The document discusses adapting an open educational resources (OER) English curriculum to meet the needs of a learning community focused on the theme of "Place." Key points: 1. The OER curriculum was modified to incorporate the theme of place by having students analyze writing within specific places and how place influences their writing and identity. 2. Threshold concepts about the rhetorical nature of writing and how meaning depends on context were emphasized across project assignments. 3. The flexible OER curriculum allowed it to be easily adapted to the learning community while still addressing core concepts of writing and rhetoric. 4. Teaching the same OER curriculum in a women's prison presented additional logistical challenges but also demonstrated how writing is

1. Writing in Place:
Ann Fillmore, Justin Jory, Jessie Szalay
Salt Lake Community College
English Department
Situating Composition for Alternative
Sites of Teaching & Learning

2. In Search of a Durable Frame That Moves
Threshold concepts in English @ SLCC:
Language and writing are resources we use to do things, be things, and make things in the world.
Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do.
Writing is a form of action. Through writing we respond to problems and can create change in the world.
Writing is a processes of deliberation. It involves identifying and enacting choices, strategies, and moves.
Effective or meaningful writing is achieved through sustained engagement in literate practices and through
revision.
The meanings and the effects of writing are contingent on situation, on readers, and on a text’s purposes/uses.
Open Educational Resources in English @ SLCC:
Producing rather than curating materials to address the threshold framework
Making materials with open principles in mind: reuse, remix, revise, and redistribute

3. Designing Student Experiences in ENGL 1010
My Writing Life - Situating students as writers & expanding notions of writing
Language and writing are resources we use to do, be, make.
Effective, meaningful writing occurs through sustained engagement in literate practices
Writing in School - Considering writing in school & closely examining texts
Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do.
Writing is a process of deliberation, identifying and enacting choices, strategies, moves.
Civically Engaged Writing - Situating students as actors & theorizing their writing
Writing is a form of action. We use it to respond to problems and create change in the world.
The meanings/effects of writing are contingent on situation, on readers, and on a text’s purposes/uses.
Review our Instructor Guide: https://goo.gl/nwTUJt

4. Integrating OER Curriculum
and Threshold Concepts in
a Learning Community
Ann Fillmore
Assistant Professor, English
Salt Lake Community College
ann.fillmore@slcc.edu

5. Common Intellectual Experience
• First Semester (Fall)
• ENG 990 & EDU 1020: College Essentials
• Second Semester (Spring)
• ENG 1010 & GEOG 1700: Natural Disasters

6. Contextualizing “Place”
• PLACE has power and significance
• Geography
• Students are introduced to natural disasters; processes and
energy sources that produce them, spatial distribution and
pattern of natural phenomena, and impacts these
phenomena have on human activity
• Place (location) is a factor that determines when, where,
why, and how natural disasters occur (cause/effect)
• Writing
• Students are introduced to the study of rhetoric and
rhetorical awareness in writing and communication
(purpose, audience, context;) context includes “place”
• Rhetoric of Place: Place influences the writing within a
space, and the writing in a space contributes to the place
itself
• Common Intellectual Experience
• Students gain an awareness of the concept and power of
place and its significance and role in influencing nature and
human activities
• Students gain understanding of “Sense of Place;” the
relationship that individuals develop with their environments;
part of human identity (memory, culture, emotion, behavior,
etc.)

7. The following slides detail the way in
which the ENG 1010 OER Curriculum
was modified and adapted to meet
the needs of the learning community

8. Project 1: Rhetorical Analysis of Public Writing
Regular OER Assignment
• Find a public instance of writing in
the world. Take a picture or pick up
the artifact (if feasible) and write up
a short analysis of this instance of
writing in the world. Bring the
picture/artifact to class, along with
your analysis.
• Discuss public instances of writing:
What work is it doing in the world?
• What makes this writing interesting
or not? What does it do? How does
it do it? To what end? For whom?
CIE Adaptation
• This is a classroom activity from the
regular OER curriculum that I
modified into a larger project in my
class.
• Students select a place of
significance to them and do a
rhetorical analysis of 3 different
artifacts of public writing within that
space.
• Students complete a written
analysis (any format) and do an
oral presentation.
Threshold Concepts:
• Writing is a resource people use to do things, be things, and make things in the world.
• The meanings and the effects of writing are contingent on situation, on readers, and
on a text’s purposes/uses.

9. Project 2: Self-Study; A Journey
Regular OER Assignment
• Students engage in reflective research
to compose a critical self-study that
includes an analysis of their writing
practices.
• Students choose a minimum of three
textual artifacts they have written to
analyze. While these textual artifacts
don’t have to be from the same genre,
there does need to be some kind of
commonality among them (function,
audience, or context of use).
• Students draw conclusions about
themselves as writers/communicators.
CIE Adaptation
• Students collect data (free-writings,
logs, other written artifacts) in five
distinct places based on five
themes: home, play, nature, culture,
chaos.
• Students analyze the series of written
artifacts to conclude how place
influences their writing (process and
product) as well as self/identity
(sense of place.)
• Students submit locations and key
observations/insights to produce a
class map for spatial data
visualization.
Threshold Concepts:
• Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do.
• The meanings and the effects of writing are contingent on situation, on readers, and on a text’s
purposes/uses.

