This text was developed in partnership between Lumen Learning and Cerritos College (Norwalk, CA). It is designed as a resource for the pre-college English composition classroom. It aligns with ENG 020, and is the first of a 3-course “Path to College Composition” series. All courses in this series focus on the same primary content areas:
- Critical Reading
- Writing Process
- Research Process
- Grammar and Mechanics
In Basic Reading and Writing, all outcomes in each of these 4 areas are written to the identify level of Bloom’s Taxonomy (i.e., “Identify thesis statements in texts,” “identify prewriting activities”).
An optional 5th content area is also included:
- College Success Skills
The success skills content is focused specifically on success in a writing classroom. It has outcomes across several levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
A full list of all outcomes in the course is available here.
Module Design
As you read through the following pages, you’ll notice common elements. Each module offers an introduction & conclusion, providing context for students. The “jelly center” content pages in the middle consist of
- Introduction
- Learning Objectives
- sections of content aligned to Learning Objectives (including text, video, and slideshow formats)
- a Self-Check quiz, for formative (non-graded) feedback
- Licenses and Attributions for all content on the page
Use it Your Way
As an OER resource, this content is all adaptable to suit your needs in your course. Don’t need Success Skills content in your semester? Lose that module. Prefer to teach reading and writing as an integrated strategy? Combine those two modules in the way that best fits your students’ needs.
This is intended to be a broad sense of resources, and so it will probably contain more than you actually need. Feel free to trim down to exactly what you want. Revise the language to convey exactly what you want to convey.
Instructor Resources
In addition to the publicly-available content in the book itself, verified instructors can access homework assignments, essay and journal projects, and quiz files aligned to the text contents. Submit a request for access to these materials at support.lumenlearning.com.
You can use as many or as few of these resources as you’d like. Again, since it’s all OER, they can be adapted to fit projects and primary reading materials you already enjoy teaching and find effective in your classroom. Use them as exact guides, loose templates, or airy inspiration.
Additional Composition Goodies
Primary Resources
Traditionally, composition classes require (at least) three types of resources for students:
- a textbook that addresses strategies and processes for writing
- a style guide that addresses formal rules and citation guidelines, often used as a reference text
- a reader that provides students primary material for in-class discussion and writing assignments
This text addresses the first two components. You’re welcome to use it with whatever primary reading material you’d like. If you’d like a reader that’s also fully Open, here are two options that pair nicely with this text:
- Composition I Reading Anthology
- (ideas for additional customization of a similar reader in this format can be found on this page)
- English Composition Reading Anthology
- presented in 3 levels of complexity
Other Composition Textbooks
Path to College Composition Series
If you need some content aligned to higher Bloom’s level outcomes than “identify,” consider mixing & matching content from the other Path to College Composition courses:
- Basic Reading and Writing (this course)
- “identify”-level outcomes
- Introduction to College Composition
- “analyze”-level outcomes
- English Composition I
- “evaluate”-level outcomes
Lumen Curated Composition Collections
Items from previous Lumen texts for composition or reading can also incorporated into your customized course, as desired.