Prologue

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning materials that are available for free use by students and teachers everywhere. The move toward OERs has really taken off recently—financially to help students, the flexibility aids teachers, and all along they have been the catalyst for social justice, too. Open resources are easy to access and use and are continually updated and revised.

You’re reading one right now!

FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS IN POSTSECONDARY WRITING\(^4\)

The concept of “college readiness” is increasingly important in discussions about students’ preparation for postsecondary education. This Framework describes the rhetorical and twenty-first-century skills as well as habits of mind and experiences that are critical for college success. Based in current research in writing and writing pedagogy, the Framework was written and reviewed by two- and four-year college and high school writing faculty nationwide and is endorsed by the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Writing Project.\(^5\)

Habits of mind refers to ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and that will support students’ success in a variety of fields and disciplines. The Framework identifies eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing:

• Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world.
• Openness – the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
• Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
• Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
• Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
• Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
• Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
• Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

The Framework then explains how teachers can foster these habits of mind through writing, reading, and critical analysis experiences. These experiences aim to develop students’

• Rhetorical knowledge – the ability to analyze and act on understandings of audiences, purposes, and contexts in creating and comprehending texts;
• Critical thinking – the ability to analyze a situation or text and make thoughtful decisions based on that analysis, through writing, reading, and research;
• Writing processes – multiple strategies to approach and undertake writing and research;
• Knowledge of conventions – the formal and informal guidelines that define what is considered to be correct and appropriate, or incorrect and inappropriate, in a piece of writing; and
• Ability to compose in multiple environments – from traditional pen and paper to electronic technologies.

\(^3\)Denotative means dictionary meaning; connotative means the additional meaning BEYOND the dictionary definition.

\(^4\)Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (2011) by the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the National Writing Project (NWP) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

\(^5\)These same groups do not endorse this awesome textbook. But they might someday? However, the textbook still thinks it’s cool with or without the endorsement.