Open Educational Resources (OER): English

English Online Course via Saylor.
CC BY resources unless otherwise noted. Includes quizzes and resources in each online course.

English Online Course via Saylor.
CC BY resources unless otherwise noted. Includes quizzes and resources in each online course.

Ann Inoshita, Karyl Garland, Kate Sims, Jeanne K. Tsutsui Keuma, and Tasha Williams.
This OER textbook has been designed for students to learn the foundational concepts for English 100 (first-year college composition). The content aligns to learning outcomes across all campuses in the University of Hawai'i system. It was designed, written, and edited during a three day book sprint in May, 2019.
CC Attribution.

“This unit introduces you to the role that English plays in the world today, and examines the social, political and cultural factors that have influenced its development. It traces the history of the language from its arrival in Britain in the fifth century AD through to the present day and its status as a language with a truly global reach. It looks at how and why English came to occupy this position, and at what the consequences of its global spread are for the way it’s used and perceived around the world.” CC BY NC SA license. Available as web page (linked to separate chapters/sections or as a single page) or e-book download.

By Charles Bazerman
The Informed Writer addresses a wide range of writing activities and genres, from summarizing and responding to sources to writing the research paper and writing about literature.

(no CC designation – restricted non-commercial and non-derivative, no republishing):

English Department, Utah State University. Open online course focuses on critical readings and strategies for persuasive research writing. Resources organized into 16 weekly modules. Each module includes objectives, readings, and related assignments. CC BY NC SA license. Available as web page or course download.

This textbook guides students through rhetorical and assignment analysis, the writing process, researching, citing, rhetorical modes, and critical reading.

English Online Course via Saylor.
CC BY resources unless otherwise noted. Includes quizzes and resources in each online course.

The Process of Research Writing is a web-based research writing textbook (or is that textweb?) suitable for teachers and students in research oriented composition and rhetoric classes. It's published/maintained by me, Steven D. Krause.

Wikibooks open textbook “designed for use as a textbook in first-year college composition programs, written as a practical guide for students struggling to bring their writing up to the level expected of them by their professors and instructors.” CC BY SA license. Available as web page, printable version, and PDF download.

The first in a two-volume set, A Rhetoric of Literate Action is written for "the experienced writer with a substantial repertoire of skills, [who] now would find it useful to think in more fundamental strategic terms about what they want their texts to accomplish, what form the texts might take, how to develop specific contents, and how to arrange the work of writing."

By Allison Gross, Annemarie Hamlin, Billy Merck, Chris Rubio, Jodi Naas, Megan Savage, and Michele DeSilva.
A textbook focusing on writing in the workplace, with an emphasis on audience analysis, writing for specific situations, document design, research processes, and visual aids.
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike

Open SUNY Textbook. “Designed for students who have largely mastered high-school level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing-intensive classes.” CC BY NC SA license. Available as PDF, e-book, and web page (html).

Revised 2016 edition of textbook created by community college instructor in Oregon. Clearly written beginning writing book includes the basics of composition, grammar, citing, and research and broken down into easy-to-tackle sections.
Includes a “Multilingual Writers and ESL Challenges” section
Available formats include web, e-pub, PDF, and MOBI -- can also link to specific chapters
CC BY license (Creative Commons - Attribution)
Sample attribution statement: “About Writing” by Robin Jeffrey is licensed under CC BY

Lumen Learning online course
Covers grammar, punctuation, usage, sentence structure, the writing process, research, and modules on APA and MLA style.
Available as web page or PDF download.
CC BY license (Creative Commons - Attribution)
Sample attribution statement: “Guide to Writing” by Lumen Learning is licensed under CC BY

“A text that provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition.”
Includes a chapter on “Help for English Language Learners”
Available in multiple formats: web page, e-pub, PDF, MOBI, and WXR.
CC BY NC SA license (Creative Commons - Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike)
Sample attribution statement: “Writing for Success” by University of Minnesota is licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0

88 Open Essays by Tina Ulrich & Sarah Wangler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Composition relates to narrative works of literature, but also relates to essays, biographies, and other works established in the field of rhetoric.

