The Flat World Knowledge Thematic Reader for Writers is a fully curated collection featuring the apparatus of a traditional reader (introductory headnotes, questions before and after readings, assignment sequences, thematically and rhetorically arranged chapters).
The author, Miles McCrimmon, knows that many of you (writing teachers and some entire departments) have already given up on using $90 readers and are going DIY, cobbling together open source alternatives. But this can be a very labor-intensive and daunting process, given the lack of coherence and cohesion in the current universe of OERs and the reading difficulty of many texts in the public domain.
If you or your department wishes to move away from the $90 alternative, The FWK Reader for Writers can help to arrange and curate what can otherwise be a bewildering and overwhelming assortment of options. Like a good museum installation, Miles refrains from making the claim that this reader’s exhibition is exhaustive; instead, he claims it will inspire and guide readers (both teachers and students) to seek out additional examples on their own.
The standard, “off-the-shelf” version of The FWK Reader for Writers will be arranged thematically into the following six broad themes -- education, work, politics, commerce, identity, and technology – with a separate set of thematic writing assignments.
There is an alternate, rhetorically arranged version with six chapters based on the six types of discourse laid out in the CCCC Statement on Multiple Uses for Writing: academic, workplace, civic, cross-cultural, personal, and aesthetic discourse.
You can use Flat World Knowledge’s MIYO (MeeYoh) or “Make It Your Own” customization platform to create hybrids of rhetorical and thematic approaches to the readings, if you wish.
Regardless of the arrangement you choose, the rhetorical or the thematic, the guiding principle is to expose students to six different kinds of discourse at the same time that they are exposed to six thematic fields of interest. Like the Flat World Knowledge Handbook for Writers, The FWK Reader for Writers will give students the tools they need to know themselves as full participants in higher education. In this case, they will come to know their strengths and weaknesses as readers and writers in certain thematic areas and certain types of discourse.
By emphasizing that themes can be expressed through multiple genres and discourses, The FWK Reader for Writers will present students with a matrix of reading questions, writing assignments, and possibilities for further work. The goal of the reading and writing processes that inform this book will be for a student to isolate a couple of themes and a couple of discourses to explore in more detail over the course of the semester, and beyond.
Check out the book online now or request review materials to see if this innovative approach to the reader is right for your course and students.
