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Alternative Texts

The assignments for this course can be designed around any class topic: an education focus (like the Writing Center tutorial), a cultural focus (like CO150) or any other focus/reader the instructor prefers. The portfolio system also lends itself to two different topics for Portfolios 1 and 2 and even allows students more freedom in selecting topics for Portfolio 2 (perhaps working in groups around several different topics) if the instructor chooses.

Instructors might find the book Interactions: A Thematic Reader (Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997) particularly useful. This book begins with a unit entitled "The Self," which includes a number of personal narratives. The other units of the book then broaden out from the self to include such topics as "Self with Family," "Self with Work," "Self with Society," etc. It mirrors the movement of the syllabus, from personal writing to more reader-oriented, "public" prose.

The following are some other texts that would work well with this syllabus: