OER Sample: Using Public Domain Texts

This is just an example, mind you (and it is inevitably flawed), but here's how you might approach the use of a public domain text in a composition/rhetoric course.

 

Text: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Links to an external site., by Mark Twain (available via Wikisource Links to an external site. or Project Gutenberg Links to an external site.).

Comp/Rhet Purposes: Textual and Rhetorical Analysis, Identification of Relevant Issues, Response to Raised Issues in the Form of Argument, as well as general encouragement to read thoughtfully and be prepared to enter into discussion.

Scope: The last half of the course, approximately.

Prerequisite Concepts: Basic reading comprehension and composition skills; introduction to and familiarity with rhetorical situations and textual analysis; introduction to and familiarity with the concepts of argumentation and research.

Description: This text could be used in English 102 as a means of generating issues that students would articulate, research, and then, ultimately, weigh in on. 

Incomplete List of Possible Issues for Discussion and Argument (any of which possibly supplemented by contemporary linked content or other public works):

  • How does our general familiarity with modern technology, the result of total integration into daily life, influence our conceptions of the relatively low-tech past?
  • How do idealizations of the past influence our perception of the present?
  • How are we, as individuals, affected by our daily use of information, technology, and/or scientific insight?
  • How does mastery of cutting-edge technology affect our perceptions of ourselves and of others?
  • What constitutes a "hero?"  Why are we sometimes drawn to individuals that don't exhibit the characteristics that we'd usually associate with a hero?

 Assignments:

  • Summary of original text
  • Analysis of original text, including both rhetorical contexts and themes
  • Identification of issues raised by original text
  • Discussion of relevance of issues raised in original text to contemporary life
  • Proposal of issue(s) to research, including commitment to one issue
  • Review of published literature relevant to identified issue, including annotated bibliography
  • Outline (brief or comprehensive) of argument
  • Composition of research-based argument responding to selected issue

 This use of a work of literature in the public domain would, with supplemental material, cover all of the competencies of English 102.