Textbooks

Basic considerations for a textbook:

•  Level of class  (developmental, on-level, honors)
•  Price (and this should not be too high, regardless of your neighborhood)
• Reading level (It can exceed their grasp, but it shouldn’t do that by much.)
• Complexity (Is it really going to be usable?)

Other considerations:

• Visual (pretty colors, pretty pictures)
• Graphical (pretty diagrams, graphs, tables)
• Age (modern)
• Holes in your enthusiasm (It should fill those.)
• Additions not readily available on the internet  (It should give the students something they can’t get for free.)

Things you do want:

• Accuracy  (No major errors in fact or theory.)
• Relevance (Ought to work well for your class and not have to be worked around.)
• Readability (Has to be at a level the students can get.)
• Accessibility  (Information should be chunked, for easier understanding.)

[Some of this is a compilation of previous disparate posts.]
Sometimes we as teachers do not get to pick the textbooks. We don’t always like the ones that are chosen. So, when it is not our choice of text, what do we need to do?

What should we do with the text?

Use it. The students paid money for the book. Make sure it is integrated somehow into your classroom. Even if you didn’t choose the book and don’t like it particularly, there ought to be at least one section or one feature that you can take advantage of.

The book was chosen by someone in your department for a reason. Even if it wouldn’t have been your choice, there has to be redeeming features. Find them. Use them.

Then, when the work in the text is finished, let the students know they can go sell it back. That way, if the text is being used again, their texts will be purchased.

Do take advantage of the text you have.

There’s an old song “do what you do, do well.” I would modify this to “what you do well, do.” And you can use the text to help you with that.

What if my strengths aren’t supported in the text?

The texts I’ve usually taught from do not have case studies. That’s okay. I find them and supplement the text that way.

These stories make my teaching stronger because I am using my strengths to help my teaching.

I don’t know what your strengths are, but I am sure you have them. Use them in your classroom.

You can’t always ignore something because it isn’t your strength though.

I have found that the best thing for me to do is use the text when I can to shore up my weaknesses.

There may be things that are done well in the text that you don’t do as well in on your own. Use the text to help.

When I am talking about controversial issues, I don’t always remember what the best arguments are for both sides. But one of the texts I was required to use had readings that were in pairs: one for, one against. We would read those essays and, using them, begin a classroom discussion of the pros and cons of the issue.

It was a good use of the text (Tip 8 ) and it helped me do well at something that is one of my weaknesses.

Tip 3 also has a discussion on doing what you love.

What not to do with it

Don’t use the textbook as your lecture notes.

Your lectures should be more complete or, at least, different from the textbook. Do not use the textbook without supplementation. This doesn’t mean that you have to lecture, just use an activity or a project or an assignment that isn’t covered in the book.

I usually use the book, in a composition class, to introduce the basics. I hit the highlights in the book and make sure the students know that if they did not understand a portion of it, they can go back and read later. Then I introduce my assignments with handouts I have created or been given by others.

If you simply read the text, as I had teachers do, the students are wasting their money.

Don’t assign it as extraneous material. Make it an integral part of your course.

I have also had professors who assigned the book as a reading assignment and never discussed the information covered in the text. I figured that meant they hadn’t had a choice and were giving it to me to read so they wouldn’t be in trouble for not using it. I hated it.

If you have a textbook that you don’t love, find the best parts of it and integrate those into your syllabus. Use the text. Someone, at one time, went to a lot of trouble to put it together. And someone in your department thought it was worthwhile to use. And, most importantly for your students, they had to pay for that book, often more than $100 for a sometimes fairly simple text that has been out for twenty years. We don’t want our students to feel that our class is a waste. Let’s not give them an indication that the textbook is.

Don’t use only the text.

Find an angle that you can add.

It is all too easy to find the text, offer the info in the text, do the writing assignments in the text, and nothing else. The text is supposed to offer the students something amazing. (They’re paying $100+ for it after all.) But it shouldn’t be all there is. If they could just read the text, then you aren’t adding anything to the course.