By Gideon O. Burton
Brigham Young University.
This online tool allows students to explore both vocabulary and larger concepts related to Rhetoric.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

"Effective Technical Writing in the Information Age." By Joe Schall. Helpful with mechanics and good writing sense, funny and accessible. It's CC-By NC SA, which means it can be adapted more readily.

Aaron Tucker and Paul Chafe. CC attribution.

Handbook for Writers: Also available as (PDF) at (https://2012books.lardbucket.org/pdfs/writers-handbook.pdf).

Strong handouts and a few videos around key writing concepts, most having to do with structure and mechanics. Very nice citation pieces for MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE (click the “Citation Resources” link). Also includes handouts on writing for specific fields. CC BY NC ND license.

“A free, comprehensive, peer-reviewed, award-winning Open Text for students and faculty in college-level courses that require writing and research.” “Webtexts” are like stand-alone modules, activities, and supplemental materials.

Note from their site about their CC licenses: “All webtexts are licensed under a Creative Commons license. Most webtexts are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license, but a few are published under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. The copyright for each webtext is either printed on the article or on the footer of the site. Feel free to print, email, PDF and hyperlink to webtexts.”

Peer-reviewed essays could be used as supplemental materials. “Writing Spaces is an open textbook project for college-level writing studies courses. Each volume in the Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing series contains peer-reviewed collections of essays about writing—all composed by teachers for students—with each book available for download for free under a Creative Commons license.” Essays are CC licensed so you can remix them. Click the “Downloads” tab to browse and download essays.

E-text with supplemental materials. Developed by Ohio State University. Creative Commons Attribution.

Includes text and exercises to help students with stages of the research process. Could be super useful to integrate information literacy concepts, like knowing your information/research need and plagiarism, into the classroom. Available as PDF download, e-book download, or iTunes download. CC BY NC SA license.

2016 open access textbook written by library, archives, and Learning Commons professionals at Western Washington University Libraries, and is intended for undergraduate students. Chapters on “The Research Process,” “Web Literacy” and “Writing as Inquiry, Writing as Thinking” might be particularly useful. CC BY NC license. Available as web or PDF download.

2016 textbook that is a “collection of cumulative units of study for conventional errors common in student writing. It’s flexible, functional, and zeroes in problems typically seen in writing of all types, from the eternal “there/they’re/their” struggle to correct colon use. Units are organized from most simple to most challenging.” CC BY NC license. Available as web page, e-pub, PDF, and MOBI.

Links to free grammar lessons and quizzes you could incorporate into classes. Daily Grammar consists of 440 lessons and 88 quizzes. Includes answers. Freely available online (not OER).

By R. Murphy. Open source text on the Internet Archive.

Writers' Workshop, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “This Handbook explains and illustrates the basic grammatical rules concerning parts of speech, phrases, clauses, sentences and sentence elements, and common problems of usage.” Could be used to supplement or provide examples for common grammar and usage issues. Freely available online (not OER).

"Linguistics is the scientific study of language and involves analyzing language form, language meaning, and language in context."

From the UW-Madison Writer's Handbook. The “Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist” could be a particularly useful supplement for students. Other sections of the Writer’s Handbook site include examples and tips for the writing process and structure, improving your writing style, and citing references. Freely available online (not OER).

"Literature is any body of written works and typically refers to writing considered to be an art form or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage."

Inspired by Dr. Kim Hall’s video Why Study Shakespeare Today?, 2:46 (Folger Shakespeare Library, Jul. 11, 2012), this project seeks to link in conversation teachers and learners from diverse places and at different kinds of selective and open-admission, four-year and two-year educational institutions.

The Standard Ebooks project is a volunteer driven, not-for-profit effort to produce a collection of high quality, carefully formatted, accessible, open source, and free public domain ebooks that meet or exceed the quality of commercially produced ebooks