Petty, Alesya
Course: ENGL 100A Writing Competency Through Genres
Course material: Coelho, Paulo. The Alchemist. Translated by Alan Clarke, Twenty fifth anniversary edition., HarperCollins Publishers, 2014. https://csu-sjsu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CALS_SJO/tu4ck5/alma991014110991202919
Course description: ENGL 100A course “prepares students for 100W through drafting, feedback, and revision to demonstrate writing competency. Develops ability to analyze written genres used in the students’ chosen disciplines as well as write analytical and reflective essays.”
Student Population: The course is for the students of all majors who would like to boost their writing skills for upper-division writing. It is popular with transfer students, international students, and multilingual learners. The prerequisites include the completion of 1B or equivalent second semester composition course (with a grade of C- or better); completion of core GE.
Syllabus and Sample assignments: This course used to have a custom reader that students had to purchase for $30 through a printer. Additionally, students had to purchase a book. Now the study materials are available in Canvas through a variety of handouts and links to youtube videos, and university resources as well as instructor-made materials. Major assignments include Rhetorical Analysis of a professional document or scholarly article in the student’s major, Journals based on the full-length fiction or creative non-fiction text, and Discipline Investigation report based on the informational interview of a professional in the occupation of interest.
I use .edu sites from our and other universities and their writing centers. I use Youtube and Tedtalk videos. Articles published by reputable sources on their websites (NYT, The Guardian, etc.) I create my own materials.
Student Access: How and where do students access materials? Digital copies of study materials are available on Canvas. Printed text is recommended for the fiction book that can be checked out from the library, used through the course reserve or purchased/rented at the Spartan book store. No additional resources are needed for the course.
Motivations: The novel The Alchemist has been in print for a long time with many inexpensive copies available on the internet. But for accessibility, the library has copies as well.
How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I asked the librarian to make it available through course reserve.
Sharing Best Practices: The cost of textbooks and study materials can add up for the students for multiple courses. Many study guides and handouts can be found online for free or created once for recurrent use.
Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned. Custom readers from a printer became unnecessary as it became easier to make the same materials available in the digital format.
Alesya Petty, Department of English and Comparative Literature, San Jose State University.
https://www.sjsu.edu/people/alesya.petty/index.html