OK, it’s not a movie, but it is a webinar introducing Genre Explained: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers About Genre-Based Instruction, by Chris Tardy, Ann Johns, and me, published this year by the University of Michigan Press. We introduce genre and genre-based instruction and describe how you might use the book.
And right now, you can buy the book for 50% off — or buy two for full price! — at the Press website with code SPRING23 (or you can pay more on Amazon).
Do you have questions about genre-based writing instruction? We have answers! 40 of them!
Genre Explained is a new book of frequently-asked questions (and answers!) about genre-based teaching. Together with my amazing co-authors, Chris Tardy (University of Arizona) and Ann Johns (San Diego State University), we provide a guide for teachers who are new to genre, those who are genre curious, and experienced genre teachers who want to share the pedagogy with colleagues and administrators.
Available now from the University of Michigan Press. Use code UMS23 for a 30% discount just for reading my blog!
Continue reading “Genre Explained!”Here’s a short video that Ann and I made to introduce teachers to the method and structure of Essential Actions for Academic Writing:
I am excited to announce the release of Essential Actions for Academic Writing, co-authored with Ann Johns and published by the University of Michigan Press.
Essential Actions is a textbook for novice writers: students who are just starting their journey in (English) academic writing. Through a genre-based, research-informed, language-focused, rhetorical approach, we guide writers through the essential actions of academic writing: explaining, summarizing, synthesizing, reporting and interpreting data, arguing, analyzing, and responding. Each action is embedded in meaningful genres and contexts, both academic and beyond the classroom. Finally, teachers can choose from four extended, scaffolded projects that show how academic writers navigate among multiple actions and genres.
Essential Actions is suitable for ESL/EAP classes as well as monolingual and multilingual writing classes and can be used in intensive English programs, community colleges, developmental writing programs, first-year composition classes, and graduate preparation courses.
A teacher’s guide and other resources (including an entire extra chapter on source-based writing that we couldn’t fit in the book!) are available on the companion website.
For more information, please take a look at my post on the Michigan blog or visit the publisher’s page to purchase (print or ebook) or request an exam copy. Essential Actions is also sold by Amazon (print and Kindle format) and VitalSource (textbook rentals).
If you have any questions about teaching the book in your course, or to arrange a workshop for your colleagues, please don’t hesitate to contact me!
Just a quick note to let you know that many of my books are available in electronic format for online teaching, learning, and study:
Don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help you get access to my materials! Good luck out there.
The third edition of my co-authored textbook Q:Skills for Success, Reading/Writing 5 has just been published by Oxford University Press. The new edition is a welcome refresh for the series, which I started writing in 2007 (I know exactly how old it is because I was remember working on the first edition at my computer in Michigan with my newborn son napping in my arms!).
The third edition adds several new readings, including a chapter on the value (or not) of learning foreign languages and another on the gig economy. There are also a ton of videos on the companion website — you’ll even hear Scott Douglass and myself narrative the “Critical Thinking Skills” presentations. So as a bonus, you’ll get British, Canadian, and American accents throughout the book. We’ve also updated the vocabulary lists to align with the Oxford 5000 and Oxford Phrasal Academic Lexicon, which was a really interesting process.
You can get exam copies of any level of Q from your friendly OUP sales rep. It will be available for sale from Amazon and other fine retailers — it’s very new, so it’s not yet appearing everywhere. There is also a “split” edition in two halves, A and B.
What do you think of the new edition? Do let us know!
The editors and authors of Changing Practices: Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay in L2 Writing (Michigan, 2019) are going on the road! You can catch us at these conferences during the academic year:
Continue reading “The Five-Paragraph Roadshow (or some kind of show)”
[Changing Practices for the L2 Writing Classroom: Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay] is a thorough look at the research and practices surrounding the use of the five-paragraph essay, particularly as it has been employed in second language writing instruction, though I believe it speaks to all writing classrooms.
John Warner, Inside Higher Education, 5/21/19
John Warner (author of Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities) interviewed Ann Johns and me last week about our new co-edited volume Changing Practices for the L2 Classroom: Moving Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay (available from the University of Michigan Press or as a Kindle e-book). You can read the full interview over on his blog on Inside Higher Education. We had a lot of fun jointly composing our answers to his questions by email (thanks, Google Docs!), and I think we’ve set out many of the arguments we and our contributing authors make throughout the book. Our goal in Changing Practices is:
dispelling the myths of universality (everyone writes five-paragraph essays and has always written them), transfer (the training-wheel syndrome), scaffolding (it will help them later), and generalization (all students write essays in all their classes).
John takes a slightly different approach to the the five-paragraph essay in his book, viewing it as a symptom of many other problems in the US education system. I definitely recommend reading the book: he has an interesting background as a composition teacher, and he makes important points about the larger picture of writing in schools and, particularly, universities. In our volume, we’re not really trying to kill the five-paragraph essay (which I jokingly called graphicide on Twitter recently!) but rather to encourage teachers and curriculum designers to change their practices, even if that means starting by revising just one assignment from an “essay” to a genre.
Take a look at the interview and let me know what you think!
It’s here! After two years of hard work, our ultimate collection of arguments against the five-paragraph essay hit the physical and digital shelves this week. Changing Practices for the L2 Writing Classroom: Beyond the Five Paragraph Essay (University of Michigan Press) is an edited volume that makes the case for moving away from the five-paragraph essay by suggesting classroom practices that lead to purposeful, meaningful writing instruction from elementary to graduate school.
The book started out as a popular panel at TESOL 2017, but it was a much more complex process than just writing up the papers we presented. We expanded the scope, both in terms of authors and topics, and really focused on the changes we recommend in practice. We wanted to write this book not only for the anti-5PE choir (in which we all sing loudly) but also for teachers and administrators who are hesitant about or resistant to these practices or who sense that the five-paragraph essay is inadequate but aren’t sure what to do instead.
As Ann Johns and I wrote in the conclusion, we don’t expect this one book to be the death knell of the five-paragraph essay. We need new textbooks and teacher handbooks (we’re working on both – watch this space!). But Changing Practices is an important step forwards, and I’m really proud of the work we’ve done here and thankful for the amazing authors who contributed to the volume.
You can read more about the book, including the table of contents on my website, and purchase the book directly from the publisher or as a Kindle ebook.
What do you think? Write a comment or contact me to follow up!
The second edition of Grammar Choices has been published by the University of Michigan Press (available only directly from the press right now, and soon from Amazon). This is an exciting moment because it means enough people bought and liked the first edition to warrant a new one!
Why did we produce a second edition? The first edition of Grammar Choices was published in 2012, so it’s had a healthy life-span of 6 years, but of course academic English hasn’t changed much in that time! With any second edition, you have to strike a balance between adding and changing enough to justify a new edition, while not alienating users who liked the first edition. There’s always going to be a reading, exercise, or example that you’re angry at me for dropping (sorry).
My philosophy with this revision was to: Continue reading “Grammar Choices: What’s new in the second edition?”
Nigel Caplan 