2 Guide for Instructors: How To Use This Resource

This open educational resource (OER) was originally compiled for use in ENGL 1010 – Expository Writing, the first of Middle Tennessee State University’s two first-year writing courses. This brief guide is meant to introduce MTSU writing instructors to this OER, particularly how it is organized and how to navigate it. That said, we realize this resource may prove useful to instructors beyond MTSU, and we hope this guide will be helpful for that audience as well. This book is made for instructors and students, and the content cannot be put behind a paywall or on a website that charges for its use.

This OER is divided into five main sections, all of which are designed with ENGL 1010’s course objectives in mind. Each of these sections contains a number of readings related to the section’s topic, with many of those readings curated from other open-access texts. Readers are provided with an abstract of the piece, a link to a PDF of the piece (and sometimes a podcast), and then the full text. In addition to the rhetorical chapters, faculty are encouraged to share award-winning essays from the GEWA Archive. Beyond these excellent essays, this text does not include writing exemplars and models that you and your students might look to for inspiration in developing writing. You are encouraged to bring in your favorite readings to share with students, many of which can be found in the MTSU Library or through its databases. Because of the nature of OERs – free and open-access resources, such model texts by authors cannot be included.

The linked readings in this text come from different open-access, peer-reviewed collections:  Try This: Research Methods For Writers by Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Derek Mueller, and Kate Pantelides; Writing Spaces edited by Dana Driscoll, Mary K. Stewart, and Matthew Vetter; the Bad Ideas About Writing Podcast by Kyle Stedman; and Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe. Please note that the titles for all of the Bad Ideas About Writing essays are actually misleading myths about writing that circulate. It may be confusing, at first, to see these titles. And it is important to keep in mind the content of each essay dispels these popular beliefs about writing that can be found in the titles, by using research from the field.

While we hope that the readings in sections I–IV will help students prepare for corresponding writing projects and pursue the course objectives, instructors are of course welcome to assign readings from this OER out of sequence, selecting pieces when and how they see fit given their own approach to ENGL 1010! The following describes the approach of each section and its curricular connection:

• I. Rhetorical Reading and Composing, is meant to provide students with an introduction to and vocabulary for the kinds of rhetorically oriented reading and writing they will be engaging in throughout the course. The next four sections loosely correspond to major writing projects that students create in many sections of ENGL 1010.
• II. Literacy and Composing Processes: Students often begin ENGL 1010 by reflecting on and writing about their own literacy experiences in the form of a literacy narrative. The readings in “Literacy and Composing Processes” are meant to prepare students to compose a literacy narrative, whether as a conventional written text or as a multimodal composition.
• III. Primary Research and Ethical Research Practices: From there, students often turn to a project in which they use primary research methods (e.g., observation, interviews) to analyze the literacy practices of others. The readings in “III. Primary Research and Ethical Research Practices” introduce students to the work of primary research itself, as well as strategies for writing up research findings.
• IV. Genre and Methods of Analysis: Next, students typically turn to a project focused on the networked forms of literacy that unfold in discourse communities, genres, and other, more socially distributed literate contexts. The readings in “IV. Genre and Methods of Analysis” introduce students to how genres and discourse communities function, providing students with strategies for analyzing and writing about how language works in these kinds of social and rhetorical arenas (and thinking about their own literacy practices in their respective discourse communities).
• V. Reflection, Revision, and Transfer: Students are encouraged to engage in reflective writing throughout ENGL 1010, thinking back on and learning from what they’ve read and composed in the course. Often, students end the course with an in-depth piece of such writing, which may frame a final writing portfolio or serve as a standalone piece that articulates and supplements what they’ve learned. The readings in “V. Reflection, Revision, and Transfer” prepare students for this kind of reflection and offer guidance of transferring what they’ve learned in ENGL 1010 to the writing they’ll do in future courses, professional settings, and other extracurricular contexts.

These primary sections are followed by targeted resources about programmatic elements of first-year writing at MTSU (e.g., guided self-placement) and appendices that offer targeted support for citation, writing skills, and research development.

This collection includes a number of readings from Writing Spaces. Some of the PDF versions of those readings include teacher resources that you are welcome to consult. However, we have not included those resources in the student-facing versions of the readings reproduced in the collection.