Abstract
This paper shares a community college, composition curriculum that decolonizes the Canon: an open resource (OER) “Great Books” initiative that is inclusive of LGBT, racism, feminism, and environmentalism. Planning for this initiative started in Spring 2017 with four members of an ad hoc committee who developed course materials and syllabi that included readings by Sappho, W.E.B. DuBois, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Henry David Thoreau and took in consideration critical pedagogies advanced by Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and Asao Inoue. In Spring 2019, we received a State OER Scale Up Grant to develop our materials into an OER format, which would allow participating courses to receive a “zero textbook cost” designation. CUNY / Queensborough Community College’s diverse population of students, who already enter the composition classroom with a range of experiences specific to their own intersecting identities, now have an opportunity to see those identities reflected in rigorous texts that include them in a wider academic discourse. This opportunity is especially important in a time when universities across the world have had to move from face-to-face instruction to distance learning. As learners—and faculty—struggle with digital literacy as well as access to the technological tools they need for online instruction, this initiative can be integrated into a course’s online interface at no cost to the learner. Thus, while this curriculum challenges learners with its vocabulary and ideas, it also serves a diverse, multicultural student population by fostering learning opportunities that help learners think critically about timeless issues while improving reading and writing skills.
Presenters
Susan LagoLecturer, English, Queensborough Community College, New York, United States Ilse Schrynemakers
Assistant Professor, English , Queensborough Community College/City University of New York, United States Alison Cimino
Lecturer, English, Queensborough Community College, New York, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Canon, Community College, CUNY, Composition, Writing, Inclusive, Pedagogy
