Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Writing Rhetorically: Framing First Year Writing
Kirk Fontenot; Shelley Rodrigue; Wanda Waller · LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network
This course equips students with a strong understanding of how to use rhetorical modes that underpin much academic writing. The textbook covers modes related to creative writing, such as narration and illustration, while also covering analytically-focused modes such as comparison and cause and effect. Detailed assignment sheets are supplemented by helpful student worksheets for each major paper assignment. The book's final chapter includes grammar and style exercises. This textbook has been heavily adapted from material taken from English Composition I: Rhetorical Methods-Based, an OER developed and authored by Lumen Learning. Each chapter’s author has edited and created new content using Lumen Learning’s text as its primary source material, except where otherwise indicated. Where applicable, other source materials have been noted at the chapter level. This textbook was created as part of the Interactive OER for Dual Enrollment project, facilitated by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and funded by a $2 million Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant from the Department of Education. This project supports the extension of access to high-quality post-secondary opportunities to high school students across Louisiana and beyond. This project features a collaboration between educational systems in Louisiana, the library community, Pressbooks technology partner, and workforce representatives. It will enable and enhance the delivery of open educational resources (OER) and interactive quiz and assessment elements for priority dual enrollment courses in Louisiana and nationally. Developed OER course materials will be released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification and sharing with others.The target audience for this project and this textbook are dual enrollment students. Dual enrollment is the opportunity for a student to be enrolled in high school and college at the same time. A dual enrollment student receives credit on both their high school and co
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Exploring the Arts: A Brief Introduction to Art, Theatre, Music, and Dance
Doris Hall; Kimberly Berkeley; Nubia Khan · LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network
This textbook was created as part of the Interactive OER for Dual Enrollment project, facilitated by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and funded by a $2 million Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant from the Department of Education. This project supports the extension of access to high-quality post-secondary opportunities to high school students across Louisiana and beyond. This project features a collaboration between educational systems in Louisiana, the library community, Pressbooks technology partner, and workforce representatives. It will enable and enhance the delivery of open educational resources (OER) and interactive quiz and assessment elements for priority dual enrollment courses in Louisiana and nationally. Developed OER course materials will be released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification and sharing with others. The target audience for this project and this textbook are dual enrollment students. Dual enrollment is the opportunity for a student to be enrolled in high school and college at the same time. A dual enrollment student receives credit on both their high school and college transcripts for the same course.
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Music Appreciation: History, Culture, and Context
Bonnie Le; Francis Scully; Steven Edwards · LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network
Music makes us human. Every culture on earth has music. In fact, every human society extending back into prehistoric times has had music. Most of us are surrounded by music. We use it to enhance our mood and to regulate our metabolism, to keep us awake and help us go to sleep, as background to accompany the work, study, exercise, and relaxation that fills our days. But it is precisely when music steps out of this background and asks for our attention, engages our memory and our expectations, that it becomes a fundamentally artistic endeavor. Music is a sonic response to a question that’s not really about sound at all, but rather is historical and social. The study of music is the study of human thought, experience, and history. This course is about the musical imagination. It’s how to think about music, but it’s also about music as a mode of thinking. (inspired by Michael Hays, Professor of Architectural Theory at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design: Welcome to The Architectural Imagination (edx.org). This textbook was created as part of the Interactive OER for Dual Enrollment project, facilitated by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and funded by a $2 million Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant from the Department of Education. This project supports the extension of access to high-quality post-secondary opportunities to high school students across Louisiana and beyond. This project features a collaboration between educational systems in Louisiana, the library community, Pressbooks technology partner, and workforce representatives. It will enable and enhance the delivery of open educational resources (OER) and interactive quiz and assessment elements for priority dual enrollment courses in Louisiana and nationally. Developed OER course materials will be released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification and sharing with others.The target audience for this project and this textbook are dual enrollment students. Dual enrollment is t
