All,
Please consider submitting a proposal for a new OER textbook for first-year writing. See the CFP below/attached.
WRITE THINGS WORTH READING
A New OER Textbook for FYC: Call for Submissions
In recent years, important theories and concepts have become tenets of the Writing Studies field and first-year composition (FYC) in particular. An incomplete list includes social justice (Condon and Young), linguistic justice (Baker-Bell), labor-based assessment (Inoue), antiracism (Inoue; Ruiz; Young), multimodal composing (Lutkewitte; Yancey), anticapitalist composition (Daniel), and decolonization (Ruiz and Sánchez). Additionally, we all (mostly) agree that FYC isn’t about grammar or perfecting sentence structure or literary analysis; it’s about critical thinking, advocating for justice, writing for transfer, opening minds to new possibilities, and much more.
But how well do current first-year writing textbooks reflect these important concepts? Do the chapters actually showcase linguistic justice, for example, or is it just incorporated into one or two supplemental readings? Additionally, how can we reflect these important ideals through quality OER materials that are accessible, welcoming, and engaging for students?
It’s time we create a new kind of textbook.
Write Things Worth Reading centers on inviting students to think, write, and do. Rather than long, text-heavy, explanatory chapters, we are seeking chapters that showcase various goals (see below) that are important to the Writing Studies field and FYC students in particular.
What We Are and Aren’t Looking For
We aim for this book to engage writers and invite them into the process of discovery. As such, we want chapters that show rather than tell and that invite students to think, consider, disrupt, and take action.
Throughout each chapter, we’d like to see transparency with the writing process, the use of multimodal composing, writing that’s from a distinct angle, and the incorporation of linguistic justice, ethics, technology, and writing for transfer. Thus, these concepts will probably not be specific chapters; instead, they will be components of all chapters.
For example, instead of creating a traditional chapter that tells students how to write ethically with AI, create a chapter in which you actually use AI tools to write about an important concept or topic. Show your revisions, show your prompts/questions for the AI, show your process, and reflect on it. Similarly, rather than a chapter outlining the importance of media literacy, create a chapter with multiple examples of fake news and misinformation. Reflect on and discuss how you were able to identify it and show us what we can do about it.
Other topics for chapters might include recognizing biases and addressing them, recognizing -isms, responding to the arguments of others, conducting ethical primary and secondary research, remixing, advocating, taking action, presenting, inviting critical and creative thinking, and more. Most importantly, write things worth reading.
Additionally, consider the following goals as fundamental to the purpose of the book.
Goals to Incorporate Throughout
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Showcasing the writing process
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Media literacy
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Recognizing fascism, racism, ableism, etc.
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Activism, citizenship, etc.
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Writing from a distinct angle
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Identifying/responding to misinformation, propaganda, demagoguery, and the like
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Linguistic justice
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Inviting creative and critical thinking
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Growth mindset
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Considering confirmation and other biases
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Self-care as part of the writing process
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Ethical research practices
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Conducting secondary research
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Conducting primary research
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Responding to others’ arguments
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Multimodal composing
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Community-oriented composing
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Writing for transfer
General Guidelines
The team developing this textbook seeks submissions that align with current (and future) best practices in FYC. To this end, we’ve created some general guidelines:
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Show more than tell: While some explanation may be necessary, we are not looking for top-down, explanatory chapters. In the classroom, most of us have shifted away from lectures, and we aim to similarly move toward enacting rhetoric and critical thinking in this textbook. We ask that you aim to invite students into the discussion and action surrounding specific concepts or purposes rather than only explaining concepts.
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Do codeswitching/codemeshing: There are lots of narratives and some essays that showcase codeswitching or codemeshing in FYC textbooks; however, these pieces are often framed by chapters or entire books written in SAE. We’d like to see the content of the chapters themselves reflect language possibilities. Stoodis!
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Do rhetoric: Too often, rhetoric falls short of taking action. We typically ask students to write rhetorical analyses, but to what end? What can they do with this skill? Our goal is to provide rhetoric as praxis for our student readers/writers. Let’s show them how and why rhetoric matters and what it does. How can we use rhetoric, writing, research, etc., for the betterment of society?
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Do writing: Also too often, textbooks are filled with chapters like “how to paraphrase” or “what is a paragraph?” We are looking for how YOU paraphrase and how YOU write a paragraph when researching and writing about important ideas. Create a chapter about something important that showcases your process. Add annotations and/or a reflection that discusses your revisions and how you went about deciding what to do next, what to discard, what to add, and so on.
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It shouldn’t be all text: We aim for this book to be highly engaging, multimodal, and as interactive as possible. Use images, graphs, charts, video, audio, etc. with context for their use. Create slides or infographics or anything else we can feasibly include.
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Make it accessible (non-negotiable): We want this textbook to be fully accessible to best serve all students and instructors. Therefore, we are developing a plan with the help of our dedicated Accessibility Consultant, who will work on each chapter to ensure accessibility is foundational to not only the textbook’s design but also its content. For example, consider how you might develop contributions with VARK principles in mind.
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Keep it short and to the point: Generally, we’d like each reading to be about 15 minutes or less of reading time; however, we know that this may not be possible for all chapters.
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Make it powerful: We want chapters that help to inspire students to think and write and want to make change or help others. As such, keep in mind that student writing might come in forms such as petitions, websites, podcasts, etc., and chapters of this book could as well.
Submissions
Please send 250-word proposals and a short bio of about 100 words to writethingsworthreading by Dec. 1st, 2023.
Multiple submissions are welcome!
Tentative Timeline
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Proposals Due: Dec. 1st, 2023
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Acceptances: Jan. 15th, 2024
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Chapters Due: Mar. 1st, 2024
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Book Publication: 2024-2025
Thank you,
Dr. Sarah Lonelodge (sarah.lonelodge)
Dr. Christina Lane
Dr. Katie Rieger
Lydia Welker, M.A.
Cecily Kuykendall, undergraduate editor
Thallan Schwartz, accessibility consultant
Best,
Sarah Lonelodge, PhD
Assistant Professor of English
Department of Languages and Literature
Eastern New Mexico University
she/her