Knowing What to Leave Out

Knowing What to Leave Out

We all know that our students need us to be as explicit as possible in the wording of our teaching materials (especially writing assignments), so there may be some pushback on this point.  However, it's too important an idea for OER in composition and rhetoric.  Here it is:

Byte: Leave some stuff out.

By "leave some stuff out," of course, we don't mean vital things like a rubric, an overview/summary, formatting requirements, etc.  What we're talking about here is composing explicit materials that can be openly, freely used by anyone (with internet access), just without reference to anything that isn't freely available.  This isn't just an open resource practice--it's also good for sharing materials with colleagues that, we all know, tend to like to use different texts for assignments anyway.

Perhaps an analogy will clarify the logic here.  When one needs to light a room at night, one option is getting a lamp.  Okay.  So far, so good.  Now, for the lamp to do its job, you need the lamp, a light bulb, and a power source.  Still with me?  Okay.  Here's the first main point: we all prefer different kinds of lamps.  Some prefer those old-school brass banker's lamps with the green-tinted glass and little pull-chain.  Some prefer lamps shaped like Elvis.  Some prefer a desk lamp that sounds like a cranky duck when you adjust it.  Some prefer--okay, got it.  The number of possible lamp designs is probably best presented in scientific notation.  What about the bulbs?  Not all bulbs fit into all lamps, but there are a limited number of bulb types out there.  Here's the second main point (in what is now beginning to feel a little like it might be a bad idea): if we have a lamp that we really like, and we want it to work, we just need to find the right kind of bulb, twist it into place, and plug it in.  We don't have to make a special bulb just for that lamp (unless we're, like, really eccentric).  Hmm... this analogy just might work.  

Big Byte: Your favorite reading, that one that you really, really want to use in class (because it's perfect for you) but doesn't necessarily work for other instructors, is like the lamp; it'll work with a standard bulb just like that text you like will work with a generically-worded assignment.  It's your creativity as an instructor that finish the job once you've plugged everything in. 

Too much?  We agree.  True, lamps aren't texts, and our teaching materials are much more complex than light bulbs.

Still, the wider point is still relevant: we don't always need the text andthe educational apparatus to be so infused that one can't be separated from the other. 

More Concise Byte: Building the composition/rhetoric apparatus separate from a specific required text is one way to generate OER.  As an additional bonus, doing this might actually make your work easier for others to incorporate into their own courses.

If you are developing a teaching/learning unit that has as required reading one or more texts that are copyright restricted and not lawfully readable online, do not reference them in your teaching materials.  Instead, use generic nouns like "author(s)," "text(s)," "article(s)," or "book(s)." 

Take the following writing assignment prompt as an example. 

• NOT OER:
• Prompt: Compose a 3-5 page essay in which you summarize the main points about language usage that David Foster Wallace makes in his article "Tense Present."
• Although the article in question is available to enrolled students through a database like Academic Search Premiere (and sketchy transcripts can be found on the web), this is not something that just anyone can freely access.  It works for you and for your students (until such a time as the article becomes unavailable), but you can't put something like this in an OER and call it satisfactorily "open."
• OER:
• Prompt: Compose a 3-5 page essay in which you summarize the author's main points about language usage in the article.
• Or: Compose a 3-5 page essay in which you summarize ______________'s main points about language usage in __________________.
• This is certainly not ideal, but we have other ways of making the specific author/text available to our students.  If adequately specific (and, of course, instructionally rigorous), a generically-worded assignment prompt is not only a shareable OER but something that could be reused, in this case for anything written about language usage.

Again, building your teaching materials around these gaps will keep them open and even more versatile than before.  Later in this module, we will consider other methods of considering ways to share your work.  Before we get there, though, there is much more to cover in terms of how to make your OER legitimate.