Accelerated Stretch Composition for Multilingual Students I/II

About the OERs

Selected Open Educational Resources

Description:  

My set of materials come from a variety of sources including journals and news articles, open source textbooks, book excerpts, films, etc. I also use online resources such as dictionaries and handbooks as supplementary material. In choosing my materials, I keep in mind the “Fair Use” rules and guidelines.

Authors:

• Variety of Authors

Formats:  

All of the resources are available on the class Blackboard site. They are in a variety of forms, including Word documents, PDFs, and online articles.

Supplemental resources: 

• Adler, “How to Mark a Book”
• Bunn, "How to Read Like a Writer"
• Bruner, "Life as a Narrative"*   
• Kubota, “My Experience of Learning to Read and Write in Japanese as L1 and English as L2”** 
• Jay-Z, excerpt from Decoded  
• Sofia’s Literacy Narrative  
• Murray, "All Writing is Autobiography" 
• Sontag, "Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as Needed"   
• Mike Rose, “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer's Block”  
• Williams, "The Phenomenology of Error"  
• White, "My Five-Paragraph-Theme Theme"
• John Swales, "The Concept of Discourse Community"
• James Paul Gee, "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction
• James Porter, "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community"
• David Bartholomae, "Inventing the University"

*Bruner
This is a link to the Bruner article

**Kubota
This is a link to the Kubota article

Cost savings:  

I previously used Writing about Writing: A College Reader, Second Edition by Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs. It currently retails for $59.22 on Amazon. Since I teach this class to about 70 students each year, this is a potential annual saving for students of $4,145.40. 

Diversity statement: 

My course materials are sensitive to the needs of multilingual students. 

License:

Each resource has its own licensing information.

About the Course

ENG 105B: Accelerated Stretch Composition I  for Multilingual Students

ENG 106B: Accelerated Stretch Composition II  for Multilingual Students

Description:  

ENG 105B - Analysis and use of strategies for conducting research and critically reading and writing expository texts. Explores relationships among language, meaning, and context, and emphasizes writing as a recursive process and a means of critical thinking. Students identify themselves for placement in this course through Directed Self-Placement and through self-identification as a speaker of a native or home language other than English. Students who meet these two criteria may also opt to take ENG 105A instead of ENG 105B. Students will remain with the same cohort of classmates in the same time slot across ENG 105B -ENG 106B.

ENG 106B - Further examination of how written language functions in context. Builds students' abilities to conduct research and to integrate it into their own arguments. Students will remain with the same cohort of classmates in the same time slot across ENG 105B - ENG 106B. 

ENG 105B and ENG 106B is a two-course first-year writing sequence designed specifically for multilingual students. As part of the First-Year Writing program, this course sequence “explores the relationships among language, meaning, and context” (English CSUSB). It emphasizes writing as a means of critical thinking and inquiry. It also plays an important role in introducing students to college life and academic habits of mind.  The course sequence fulfills the GE A1 requirement and functions as a prerequisite for many other courses in the university.

Students who enroll in ENG 105B and ENG 106B are first-year students who speak two or more languages.  They include international students, students who were born in the U.S., and students who came to the U.S. at an early age. As it is a GE course, students who enroll in this course sequence come from a wide range of majors.

Prerequisites: None

GE credit: 4 units each

Learning outcomes:

Students in this course sequence will:   

• Develop strategies for critical reading of texts and for conducting research 
• Explore various (rhetorical) choices available to writers 
• Understand the practice of revision 
• Explore how communities mediate our way of thinking, doing, and writing 
• Consider the idea that language constitutes meaning 
• Work through and thereby gain a deeper understanding of their own writing 

Curricular changes:

I have directed students to online resources, including:

• Heinle’s Newbury House Dictionary of American English (online), 
• Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, and 
• Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.

I also occasionally use YouTube videos and other multimodal resources.

Teaching and learning impacts:

Collaborate more with other faculties: Yes
Use wider range of materials: Yes
Student learning improved: Yes
Student retention improved: Unsure
Any unexpected results: Unsure

I sometimes turn to colleagues for text suggestions. 

I am able to work with a variety of authentic, “real-world” texts at the level of difficulty appropriate to the students, including peer-reviewed articles, personal narratives, podcasts, films, etc  

Because of the variety of resources used in the course, students are offered multiple opportunities to grow as readers and writers.

Sample assignment and Syllabus:

Assignment
This is an example of a project that I used in this class.

Syllabus
This is the syllabus I used for this class in Fall 2017.

OER Adoption

OER Adoption Process

I chose to put together my own material, in lieu of a traditional textbook, because it not only saves students money, it also gives students the opportunity to:   

• Engage with a variety of authentic, “real-world” texts/text sets at appropriate/various levels of difficulty  
• Delve into meaningful ideas and themes 
• Explore relevant genres/generic features 
• Consider various rhetorical and organizational patterns 
• Examine grammatical features 
• Build vocabulary (Hyon)

The above criteria are also consistent with first and second language reading and writing research. 

In order to find resources, I browsed various library databases and FYC textbooks. I also browsed open-source texts and various websites.   

Student access:  

Students may access materials on Blackboard. Occasionally, I provide them with printed materials.

Access to a computer and/or printer may be a challenge. To accommodate this and other similar challenges, students are given permission to use their computers or mobile devices, as a last resort. 

Student feedback or participation:

 Generally, students appreciate my efforts to save them money. Some quotes that are of interest are:

• I'm really happy that I didn't have to buy a book for both classes because I needed to use that money for other expenses.
• I appreciate the fact that all the materials can be found on Blackboard. They were easily accessible.

Chloe de Los Reyes, M.A. 

I am an English professor at the California State University, San Bernardino.

I teach:

• Eng 100 (Academic Speaking for Multilingual Writers) 
• Eng 102B, 103B, 104B (Stretch Composition I, II, and III for Multilingual Students)  
• Eng 105-106 (Accelerated Stretch Composition I and II) 
• Eng 105B-106B (Accelerated Stretch Composition I and II for Multilingual Students) 
• Eng 107 (Advanced Composition) 
• ESE 99, ESE 98 (Early Start English)

My studies in writing center theory and collaboration have had a heavy impact on the development of my first-year college writing curriculum. For example, I favor a classroom where students collaborate with other writers such as writing center tutors, their classmates, and myself. I also favor a class where students are able to position themselves as engaged readers and thoughtful writers. Moreover, my studies in Second Language Writing (L2) continue to shape my teaching pedagogy. I consciously strive to develop a classroom that is sensitive to the various cultural and language backgrounds/needs of my students.  In teaching, I consider both rhetorical and linguistic aspects of writing. As I take risks in my teaching, I encourage my students to do the same in their writing; I laugh with them; I laugh at myself; I also share my writing life with them–my struggles and all, and sometimes, even write alongside them.

My research interests include identity in the classroom, second language writing, intersections between teaching and tutoring, and the intersections between Composition and Applied Linguistics.