Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Fundamentals, Function, and Form: Theory and Analysis of Tonal Western Art Music
Andre Mount · Milne Open Textbooks · 2020
Fundamentals, Function, and Form by Andre Mount—with editorial and pedagogical input from Lee Rothfarb—provides its readers with a comprehensive study of the theory and analysis of tonal Western art music. Mount begins by building a strong foundation in the understanding of rhythm, meter, and pitch as well as the notational conventions associated with each. From there, he guides the reader through an exploration of polyphony—the simultaneous sounding of multiple independent melodies—and an increasingly rich array of different sonorites that grow out of this practice. The book culminates with a discussion of musical form, engaging with artistic works in their entirety by considering the interaction of harmonic and thematic elements, but also such other musical dimensions as rhythm, meter, texture, and expression. Along the way, Mount supplements the text with over eight hundred musical examples which, in the online version of the text, include embedded audio files for immediate aural reinforcement of theoretical concepts. Most of these examples are drawn from the literature, including nearly 200 excerpts by women and other underrepresented groups. The reader is also given the opportunity to check their understanding of the text with interactive exercises at every step of the way. Fundamentals, Function, and Form was written with the undergraduate music student in mind, but self-guided readers would also be rewarded with a deep understanding of this musical tradition.
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Yo puedo: segundos pasos
Elizabeth Silvaggio-Adams; Rocío Vallejo-Alegre · Milne Open Textbooks · 2021
Perhaps you remembered what the title of your book means from your previous experiences with Spanish. That is a great start! As you begin the equivalent of a second semester Spanish course with these materials, some of you might think about how long it has been since you studied Spanish while others may come to the class with some background knowledge. We want you to know this book has been designed with many types of learners in mind. Our goals were to address the need for students to achieve the ability to communicate in written and spoken form. We sought to address a common statement by students that may have previous experiences, be they from secondary school or another college that say, “I have studied Spanish for years and don’t know how to speak or write it.” We also sought to present a reasonable alternative to the expensive textbooks and online packages that don’t seem to be practical or relevant. We sought to enhance second language learning by creating our own materials that take a new approach, the flipped classroom model, to learning a second language based upon the skills that we deem most useful and that will enable our students to confidently express themselves in Spanish–tú puedes con Yo puedo 2.
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Yo puedo: para empezar
Elizabeth Silvaggio-Adams; Rocío Vallejo-Alegre · Milne Open Textbooks · 2021
You have learned two words in a second language just by reading the title of the book. Think about that for a moment and reflect upon your prior foreign language experiences. Often, students enter language classes with previously acquired skills, be they from secondary school or another college. Many say, “I have studied Spanish for years and don’t know how to speak or write it,” while others are a bit anxious about taking a second language for the first time, but all are overwhelmed by the expensive textbooks and online packages that don’t seem to be practical or relevant. We sought to change these common complaints by creating materials that take a new approach to learning a second language based upon the skills that we deem most useful and that will enable our students to confidently express themselves in Spanish.The text is designed for beginning Spanish language students. The pedagogical approach incorporates the flipped classroom methodology.
