Harmony

Harmony is an integrated grammar and composition book for intermediate (level 5 of 8) students of English for Speakers of Other Languages. Grammar lessons review basic verb tenses, while composition lessons help students to master a healthy paragraph and then introduce the basic components of an essay. The materials use an overarching theme of the arts to inspire students to think beyond rules and formulas. 

While this textbook can be used in many different ways, it is important to note that the skills and vocabulary are cumulative. Likewise, the sequence of activities within a unit have intentional scaffolding to build from implicit to explicit, from presentation to practice to production and ultimately to transfer of knowledge and skills.  Aside from the first, each unit includes: 

• a warm-up writing prompt to elicit authentic writing and activate prior knowledge

• an error correction exercise derived from authentic student work to review previous lessons

• vocabulary practice with a mix of words from the content of the unit as well as high-frequency terms from the New General Service Word List

• grammar lessons presented in a simplified way with examples and exercises that helps students to identify and produce various features and to learn the situations in which they are used

• composition lessons with clear models that lead students step-by-step from sentences to paragraphs to essays

• essay prompts that encourage students to see writing as an iterative process

Specific topics include: 

• Unit 01 - Getting started

  • • How to use Google Docs

    • Diagnostic 

    • A note about plagiarism

    • Writing is a process

    • Parts of speech

    • Types of sentences

    • Common errors

      • • Subject-verb agreement

        • Fragments

        • Run-on sentences and comma splices

    • Write an email

• Unit 02 - Describing with details

  • • Present simple verbs

    • Writing with sensory language

    • Writing with specific information

• Unit 03 - Perfecting the paragraph

  • • Present progressive verbs

    • What is a sentence?

    • What is a paragraph?

• Unit 04 - Writing topic sentences

  • • Past simple verbs

    • Writing topic sentences

• Unit 05 - Writing supporting sentences

  • • Past progressive verbs

    • Using supporting details

• Unit 06 - Moving from paragraph to essay

  • • Present perfect verbs

    • For/Since

    • What is an essay?

      • Parts of an essay

      • Using a paragraph to write an essay

• Unit 07 - Editing and revising your work

  • • Future simple and future progressive verbs

    • Writing introductions and conclusions

• Unit 08 - Writing about reasons

  • • Modals

    • Gerunds and Infinitives

    • Writing an opinion essay with reasons and examples

• Unit 09 - The finishing touches

  • • Articles

    • Prepositions

Appendices in the teacher edition include:

• Instructor resources, including course map and learning objectives

• Homework assignments with answer key

• Practice final exam with answer key

• Final exam with answer key

• Grading rubrics for writing assignments

This project was funded in part by Open Oregon Educational Resources.

PCC Instructors: Soon I will publish here the fake ISBN number for ordering print copies from the bookstore. However, the book was intentionally designed to be fewer than 100 pages so that students can print it at a PCC computer lab for free.  In the future, the homework assignments will be available as self-grading quizzes on D2L.