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Libro Libre: An Introduction to Spanish I
Erin Huebener; Handy Cuellar; Yelani Feldman · LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network
Welcome to Elementary Spanish! This textbook was designed in cooperation with the Louisiana Board of Regents Open Educational Textbook Pilot program. Designed by Elementary Instructors as a cooperative effort across Louisiana, this textbook will introduce you to the basic elements of the Spanish language through the use of self directed and active learning. This book is an adaptation of the open textbook “¡LIBRO LIBRE!: A free textbook for introductory Spanish” (which can be found at http://librolibre.net/) and was written by Erin Huebener. We have adapted Libro Libre: A Free Textbook for Introductory Spanish, originally released in 2018, to better fit a traditional 16-week semester schedule. “Libro Libre: A Free Textbook for Introductory Spanish” is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. This textbook was created as part of the Interactive OER for Dual Enrollment project, facilitated by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and funded by a $2 million Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant from the Department of Education. This project supports the extension of access to high-quality post-secondary opportunities to high school students across Louisiana and beyond. This project features a collaboration between educational systems in Louisiana, the library community, Pressbooks technology partner, and workforce representatives. It will enable and enhance the delivery of open educational resources (OER) and interactive quiz and assessment elements for priority dual enrollment courses in Louisiana and nationally. Developed OER course materials will be released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification and sharing with others.The target audience for this project and this textbook are dual enrollment students. Dual enrollment is the opportunity for a student to be enrolled in high school and college at the same time. A dual enrollment student receives credit on both their high school and college transcripts for the same course.
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Rhetoric Matters: A Guide to Success in the First Year Writing Class
Adam Falik; Dorie La Rue; Tracey Watts · LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network · 2022
Rhetoric Matters: A Guide to Success in the First Year Writing Class offers students necessary concepts and practice to learn all the elements needed for successful first year writing and set the stage for future writing success in college. This textbook was created as part of the Interactive OER for Dual Enrollment project, facilitated by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and funded by a $2 million Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant from the Department of Education. This project supports the extension of access to high-quality post-secondary opportunities to high school students across Louisiana and beyond. This project features a collaboration between educational systems in Louisiana, the library community, Pressbooks technology partner, and workforce representatives. It will enable and enhance the delivery of open educational resources (OER) and interactive quiz and assessment elements for priority dual enrollment courses in Louisiana and nationally. Developed OER course materials will be released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification and sharing with others.The target audience for this project and this textbook are dual enrollment students. Dual enrollment is the opportunity for a student to be enrolled in high school and college at the same time. A dual enrollment student receives credit on both their high school and college transcripts for the same course.
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American Literatures After 1865
Scott Peterson; Amy Berke; Robert Bleil · University of Missouri - St. Louis
This book is an anthology of American Literatures After 1865, a reimagining of the open educational resource: Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature 1865 to Present.
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The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric
Jill Parrot; Dominic Ashby; Jonathon Collins · Eastern Kentucky University Libraries · 2022
An Open Textbook for English 101: Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric at Eastern Kentucky University
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The Bible and Music
James McGrath · PALNI · 2023
The Bible and Music by Dr. James F. McGrath provides an introduction and overview of the various ways that music and the Bible have been and continue to be connected. Part 1 focuses on history, presenting what we know about how music in the Ancient Near East sounded, how markings in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible have been interpreted as musical symbols, how chanting of biblical texts has featured liturgically in synagogues and churches, the impact of the Protestant Reformation, and musical developments in North America as enslaved Africans encountered biblical texts and stories. Part 2 focuses on specific texts in Jewish and Christian scripture and looks at how they have been interpreted through the process of setting them to music, including the soundtracks of cinematic depictions of biblical narrative and allusions to the Bible in popular music. Part 3 focuses on composers from the Middle Ages all the way down to the present day. Throughout the book, musical examples are not merely mentioned but embedded so that reading and listening may be seamlessly combined. The book does not presume prior knowledge of either music or the Bible, and additional links within the text provide definitions and further explanations for those who need or desire them.