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Writing for Change: An Advanced ELL Resource
Inés Poblet · Whatcom Community College · 2021
This book has been a part of my pandemic journey with a goal of building English language learner resources, gathering up what I have learned about anti-racist, culturally responsive, and decolonization approaches. I know that I have not nearly met this goal in this single resource and that there is so much more to do. I am simply starting on the collective path and am so humbled to join fellow colleagues in the work of rewriting the myths and false narratives of our field. This goes well beyond one specific discipline. It is a call to all educators and all institutions to choose love in action, to choose change. This OER text includes the following: an introduction to creating a collectivist culture to support learning models and activities about multiple ways of organizing ideas in an essay. short readings and discussion highlighting the work of community organizers, activists, and social justice movements writing prompts that ask learners to synthesize, reflect on, and connect to the topics projects inviting learners to apply the content to their community environment additional resources offering multiple modalities for further learning including videos, articles, and podcasts a contrastive and multilingual approach to exploring grammar patterns to support writing
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Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom
Robert Hutchinson · Robert Hutchinson · 2017
Music Theory for the 21st–Century Classroom is an openly–licensed online four–semester college music theory textbook. This text differs from other music theory textbooks by focusing less on four–part (SATB) voiceleading and more on relating harmony to the phrase. Also, in traditional music theory textbooks, there is little emphasis on motivic analysis and analysis of melodic units smaller than the phrase. In my opinion, this led to students having difficulty with creating melodies, since the training they are given is typically to write a “melody” in quarter notes in the soprano voice of part writing exercises. When the assignments in those texts ask students to do more than this, the majority of the students struggle to create a melody with continuity and with appropriate placement of harmonies within a phrase because the text had not prepared them to do so. In Music Theory for the 21st–Century Classroom, students learn about motive, fragment, phrase, and subphrase, as well as types of melodic alteration like inversion, intervallic change, augmentation, diminution, rhythmic change, ornamentation, extension, and retrograde. By understanding motive and subphrase (also known as “phrase segment” or “phrase member”), I believe students will better understand the logic and construction of melodies, which will aid them in creating their own music. This text is meant to take the student from the basics of reading and writing pitches and rhythms through twelve–tone technique and minimalism over the course of four semesters. Whenever possible, examples from popular music and music from film and musical theater are included to illustrate melodic and harmonic concepts, usually within the context of the phrase.
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Writing Fabulous Features
Nicole Kraft · The Ohio State University Pressbooks · 2019
"Writing Fabulous Features" teaches the art and craft of feature writing to help readers learning to write non-fiction with flair.
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Basic Hindi I
Rajiv Ranjan · LibreTexts · 2021
Basic Hindi I is an online, interactive, and tech-enhanced textbook that promotes speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural skills. Each Chapter in this book has clear stated learning outcomes, a review of previous chapters, reading/listening sections, study abroad section, relevant grammatical items, and cultural notes. The pedagogical approach in the book is mixed and informed by the socio-cultural approaches and the generative approaches of the Second Language Acquisition theory. The mixed theoretical backgrounds match diverse learning and teaching philosophies and styles. Following the learning outcomes guided by American Council of Teaching Foreign Language (ACTFL), this textbook aims for the novice learners to attain intermediate low to mid-level proficiency level. The textbook incorporates pictures, audio-visual materials, and activities developed on the H5P platform to keep learners engaged.
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¡Que viva la música!: Repaso de conversación en español
Norma Corrales-Martin · North Broad Press · 2021
¡Qué viva la música! Repaso de conversación en español, or Long Live Music! Spanish Conversational Review is an open textbook intended for conversational review, typically a fourth-semester Spanish class. The textbook is organized around nine different songs that provide students opportunities to practice, aurally and orally, as well as in writing, the main communicative goals and key grammatical structures learned in previous classes. It can also be used in similar high school classes.
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A Christmas Carol
Timothy Krause · Open Oregon Educational Resources · 2020
This version of the classic holiday story has been slightly abridged and lightly adapted for advanced students of English language. The text includes comprehension checks, discussion questions, and collaborative activities.
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Howdy or Hello?: Technical and Professional Communications
Matt McKinney; Kalani Pattison; Sarah LeMire; Kathy Anders · Texas A&M University · 2021
Technical writing courses introduce you to some of the most important aspects of writing in the worlds of science, technology, and business—in other words, the kind of writing that scientists, nurses, doctors, computer specialists, government officials, engineers, and other professionals do as a part of their regular work. The skills learned in technical writing courses can be useful in other fields as well, including education and social sciences.
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Explorations 1: Grammar for the Experienced Beginner
Susan Caisee; Jennifer Rueda; Kristee Emens-Hesslink · Open Oregon Educational Resources · 2021
Welcome to Explorations 1: Grammar for the Experienced Beginner. This English grammar textbook was designed for a class of Clackamas Community College (CCC) ESOL students who need only a review of the BE verb and are ready to learn the simple present and present progressive tenses. This textbook has four chapters. Each chapter covers a grammatical point/component/element. Chapter 1 is a review of the BE verb. The BE is special and has its own rules (different from other verbs). Chapter 2 is the Present Progressive tense. This is the tense we use when we are talking about things happening now or near now. Chapter 3 is the Simple Present Tense. We use the Simple Present Tense to talk about facts, routines, and habitual activities. Chapter 4 is a comparison of chapter 3 and 4.
