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Writers Reference 9e by Suggested Texts for College Writing I (books for purchase)
The UMass Lowell custom writer's handbook is a required text for all sections of College Writing.
In addition to the custom handbook, you have the option to choose a reader to pair with it. Pasted below you will find some suggested textbooks that contain assignments appropriate for College Writing I at UML, except that they rely entirely on documentary and source evidence. Instructors can choose any of these for their sections, and supplement them with a source of quantitative evidence: an infographic from a newspaper or magazine, or some data the students collect themselves.
Many of these readers are quite expensive for students, so some instructors prefer to use articles available online, or to put readings on reserve for students.
Barrios, Barclay. Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers. 4th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2019. Print.
Emerging uses an inquiry-based approach and engaging readings to help students understand and write about a variety of academic texts. Based on reviewer feedback, the third edition uses its assignment sequences to pose questions about the important but unsettled issues that shape students’ lives, such as “How is technology changing us?” and “How can you make a difference in the world?” Thought-provoking, contemporary readings help them address those questions in a meaningful way. At its core, Emerging focuses on the skills necessary for academic writing in any discipline, and a thoroughly revised Part One offers concrete strategies for improving those skills: reading critically, synthesizing, arguing, using evidence, and revising. Twenty vibrant new readings keep Emerging in tune with the newest ideas that will challenge students to think beyond their own experiences―and beyond the classroom.
Colombo, Gary, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing: Resources for Teaching. 11th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin’s, 2019. Print.
Rereading America remains the most widely adopted book of its kind because it works: instructors tell us time and again that they've watched their students grow as critical thinkers and writers as they grapple with cross-curricular readings that not only engage them, but also challenge them to reexamine deeply held cultural assumptions, such as viewing success solely as the result of hard work. Extensive apparatus offers students a proven framework for revisiting, revising, or defending those assumptions as students probe the myths underlying them. Rereading America has stayed at the forefront of American culture, contending with cultural myths as they persist, morph, and develop anew.
Jacobus, Lee A. Approaching Great Ideas. Boston, MA: Bedford/ St Martin’s, 2016. Print.
A new book for college writers focused on the development and articulation of critical thinking and ideas.
Parfitt, Matthew. Writing in Response. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2016. Print.
Writing in Response is a flexible, brief rhetoric that offers a unique focus on the critical practices of experienced readers, analysis and reflection, the skills at the heart of academic writing. It helps students compose academic essays by showing how active reading and exploratory writing bring fresh ideas to light and how informal response is developed into polished, documented prose. Extensively class tested, Writing in Response emphasizes the key techniques common to reading, thinking, and writing throughout the humanities and social sciences by teaching students the value of a social, incremental, and recursive writing process. The new edition includes more on working with digital tools, more help for writing, and updated readings.
Spatt, Brenda. Writing from Sources. 9th ed. New York: St. Martin’s, 2016. Print.
Thorough and practical, Writing from Sources is an indispensable guide to source-based composition. Using a skills-based approach, students begin with the building blocks of research writing—annotating a passage and summarizing a source—then progress through more complex steps, such as synthesizing multiple sources and writing a full-length research essay. Along the way, dozens of readings by professional writers and clear, helpful exercises provide models for practice and proficiency. Known for its clear and helpful advice, Writing from Sources teaches the fundamentals of research writing that students will use throughout their college careers.
Wardle, Elizabeth A., and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2020. Print.
A milestone in the field of composition, Writing about Writing continues to be the only textbook to provide an approach that makes writing studies the center of the introductory writing course. Based on Wardle and Downs’s research and organized around major threshold concepts of writing, this groundbreaking book empowers students in all majors by showing them how to draw on what they know and engage with ongoing conversations about writing and literacy. The accessible writing studies research in Writing about Writing includes foundational research by scholars such as Nancy Sommers and Donald Murray, popular commentary on writing by authors such as Malcolm X and Anne Lamott, and emerging research from both scholars and student writers. Accessible explanations, scaffolded activities, and thoughtful questions help students connect to the readings and transfer their writing-related skills from first-year composition to writing situations in other college courses, work, and their everyday lives.
The third edition makes studying writing even more accessible and teachable, with a new overview of rhetoric, a stronger focus on key threshold concepts, scaffolded reading guidance for challenging selections, and a new section in the instructor's manual with responses to frequently asked questions.
The conversation on writing about writing continues on the authors' blog, Write On: Notes on Writing about Writing (a channel on Bedford Bits, the Bedford/St. Martin's blog for teachers of writing). Go to community.macmillan.com.
Graff, Gerald, et al. "They Say / I Say": the Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
The best-selling book that demystifies academic writing.
This book identifies the key rhetorical moves in academic writing. It shows students how to frame their arguments as a response to what others have said and provides templates to help them start making the moves. The fourth edition features many NEW examples from academic writing, a NEW chapter on Entering Online Discussions, and a thoroughly updated chapter on Writing in the Social Sciences. Finally, two NEW readings provide current examples of the rhetorical moves in action.
Open Source Textbooks (free to students)
Teaching & Learning, University Libraries. Choosing & Using Sources: a Guide to Academic Research. The Ohio State University, 2018.
https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/choosingsources/
With this free-of-cost guide from Ohio State University Libraries, students are better equipped to tackle the challenges of developing research questions, evaluating and choosing the right sources, searching for information, avoiding plagiarism, and much more
https://writing.colostate.edu/textbooks/writingspaces1.cfm
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing
Edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, is a collection of Creative Commons licensed essays for use in the first year writing classroom, all written by writing teachers for students. Topics in this volume include academic writing, how to interpret writing assignments, motives for writing, rhetorical analysis, revision, invention, writing centers, argumentation, narrative, reflective writing, Wikipedia, patchwriting, collaboration, and genres.
https://writing.colostate.edu/textbooks/writingspaces2.cfm
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing
Edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, is a collection of Creative Commons licensed essays for use in the first year writing classroom, all written by writing teachers for students. Topics in this volume include the rhetorical situation, collaboration, documentation styles, weblogs, invention, writing assignment interpretation, reading critically, information literacy, ethnography, interviewing, argument, document design, and source integration.
Lisa Bickmore, “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)systems”
A student-friendly explanation of the concept of genre. Clear, and brief enough to use along with another reading or with an assignment for students to find and study a particular genre they might use.
