General Education Writing

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  GEW 101B
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a GEW 101B course for undergraduate or graduate students by Shannon Baker at CSU San Marcos. The open textbook provides composition guidance and supplemental materials. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to provide a more equitable and engaging learning experience for my students. Most student access the open textbook through a link in the syllabus schedule.

General Education Writing (GEW) 101B
Brief Description of course highlights: 
Focuses on writing as a rhetorical act that (re)produces social constructions and power relations. Emphasizes writing for specific audiences and purposes and navigating genre conventions such as argument structure, evidence integration, style, and formatting. Includes critical reflection on the writing process during multi-draft writing projects that require substantive revision in response to peer and instructor feedback. Analyzes strategies for communicating effectively in diverse rhetorical situations, and applies those strategies to academic, research-based writing.

Student population: GEW 101B is an undergraduate GE course, usually taken by first-year students.

Learning or student outcomes: 

• Evaluate the ways in which writing (re)produces particular social constructions and power relations, such as those around gender, race, nationality, class, ability, and sexuality.
• Employ argument structure, style, and formatting conventions that are appropriate for a writing project’s audience, purpose, and genre.
• Critically reflect on the writing process during multi-draft projects that require substantial revision in response to peer and instructor feedback.
• Practice critical reading and academic, research-based writing, including ethical source integration.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College

Brief Description: “This book is meant as a practical guide to college writing. It starts with understanding and describing others' arguments, then moves on to assessing those arguments’ strengths and weaknesses and articulating our own points in response.”

Please provide a link to the resource 
https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Composition/Advanced_Composition/How_Arguments_Work_-_A_Guide_to_Writing_and_Analyzing_Texts_in_College_(Mills)

Authors:  Anna Mills

Student access:  Through the course syllabus schedule via a link to assigned readings.

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  $60 - $100

License:   CC BY-NC 4.0 license.  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. To provide a more equitable and robust learning experience for students.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? Consulted with other GEW faculty.

Instructor Name - Shannon Baker
I am a GEW lecturer at the CSU San Marcos. I teach General Education Writing.

Please provide a link to your university page.
https://www.csusm.edu/index.html

Please describe the courses you teach - General education writing courses.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  I am passionate about developing and implementing student-centered, linguistically just pedagogies into my courses, such as a question-based pedagogy (QBP), a new and innovative teaching and learning tactic three colleagues a I developed and implemented into our writing-intensive courses. QBP teaches students to play an active role in the feedback process through embedded question-asking, reflection, and revision. Our research showcases how QBP amplifies and empowers student voices as it places the writer as an active participant in the feedback process.