If your school isn’t in contract with Follet’s (which requires us to buy books from them and only then and every teacher must have a book that is purchased there), then you might want to look at Lapham’s Quarterly as an option. It comes out four times a year and includes readings which are on a single subject and which have stood the test of time. (Is there some other way to say that?)

They are fifteen dollars each.

What if, for whatever reason, there is no text for your course? Maybe they had to add another section or the bookstore messed up or the publisher went defunct. Or maybe you just didn’t like any of your options and wanted to try to go it alone. What can you do?

Use the Net
First, of course, is going to be finding help on the net. The internet is available to most students at home and all students at school. If you find useful online tools, the students won’t have to print them out and neither will you, which saves money and trees.

Assuming that your school offers access to the computer in each classroom for presentation purposes, you could even introduce things from the net there.

What kinds of things can you find?

Think about your favorite things from old textbooks, either from teaching or going to school. What were the great assignments? readings? activities? Look for those kinds of things.

A general intro to college
I use an introduction to college written by a biology professor at a residential university, Dr. Mom’s Guide to College. Some of what she says isn’t relevant to my students, but if they have more questions, they know the site is there.

Models for writing
There are good models for writing up there too. I found an excellent example of a cause/effect essay that I now use in my classroom.

Exercises and activities
Of course, being a Purdue alum, I love the OWL (online writing lab), which has great grammar exercises and activities and explanations on avoiding plagiarism.

Purdue is not the only useful source though. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign even has a resource page for other writing centers that teachers might want. Malaspina has a collection of Writing Across the Curriculum discussions that include examples of assignments in different disciplines.

Litertature backgroud info
Introductions to various texts and types of essays are also online. For instance, I was teaching Gulliver’s Travels and went looking for a history of satire, especially as it related to the work. I found a good definition, a very short history with an emphasis on the book, and a much more detailed history of satire from Encarta. All of these together helped me to prepare my introduction to satire in Gulliver.

Or sometimes I can find a helpful site with lots of information. Perspectives in American Literature by Professor Reuben has lots of research and reference information including biographies of authors, study questions, and bibliographies.

The sites your students will use
There are lots of summary sites, like SparkNotes, PinkMonkeyNotes, and BookRags. They allow the students to know things about texts without having read them.

I use them to make sure my essay questions aren’t on the site. Or to make sure that I ask something that isn’t on the site. (Bad grad school experience with a fellow student making A’s reading Cliff Notes while I was struggling.)

Sometimes, though, I will finish a work in class and have them take a quiz online. If we’re reading in class and they aren’t expecting a quiz, they won’t have found them. I got a quiz on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland off GradeSaver that is a good fact quiz. The students like it because it is multiple choice. I like it, too.

Questions
I often have students write about a work that we have read in class, because I use the in-class reading time to model reading for them. They then go home and write about it. Often times I don’t have a clear view of what they can answer. I love to read. I love to write. I can have too high of expectations sometimes. So I go see what other people have done. Sometimes I will use a few of their questions, too.

I found good Paradise Lost questions at Drake’s site and at Boyer’s.

Offer good information, with enrichment.

Just lecturing is not a good way to get your students engaged. However, lectures with enrichment can make quite a difference.

For example, in Early British Literature, we read quite a few works. After we’ve read the Old English translations and as we are moving on to the Middle English, I give a lecture on the rise and fall of women’s rights in England during those ages. (I use a lot of Christine Fell’s work for this.) We have some discussion of how the OE period showed women’s rights. Then, after the ME texts are read, I ask the students to write a paper comparing the two using at least two works per period. I gave a lecture; we had a discussion; they wrote a paper.

Or I discuss description. We go through some description exercises (such as this one), then read the Exeter Riddles (as discussed in Description Papers), and write our own riddles.

Provide note-taking handouts.