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Hujambo! A Standards-Based Approach to Introductory Kiswahili
Brenda Wawire · Open Language Resource Center at the University of Kansas · 2022
Hujambo! provides a complete curriculum for introductory Kiswahili that chronicles the adventures of two American students studying abroad in Tanzania for an academic year. It is designed for an introductory Kiswahili course at the college level with approximately 150 contact hours of instruction (5 hours a week for two 15-week semesters, or 5 hours a week for three 10-week quarters). It provides a foundational understanding of Kiswahili and the cultures of those who share it as a common language. Students will acquire the basics of Kiswahili grammar and build a core vocabulary of approximately 1,000 words, including the most common words for everyday interactions and the individual vocabulary they need to speak about their own academic and personal lives.
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Knowledge For Humans
Charlie Huenemann · Charlie Huenemann
Knowledge for Humans is a textbook aimed at introducing students to fundamental questions about knowledge and skepticism. Many topics often covered in epistemology textbooks are also covered here, such as radical Cartesian skepticism, phenomenalism, externalism, and naturalism. But the text also covers useful topics that are not usually included, such as the social conditions for knowledge, common fallacies, Bayesianism, the internet, conspiracy theories, and how we should go about arguing with one another. It’s written in an easy-going style with clear examples and funny diagrams.
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#TheatreAppreciation
Kiara Pipino · SUNY Oneonta · 2022
#TheatreAppreciation is a textbook for introductory level lecture classes such as Theatre Appreciation and Introduction to Theatre. It provides insight about the art and craft of theatre, a brief exploration of theatre history, and discussion about the styles and forms of theatre along with an overview of professions in the field.
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Elementary Chinese II
Wenying Zhou · Michigan State University · 2022
Elementary Chinese II is aimed at those who have learned Chinese as a second/foreign language for one semester, using the OER textbook “Elementary Chinese I“. This open textbook contains six main lessons, including topics such as school life, shopping, transportation, weather, eating out, and asking and giving directions. They are organized in a straightforward and well-structured manner that are easy to follow. Within each lesson, there are a set of two dialogues or a set of one dialogue plus one narration. The texts of the dialogues or narrations are created to provide real-life Chinese language to beginning learners. After the texts, vocabulary words are listed for them to study and review. Grammatical points are explained in English and example sentences are provided for students to understand. Each dialogue or narration ends with culture notes where learners can read and better understand the target text.
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Elementary Chinese I
Wenying Zhou · Michigan State University · 2022
This open textbook is designed for beginners learning Chinese as a second/foreign language. This book aims to introduce learners to standard Chinese pronunciation, character knowledge, basic conversational phrases, grammar and vocabulary use, and cultural knowledge. Throughout the eight chapters, learners will explore: greetings and self-introduction, hobbies, nationalities, family members and occupations, inviting friends to dinner, talking about food and beverage, making phone calls, and talking about classes and exams. Learning activities include audio recordings so students can listen to the pronunciation of vocabulary words and observe dialogue between speakers. The book also includes videos with captions, allowing learners to listen, watch, and read. Original interactive activities have been created by the author to facilitate the practice of target vocabulary and dialogues.
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Elementary Arabic I
Sadam Issa; Ayman Mohamed · Michigan State University · 2022
This open textbook is intended for beginning students of Arabic in their first semester. This OER is unique in its presentation of Arabic language content through theme-based modules. Each theme is addressed through vocabulary, grammar, reading, speaking, and writing components. Each chapter includes self-check embedded quizzes that help learners digest language concepts. The book is also designed with teachers in mind. Each chapter includes pair work and group tasks that the teacher can implement in class and other parts that can be assigned as homework. The focus of the book is to build literacy in Standard Arabic structure in a simplified and sequenced approach while emphasizing speaking skills. By the end of this course, students will be well prepared for building their competence in a sequenced and organized manner in the following parts of this series.
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Basic Urdu
Rajiv Ranjan · Michigan State University · 2022
Basic Urdu is a theme-based, interactive open-source online textbook for the true novice learners of the Urdu language. The book uses mixed pedagogical approaches to language teaching to match diverse teaching and learning styles. It aims to help learners achieve intermediate low to mid-proficiency levels set by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).
