Historians learn about the past in many ways. Political and legal documents, economic statistics, film and video footage of events, material items such as tools and clothing, literature, songs, movies: all of these leftovers from previous eras help historians piece together the different ways that societies change over time. This interactive textbook is designed to help students understand America in the twentieth century through examination of the media produced in that era. Such explorations into the past are called cultural history, which has been defined by the Yale University Department of History as “an effort to inhabit the minds of the people of different worlds.”

An American Playgoer at Home serves as a companion volume to An American Playgoer in London. It captures the author’s theatregoing on his home territory in Northampton and Amherst, Massachusetts, in Hartford, Connecticut, in New York City, and in other places in the USA and in Canada as well. As a companion volume it covers approximately the same period of roughly four decades, from the early 1970s into the second decade of the new century. Almost all of the reviews are of live theatre; a few are of films that have an important dramatic quality or are a film version of an existing play, as in the instance of O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.

Over forty-plus years, Joseph Donohue spent many days in London libraries researching thea­trical subjects and many after­noons and evenings in London theatres, witnessing almost one hundred twenty-five productions of original plays and revivals and recording his exper­ience in a series of metic­ulously kept journals.

This is a unit I created for a section of my art history course.  Our community college has a sizeable population of Cambodian immigrants with an interest in learning about their heritage.   Most art history survey courses in the United States do not sufficiently expose students to the culture of Southeast Asia.  

This textbook, Heritages of Change: Curatorial Activism and First-Year Writing, includes principles of writing and information literacy through the lenses of curatorial activism, cultural heritage, and curation/exhibition. Heritage topics that students are introduced to include (but are not limited to): anti-racism, #MeToo, indigenous peoples, women/gender/LGBTQIA+, climate change, etc. They gain a broader understanding of cultural heritage and heritages of change, particularly disability heritage, in general in order to apply the concepts through their writing. This textbook presents these topics, but more specifically how to communicate about and research them.

In first-year writing courses, it can often feel that we practice writing and research in a vacuum. Writing is about communication, and, if we do not feel that we have an audience, then it can seem like our writing has no purpose (even though practice of any kind will help us develop these skills). Heritages of Change: Curatorial Activism and First-Year Writing is a method for students to think about the social changes that were prevalent during the COVID years and remain important in their wake. Heritages of Change is a lens for thinking and writing about these ideas. Through curation and exhibition as an act of activism, students focus on a specific audience with whom they can communicate authentically about this dynamic world.

As part of the Worcester State University OER initiative in Spring 2017, Dr. Elizabeth Osborne created and translated course materials for her SP 322, Advanced Spanish Composition II, course. Materials have been divided into peer review (revisión por pares) handouts, close reading activities (actividades de lectura detallada) and other miscellaneous materials. The materials included here are by no means exhaustive, but they serve as a starting point to making education affordable and to filling the gap in Spanish-language OER for upper division courses.

This course provides training and practice in both verbal and nonverbal communication. Methods of speech organization and delivery in the development of informative and persuasive speeches will be emphasized. The course will also offer opportunities to work in groups for panel discussions and debate.

This new open educational resource is for Elementary Italian. Our goal is for this book to be comprehensive, user-friendly, inclusive, and cost-effective. Tutt* a tavola has two parts, one for each course, with six chapters in each. Generally speaking, each chapter addresses three to four grammatical topics and includes a vocabulary section related to a cultural theme. The vocabulary is also incorporated into the grammatical presentations and exercises. There is also a short reading in each chapter regarding different aspects of culture and language, to address those questions of diversity and inclusion that are often missing from the textbooks we have used in the past. To include more culture, we have also included multimedia: each chapter begins with a song that is used as a starting point for the inductive presentation of the chapter’s content, and ends with a video (a film clip, an interview, social media) that summarizes the ideas covered.

This book has all of the same features as the first volume: an opening song for each chapter (Ascoltiamo!); vocabulary and grammar sections; exercises based on a film clip (Guardiamo!); and more in-depth explorations of cultural topics (Punto culturale). It also introduces a new section, Leggiamo!, in which we begin reading short literary texts in Italian.

Why Do I Have to Take This Course? A Guide to General Education helps students think about why they take General Education courses and what significance they have, individually and as a program as a whole. It allows students the time to contemplate connections, the potential reasons for developing certain learning outcomes and skills, and the applications to other courses as well as their professional and personal lives. General education is viewed through the lens of what John Lewis called "good, necessary trouble," expanding on how the liberal arts and sciences contribute to understanding and creating change in the world. Sections include stories, research, testimonies and reflections about student success, links to further readings, and activities.