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research. The chapters selected for this collection represent cutting edge research on writing from all regions, organized around three themes—cultures, places, and measures.
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Grammar Anatomy (Brehe)
Steven Brehe · University of North Georgia
Brehe’s Grammar Anatomy makes grammar accessible to general and specialist readers alike. This book provides an in-depth look at beginner grammar terms and concepts, providing clear examples with limited technical jargon. Whether for academic or personal use, Brehe’s Grammar Anatomy is the perfect addition to any resource library.
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Writing in College - From Competence to Excellence
Amy Guptill · The College at Brockport, 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.
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Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing I
Charles Lowe & Pavel Zemliansky · LibreTexts
In the contents: Introduction: Open Source Composition Texts Arrive for College Writers
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Rhetoric - What, Why, and How?
Skyline English Department · Skyline College
First off, rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the ability of writers and speakers to inform, persuade and motivate. This textbook, Skyline’s Writing & Reading Rhetoric, was written by English teachers at Skyline College with contributions from our Librarians and ESOL teachers with the goal of providing clear and consistent instruction on how to recognize and apply successful writing, reading, and research strategies.
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Legal Writing Manual
Jean Mangan et al. · University System of Georgia
This text provides an overview of first-year legal writing topics and provides checkpoints during your writing process. On the other hand, this manual does not answer every question on every legal writing concept; it is certainly not a spell book that will make you instantly awesome at legal writing. Writing as a skill is a lifelong development process. Everyone can be an effective legal writer. Put in the time to study the concepts and then to practice using those concepts in your writing.
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The Centrality of Style
Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri · LibreTexts
In the contents: 2: An Ethics of Attentions - Three Continuums of Classical and Contemporary Stylistic Manipulation for the 21st Century Composition Classroom · 3: Stylistic Sandcastles: Rhetorical Figures as Compositions Bucket and Spade
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Writing for Success
Rebecca Weaver Ed. · Georgia State University
Writing well is difficult, we get it. It's hard to put your thoughts into text, but it is essential to success, not only in school but in life. Communication is essential in every career field. To know something is great, but it doesn't help anyone but you, until you can share that knowledge with others. That is the essence of communication.
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Accelerated English
Ashley Paul · Lumen Learning
Accelerated English is your all-in-one guide to college writing success. Covering essays, research, and literary analysis, it blends clear instruction, diverse readings, student samples, and practical exercises. Build confidence, master the writing process, and develop critical thinking skills to succeed in the classroom and beyond.
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Literacy for College Success
Donald Winter and Amee Schmidt · Delta College
This book is a compilation of four primary texts, which we significantly remixed and edited, as well as original compositions of our own. The basis for the organization and the majority of the first two chapters of this book are adapted from Fran Bozarth’s Reading & Writing for Learning.
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Teaching Autoethnography - Personal Writing in the Classroom
Melissa Tombro · SUNY The Fashion Institute of Technology
This text is dedicated to the practice of immersive ethnographic and autoethnographic writing that encourages authors to participate in the communities about which they write. This book draws not only on critical qualitative inquiry methods such as interview and observation, but also on theories and sensibilities from creative writing and performance studies, which encourage self-reflection and narrative composition.