Note: The purpose of this document is to be able to quickly bring a LLM up to speed on this project. I think it is useful to have a project goals & style document like this to enable you to quickly re-establish critical context when necessary.
OER Textbook Project Synopsis: Writing 5 for ESL Students
Project Overview
This project aims to create an Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook for Writing 5, the second most advanced level writing class in the English Language Institute (ELI) at the University of Pittsburgh. The textbook will be designed to better align with the curriculum’s goals and student learning outcomes than the current commercial textbook in use.
Target Audience
- Adult ESL students preparing for academic or professional writing in English
- Primarily international students planning to study in U.S. degree programs
- English majors from other countries studying abroad
- Community members seeking to improve their English writing skills
- Most common L1 backgrounds: Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish
Course Content and Goals
- Focus on academic writing conventions and APA formatting guidelines
- Multi-paragraph/multi-page written texts on various topics
- Emphasis on expressing, elaborating, and synthesizing ideas
- Research writing process: brainstorming, outlining, drafting, revising
- Integration of evidence and proper citation of sources
- Grammar and vocabulary appropriate to the high-intermediate level
Key Student Learning Outcomes
- Write original five-paragraph essays (650-900 words) using various rhetorical patterns
- Synthesize and cite information from sources for secondary research
- Use grammar and vocabulary appropriate to the level accurately
- Identify and correct errors in sentences, paragraphs, and essays
- Revise paragraphs and essays effectively
Project Approach
- Designed to be deployable as print-on-demand or online materials
- Focus on addressing core student learning outcomes
- Emphasis on practical application rather than innovative features
- Transparent use of generative AI as a drafting and ideation tool
AI Integration and Attribution
- Generative AI used for drafting explanations, example texts, and exercises
- All AI-generated content to be reviewed, edited, and approved by the human author
- Proposed project attribution: “This work was created by [Author Name] with the assistance of various digital tools, including word processors, research databases, and generative AI language models. Generative AI was used as a drafting and ideation tool, with all output guided, reviewed, edited, and approved by the human author. This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0.”
Project Goals and Motivation
- Create a textbook that better fits the Writing 5 curriculum
- Provide free, high-quality learning materials for ESL students
- Align with the University of Pittsburgh’s initiative to expand OER use
- Reduce costs for students while maintaining or improving educational quality
Development Process
- Author to define skills and provide input on each skill
- LLMs to draft initial content (explanations, examples, exercises)
- Author to revise and refine all content to fit professional judgment and vision
- Ongoing use of LLMs as a “sounding board” for refining project strategies
- Course materials will be saved in .md files which are to be drafted in a manner compliant with the CommonMark specification.
- Utilities yet to be determined (possibly Pandoc) will perform the synthesis and typesetting necessary for the Markdown files to be deployed in diverse, flexible output formats
Style And Output Guidelines
- Produce output as well-formatted Markdown text compliant with the CommonMark standard.
- When drafting exposition, your explanations will be clear, efficient, and presented in language suitable for a non-native speaker of English. To phrase it in conventional terms, your writing must target a “9th-grade reading level” at all times.
- You will avoid large chunks of exposition, but will instead take an iterative and piecemeal approach to exposition that introduces important concepts, definitions, and examples in an easily skimmable and digestable way.
- When drafting exposition, when relevant, address students directly instead of talking about them in the third person. For example, prefer “An argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires you to investigate a topic…” instead of “An argumentative essay is a genre of writing that requires the student to investigate a topic…”. If this is infelicitous in a given context, consider referring to the writer instead of the student.
- When drafting model texts, your writing style will be conservative, formulaic, and didactic such that the elements of good style and organization can be readily isolated and identified by students and instructors.
- When drafting exercises, your instructions will be concise and clear. If the exercise requires multiple steps, you will break them down in a readily understandable way.
- In this course, thesis statements are taught as having a topic, a controlling idea, and (usually) three key points (presented in parallel grammar) which anticipate the topics of the body paragraphs. Thesis statements can also include a concession clause, such as: “Although it is true that … , …”. Thesis statements always state the writer’s position directly: the position must never be couched in language such as “I think that…” or “This essay argues…”.
- In this course, topic sentences are taught as having a topic and controlling idea. In the context of a multi-paragraph essay, topic sentences of body paragraphs will typically incorporate a signal phrase to signify the structure of the essay and the relationships between ideas. Topic sentences always state the writer’s position directly: the position must never be couched in language such as “I think that…”.
- Strictly follow APA 7th Edition citation style if you ever need to produce an in-text citation or reference list entry.
This OER textbook project aims to create a tailored, high-quality resource for ESL writing students, leveraging the author’s extensive teaching experience and the capabilities of AI tools, while maintaining a strong emphasis on human oversight and pedagogical expertise.