88 Open Essays – A Reader for Students of Composition & Rhetoric (Wangler and Ulrich)

This book is a free and open resource to composition instructors and students, full of essays that could supplement OER rhetoric and writing texts that lacked readings. All of the essays in this reader are versatile rhetorically and thematically. It is arranged alphabetically by author name. Each essay has a series of hashtags that apply to the essay in some way. You can search for essays thematically that relate to topics like education, the environment, politics, or health. You can also search for essays based on composition concepts like analysis, synthesis, and research. You can search for essays that are based on shared values, essays that rely heavily on ethos, logos, or pathos, essays that are very kairos-dependent, and essays that are scholarly.

We set out to create this anthology to provide a free and open resource to composition instructors and students, full of essays that could supplement OER rhetoric and writing texts that lacked readings. Over time, however, we came to see that this anthology, and its editors, subscribe to the notion, presented by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her 2009 TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story” (included in this book), that “we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story… we regain a kind of paradise.” That is, this anthology is designed to work for as many different rhetorical situations as college writing students might find themselves in.

All of the essays in this reader are versatile rhetorically and thematically; they’re impossible to pigeon-hole, and we wouldn’t want to. Instead, this anthology is set up alphabetically by author name. Each essay has a series of hashtags we think apply to the essay in some way. You can search for essays thematically that relate to topics like education, the environment, politics, health, heroes, etc.. You can also search for essays based on whether we see them as displaying composition concepts like analysis, synthesis, and research. You can search for essays that are based on shared values, essays that rely heavily on ethos, logos, or pathos, essays that are very kairos-dependent, and even essays that are scholarly.

This collection of essays is made up of works that are licensed under Creative Commons licenses. The authors, who own the copyright to their work, have added additional permissions that allow their readers to download, copy, print, share, and redistribute their work. Unlike a traditional textbook, this book can be distributed and used for free. It is part of a larger effort on the part of instructors, librarians, and others to create Open Educational Resources to replace expensive traditional textbooks and make knowledge more open and free for everyone.