10. Project 3: Rhetorical Analysis
Regular OER Assignment
• Students choose a piece of written
text that takes a position on an issue.
• Students analyze the text’s rhetorical
situation, interpret the author’s
rhetorical strategies, and evaluate its
rhetorical appropriateness for its
audience and situation.
• Topics vary.
CIE Adaptation
• Students choose a piece of written text
that takes a position on an issue.
• Students analyze the text’s rhetorical
situation, interpret the author’s rhetorical
strategies, and evaluate its rhetorical
appropriateness for its audience and
situation.
• Topics relate to issues discussed in
natural disasters that illustrate the
influence of the concept of place.
• Example: Hurricane Response in Puerto
Rico: Whose responsibility is it? An
individual’s? The local government? The
US Fed government? Aid agencies?
Threshold Concepts:
• Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do.
• Writing is a process of deliberation. It involves identifying and enacting choices, strategies, and
moves.

11. Project 4: Definition Remix / PSA
Regular OER Assignment
• “Definition Remix” Assignment
• Students expand, interrupt, influence,
or critique a discourse about a word
of their choice and compose a
“fitting response” to the way/s in
which their word is used and
conceptualized in a particular local,
national, or global discourse
community to see more clearly how
language influences thinking and
makes things happen in the world.
CIE Adaptation
• Students compose a Public Service
Announcement (PSA) to
communicate a disaster
preparedness or response plan to a
specific community in the world
using a genre, language, and
format appropriate for a particular
local, national, or global discourse
community to see more clearly how
language influences thinking and
makes things happen in the world.
Threshold Concepts:
• Writing is a form of action. Through writing people respond to problems and can create change in the
world.
• Writing is a process of deliberation. It involves identifying and enacting choices, strategies, and moves.

12. Final Thoughts
• The concept/theme of “Place” (cause/effects) in the CIE has had a significant
impact on the way I conceptualized and designed this course.
• I’ve carried over the theme to courses that are not part of a learning
community.
• The OER 1010 curriculum is flexible and is easily adaptable to different contexts,
purposes, and audiences.
• Threshold concepts emphasized in each project prompt students to engage in
critical thinking, metacognition, and reflection.
• The threshold concept I didn’t note specifically on any assignment is that for
ENGAGEMENT and is practiced/experienced throughout each assignment.
• Meaningful writing is achieved through sustained engagement in literate practices
(e.g., thinking, researching, reading, interpreting, conversing) and through revision.
• *** I’m not sure if the threshold concepts will “transfer” beyond the class, but I’m
confident that the critical thinking will.

13. Breaking Through Writing Barriers:
OER in a Women’s Prison
Jessie Szalay
Adjunct Professor, English
Salt Lake Community College
jszalay@slcc.edu
Timpanogos Women’s Medium-Security
Prison, Utah State Correctional Facility
Program began in January 2017 with 1010,
sociology, & math
Students test into class but 990 curriculum
(reading foundations) is not offered
In its place, I run tutoring sessions focused
on reading

14. Logistical Issues = same class, 2 preps
A return to old-school analog teaching: no videos, no
books, no internet, no e-mail, limited out-of-class contact
Lack of resources in a prison setting: sparse library, trouble
getting paper and pens, dated maps, dictionaries, and
encyclopedias
Timing: lockdown, movements, pill line, less class time
Cell life: sickness, cliques, work, rehab, CEO changes,
board dates, visitation
The threshold concept I’ve learned about: The meanings and the effects of writing are
contingent on situation, on readers, and on a text’s purposes/uses.

15. Assignment Adaptations
Self Study - Lack of digital footprints demands creativity
• Language and writing are resources we use to do things, be things, and make things in the world.
• Writing is a form of action. Through writing we respond to problems and can create change in the
world.
Rhetorical Analysis - Being flexible with texts
• Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do.
• Writing is a processes of deliberation. It involves identifying and enacting choices, strategies, and
moves.
Definition Remix - Powerpoint prohibition! Craftiness shows the
importance and application of students’ literacies
• Effective or meaningful writing is achieved through sustained engagement in literate practices (e.g.,
thinking, researching, reading, interpreting, and even procrastinating!) and through revision.

18. Student Attitudes
The risks, comforts, and failures of introspection
New perspectives and triggers
Threshold Conepts
• Effective or meaningful writing is achieved through sustained engagement in literate
practices (e.g., thinking, researching, reading, interpreting, and even procrastinating!)
and through revision.
• The meanings and the effects of writing are contingent on situation, on readers, and on
a text’s purposes/uses.

19. SLCC’s Prison
Education
Project:
A restricted learning
environment where
OER opens doors