If I am going to often be talking about something each class, I work up a note-taking handout. It has a general outline format, which I follow in my lecture, and let the students fill in the blanks.

When you are doing this, make sure that the blanks they have to fill in are the important things. Don’t give them the most essential information pre-printed. Doing this helps them follow your lecture more easily and indicates which parts you think are most important.

Then test them over those!

Read the texts online

This is especially true in literature.

Online Books Page from University of Pennsylvania.

Project Gutenberg

Internet Public Library

But even if the work you want isn’t in these, it may still be on the net.

For dramas, I like to go find the works and watch them as plays. They weren’t written to be read, though we English teachers like to do that. They were written to be seen. Perhaps two presentations of the same play, both fairly close to the original writing, would be a way to look at “different readings” of the same text. You can find a lot of videos through the college and local libraries.

Other people’s experiences

Apparently math is a bigger discipline for textbook-free classes. As you can imagine English teachers are much more book oriented.

Five Positive Sutdent Outcomes from the Textbook-free Algebra Class

Free online textbooks, videos, tutorials, and lecture notes on mathematics

And, this one is fun, Textbook Free for All.

A new wiki-project has been started at the University of Georgia, which aims to pool knowledge in free online texts. …When Watson was asked to teach a course on a type of computer language called XML. He found no decent textbooks — and so asked his 2004 class to create one as part of their studies. Others encouraged him to expand the idea and now, he says, “It’s my weekend and evening job”. More than 100 people in 20 countries are now involved, including Uganda, Ethiopia, India, Columbia and Indonesia. Some teachers in developing countries have already suggested a particular need for textbooks in agriculture, public health and wireless technology. The project is still embryonic.

Maybe you can write an online textbook as part of this wiki-project. (Would that count as publishing?)

Don’t despair.

If, for whatever reason, you don’t have a textbook, don’t despair. Think of it as a grad-school level challenge and maybe, just maybe, you will come up with something better than a text.

Sometimes we as teachers do not get to pick the textbooks. We don’t always like the ones that are chosen. So, when it is not our choice of text, what do we need to do?

Don’t ignore it. The students paid money for the book. Make sure it is integrated somehow into your classroom. Even if you hate the book, there ought to be at least one section or one feature that you can take advantage of.

Then, when the work in the text is finished, let the students know they can go sell it back. That way, if the text is being used again, their texts will be purchased.

Don’t use the textbook as your lecture notes.

Your lectures should be more complete or, at least, different from the textbook. Do not use the textbook without supplementation. This doesn’t mean that you have to lecture, just use an activity or a project or an assignment that isn’t covered in the book.

I usually use the book, in a composition class, to introduce the basics. I hit the highlights in the book and make sure the students know that if they did not understand a portion of it, they can go back and read later. Then I introduce my assignments with handouts I have created or been given by others.

If you simply read the text, as I had teachers do, the students are wasting their money.

Don’t assign it as extraneous material. Make it an integral part of your course.

I have also had professors who assigned the book as a reading assignment and never discussed the information covered in the text. I figured that meant they hadn’t had a choice and were giving it to me to read so they wouldn’t be in trouble for not using it. I hated it.

If you have a textbook that you don’t love, find the best parts of it and integrate those into your syllabus. Use the text. Someone, at one time, went to a lot of trouble to put it together. And someone in your department thought it was worthwhile to use. And, most importantly for your students, they had to pay for that book, often more than $100 for a sometimes fairly simple text that has been out for twenty years. We don’t want our students to feel that our class is a waste. Let’s not give them an indication that the textbook is.

Higher Ed Watch Blog has a section on textbook price curbing. Apparently the newly signed Higher Education Act will help a lot.