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Technical Writing for Technicians
Will Fleming · Open Oregon Educational Resources · 2020
Technical Writing for CTE is an open source e-textbook designed specifically for use in LBCC’s WD4 (Technical Writing for Welders) and all versions of IN4 (Technical Writing for CTE).
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Guide to Italian art in the 1400s
Ruth Ezra; Beth Harris; Steven Zucker · Smarthistory · 2020
This book contains all of Smarthistory’s content for Italian art in the 1400s.
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Guide to Italian art in the 1300s
Ruth Ezra; Beth Harris; Steve Zucker · Smarthistory · 2020
This book contains all of Smarthistory’s content for Italian art in the 1300s.
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An Outline History of East Asia to 1200
Sarah Schneewind · eScholarship · 2020
This is the second edition of the open access textbook that arose out of a course at the University of California, San Diego, called HILD 10: East Asia: The Great Tradition. The course covers what have become two Chinas, Japan, and two Koreas from roughly 1200 BC to about AD 1200. As we say every Fall in HILD 10: “2400 years, three countries, ten weeks, no problem.” The book does not stand alone: the teacher should assign primary and secondary sources, study questions, dates to be memorized, etc. The maps mostly use the same template to enable students to compare them one to the next. The 1st edition is in the supplemental material tab.
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Mindful Technical Writing: An Introduction to the Fundamentals
Dawn Atkinson; Stacey Corbitt · Montana Technological University · 2026
Welcome to Mindful Technical Writing: An Introduction to the Fundamentals, an open textbook designed for use in corequisite course pairings of developmental writing and introductory technical writing, or indeed in other lower-division college writing courses that focus on building study skills alongside effective workplace and academic writing skills. It offers a no-cost alternative to commercial products, combining practical guidance with interactive exercises and thoughtfully designed writing opportunities. This textbook is organized into units, though its chapters are modular so that instructors can select and assign readings and exercises for their particular classes rather than be tied to a fixed route through the material. Its Creative Commons licensing allows instructors to customize chapters for specific learners and educational contexts, and the built-in activities can be modified and supplemented as desired to suit teaching preferences. The book’s ample coverage of topics and genres means that it can be used flexibly over semester-long or stretch courses. If you would like to access a Word Document version of this text please email Author, Stacey Corbitt, scorbitt@mtech.edu.
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American Literature I: An Anthology of Texts From Early America Through the Civil War
Jenifer Kurtz · Virginia's Academic Library Consortium (VIVA) · 2020
This book offers an anthology of texts that includes letters, journals, poetry, newspaper articles, pamphlets, sermons, narratives, and short fiction written in and about America beginning with collected oral stories from Native American tribes and ending with the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Many major and minor authors are included, providing a sampling of the different styles, topics, cultures, and concerns present during the formation and development of America through the mid-nineteenth century.
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Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar!
Jeannette Okur · COERLL · 2021
Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! was developed for intermediate level Turkish language courses at the University of Texas at Austin. Intermediate learners and their instructors may use it for different purposes: self-study, classroom instruction, tutoring, or as a pastime. The lessons in Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! integrate reading, listening and viewing comprehension, writing and speaking practice, grammar, vocabulary, and cultural activities. Dozens of audio and video clips of Turkish speakers describing their lives, their culture, and their country support and enhance these activities. The Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! textbook, interactive H5P exercises, and YouTube channel comprise a media-rich open educational resource (OER) developed by Dr. Jeannette Okur at the University of Texas at Austin and published by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning under the U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant #P229A180003, with additional support from the UT Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services and the UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
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"The Death of Ivan Ilich": An Electronic Study Edition of the Russian Text
Gary Jahn · University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2020
The Russian text of "The Death of Ivan Ilich" is presented for study in various formats: accompanied by an English translation; fully glossed, with explanatory and interpretive annotations; and supplemented by introductory remarks and an extensive bibliography.
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Brass Techniques and Pedagogy
Brian Weidner · Palni Press · 2020
Textbook for undergraduate brass methods course focusing on brass instrument techniques and pedagogy.