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Basic Khmer
Vathanak Sok · Michigan State University · 2022
This online interactive theme-based open textbook is for beginner learners of the Khmer language. This book aims to provide a practical introduction to speaking, listening, and reading. By the end of this course, students will be at the B1 level of the Common Framework for Language and at the low intermediate level on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency scales. Basic Khmer is funded by the Open Educational Resources Program at Michigan State University.
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Music on the Move
Danielle Fosler-Lussier · University of Michigan Press · 2020
Music is a mobile art. When people move to faraway places, whether by choice or by force, they bring their music along. Music creates a meaningful point of contact for individuals and for groups; it can encourage curiosity and foster understanding; and it can preserve a sense of identity and comfort in an unfamiliar or hostile environment. As music crosses cultural, linguistic, and political boundaries, it continually changes. While human mobility and mediation have always shaped music-making, our current era of digital connectedness introduces new creative opportunities and inspiration even as it extends concerns about issues such as copyright infringement and cultural appropriation. With its innovative multimodal approach, Music on the Move invites readers to listen and engage with many different types of music as they read. The text introduces a variety of concepts related to music's travels—with or without its makers—including colonialism, migration, diaspora, mediation, propaganda, copyright, and hybridity. The case studies represent a variety of musical genres and styles, Western and non-Western, concert music, traditional music, and popular music. Highly accessible, jargon-free, and media-rich, Music on the Move is suitable for students as well as general-interest readers. Citable link: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9853855
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Foundational Sight Singing
Tobin Stewart · TRAILS · 2022
Sight reading music can be a daunting endeavor for aspiring, and even experienced, musicians. Foundational Sight Singing was created to provide a systematic approach to learn to read, hear and perform music. The ordered presentation of both melodies and rhythms in this text helps students develop accuracy and fluency in sight singing which is a fundamental skill for all musicians. It is a text for developing proficiency in reading and sight singing that can be used in a variety of contexts from individual practice to choral or instrumental ensemble rehearsals to college ear training courses. Multiple exercises are provided for drilling and practice at each level throughout the text to grow the students’ fluency and proficiency in reading and performing pitch and rhythm. This text will help students build a solid foundation upon which they can establish mastery.
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Writing as Inquiry: A Guide to WR 121 at the University of Oregon
Kara Clevinger; Stephen Rust · University of Oregon Libraries · 2022
Welcome to our creative commons OER (open educational resource) for Writing 121 at the University of Oregon. This resource is designed for students to be a zero-cost, high-quality guide to academic writing, with the goal of preparing you for success in college and beyond.
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An Introduction to Logic: From Everyday Life to Formal Systems
Albert Mosley; Eulalio Baltazar · Smith College Open Educational Resources: Textbooks · 2019
An introduction to the discipline of logic covering subjects from the structures of arguments, classical and modern logic, categorical and inductive inferences, to informal fallacies. Over 30 years of development provides a sound empirical based pedagogy throughout the text. Examples in ordinary language using familiar examples avoids the suggestion of an alien cultural imposition. A focus on the basic representational techniques of classical and modern logic. Students introduced to basic concepts of set theory, using Venn diagrams to represent statements and evaluate arguments. Students introduced to basic concepts of propositional logic and the use of truth-tables. Students introduced to basic concepts of predicate logic and the use of mixed quantifiers. Students introduced to the relationship between logic diagrams, circuit diagrams, and gate diagrams in computer science. Students introduced to the use of logic in ordinary and scientific contexts. Students provided a historical introduction to the development of modern probability theory and its relationship to logic. Students introduced to basic concepts of statistical inference, with non-technical treatments of hasty and biased statistical generalizations. And a unique treatment of stereotypical thinking in terms of statistical syllogisms. Students introduced to basic notions in analogical and causal inference. Exercises requiring both passive (recognition) and active (construction) skills. Exercises including locutions and examples from standard English and ethnic dialects of English (African-American, Hispanic-American, etc) Answers for sample exercises provided, making the text closer to a self-teaching module