This legislation aims to drive down textbook prices by helping colleges and students make better-informed decisions. The bill would require publishers to disclose any major revisions in new editions of textbooks to individuals making purchasing decisions. This should help colleges decide whether it makes sense to order the latest editions, which are more expensive and less likely to be available used. Publishers would also be required to sell supplementary materials and textbooks separately. Separating out bundled materials should decrease student costs by allowing individuals to purchase a book without having to also pay for expensive companion items. The bill also requires colleges to tell students the name and cost of textbooks used in a given course by posting such information on online course schedules. Providing this information before classes start gives students time to look for copies of the books online, where they can often be purchased for less. We are hopeful that these changes will bring some relief to students.

I think that will help.

However, a friend of mine in her graduate studies is told what the name of the book is, but they don’t give the edition or the ISBN number. I hope that it requires that in the bill.

Look for the text’s strengths.

No text is perfect, but (hopefully) every text has something good about it. Don’t be like the history teachers we used to have in middle school who would insist on going through the book page by page. I don’t think I ever learned anything in school about American history past the Civil War until I became a college history major.

Find what is good about the text and use it.

I had a text I did not like this last year. It had three redeeming features (in my opinion). One was an incredible set of graphics and the others were two good sections, one on art and one on advertising. As a class we began with the art section, used the graphics and their questions after that, and then went on to the advertising section. That was it. I didn’t use anything but the best from that text, even when it was fairly limited.

Look for the text’s weaknesses.

No text is perfect. Every text is going to have some flaw. You need to examine the text and see what flaws you find.

Be honest about what those flaws are. Tell the students. Model critical reading for them. It will encourage them to read critically as well. It will also encourage them to look at flaws even in their textbooks, the medium of received knowledge which until your class has been sacrosanct.

Avoid the weaknesses of the text as much as possible or, if it is not possible, point out the weakness and ask for the students to recommend some other way of doing the thing or some other article on the topic or … It gets them involved.

Don’t solely focus on the weaknesses though. Your department (or whoever) picked this book for a reason. Focus on the redeeming feature(s).

Teach to your strengths, whether the text goes there or not.

Sometimes we have to work with what we are given, but we can still find what we do well in that area and teach with it in mind.

Remember that the text is a tool.

The text is not supposed to be a bear trap that springs closed on your classroom and holds it still till it bleeds out. It is supposed to be a starting point, a jumping off point, a useful tool for your teaching. Use it; don’t let it abuse you.

Textbooks, Free and Illegal, Online talks about the fact that texts are expensive and that people can often download them online.

Faced with soaring prices for textbooks, cash-strapped students have discovered a tempting, effective, but illicit alternative - pirated electronic books, available for free over the Internet.

“We think it’s a significant problem,” said William Sampson, manager of infringement and antipiracy at Cengage Learning Inc., a reference book publisher in Farmington Hills, Mich.

I am appalled at the price of textbooks. Yes, as a teacher I get my books free, but both my sons are in college. I paid $185 for a paperback book that is 11×7 and had about 180 pages. Doesn’t that seem a little excessive? When you sell them back, you get about $15. Then the store resells them for $185. That’s right. The paperback I bought was used.

Booksellers don’t want the price of texts to go down. The publishing companies have a golden goose.

So why would they do something about it?

If I ever have a choice, I’ll go for cheaper books. Or ones we can get from Amazon or some other bookseller for less than a dollar a page.

One of the sources for this week’s reading in my ed. class talked about, among other things, the textbook. “Do not criticize it or the author.” You may, if you have to, mention that there are other approaches to these “truths,” but you should not be critical.

Lots of beefs with this.

First, if the book always takes the left-wing approach, uses poor examples when it is from Christians, and, in the non-Christian and unrelated to Chrisitianity, never misses a chance to smack down Christians, why should I not mention this fact?

(In case you think that I am misreading it, in “The Libido of the Ugly,” which is included because it is descriptive, the essayist states that Christians love ugly and hate truth.)

I want my students to be able to read. I want them to read well. I want them to examine the tenets of the work they are reading. If they are left-wing, they might not notice the bias. If they are Christians, they might think I agree with the book. So I point out the biases and we use it anyway.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.