Synthesis

WRITING

Advanced

NOTE: Because of its multimedia content, these materials are available only in these formats and not as a traditional printed textbook.

This writing course for advanced students of ESOL was designed to be taught as a hybrid course that meets synchronously (face to face or on Zoom) once a week; students study lessons and complete writing assignments independently during the rest of the time.

This course offers an integrated approach to metacognition and critical thinking skills, research and source evaluation skills, standard composition and grammar skills, and academic vocabulary skills. 

The course incorporates a variety of instructional materials, such as videos, self-correcting H5P exercises, Quizlets, and comprehension checks. After some preliminary activities, each unit follows a regular routine:

The appendix includes: 

The individual essay prompts are designed to culminate in a single, formal organic research paper under the general theme of technology; the individual self-reflection prompts similarly culminate in a single, informal reflection essay that fulfills Portland Community College's signature assignment requirements. However, these prompts could be easily replaced with more traditional standalone assignments, and the self-reflection prompts could be combined, reduced, or omitted.

The D2L Brightspace course shell is fully integrated. For example, the quizzes are in the Quiz tool and auto-graded, the discussions use the Discussion tool and linked to rubrics, etc. The D2L Brightspace course shell also features additional items, such as presentation slides, gradebook, announcements, calendar, and final exam. The content is specifically sequenced (e.g., the vocabulary and discussion tasks feature spaced repetition across two deadlines). The Pressbooks version contains the same videos and H5P exercises, but is otherwise a more static "flatpack" version with quizzes that are simple text and like things grouped together (e.g., vocabulary presentation, practice, and assessment are on a single page).

The D2L Brightspace shell and the teacher's manual include scope-and-sequence as well as lesson plans designed for a hybrid course that meets synchronously once a week (either face-to-face or on Zoom). 

This project was funded in part by a grant from Open Oregon Educational Resources. Maintenance funds were subsequently provided by a grant from Portland Community College's OER Steering Committee.


UPDATE: I noticed that Quizlet has reduced the number of activities that are free without log-in. So I've created my own H5P activities for vocabulary practice. Here are direct links if prefer to use them (they also embed well into an LMS like D2L):


Also, here is a supplemental adjective clause exercise from Erid Dodson.