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		I have used EMERGING: CONTEMPORARY READINGS FOR WRITERS (Barrios) and I	I have used ACTING OUT CULTURE: READING AND WRITING (Miller) and I	I have used READING OUR WORLD (Yagelski) and I	I have used FROM INQUIRY TO ACADEMIC WRITING (Greene and Lidinsky) and I	I have used CHANGING SOCIETY (Schwab and Love) and I	I have used MAKING LITERATURE MATTER (Schilb and Clifford) and I:	I have used MAKING ARGUMENTS ABOUT LITERATURE (Schilb and Clifford) and I	I have used LITERATURE: THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE(Abcarian, Klotz, and Cohen) and I:	I have used THE NORTON INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE, SHORTER 9TH EDITION (Booth, Hunter, and Mays) and I:	I have used A WRITER'S REFERENCE (Hacker) and I:	Do you think the custom A Writer's Reference is a useful text to require of all First Year Writing students (ENWR 100, 105, and 106)?	Please offer text recommendations for any of the courses. Just make sure the recommendations fit our program. Thank you.	Please add details for any text about which you feel strongly, listing its strengths and weaknesses. We are particularly interested to hear why you do not recommend a text or are ambivalent. Please mention the text by name in your response as your answer here is not linked to your answers on the rest of the survey.
1 delete	2011-03-30 10:49:21		am ambivalent	am ambivalent	recommend it	am ambivalent	recommend it	recommend it			recommend it	Yes
2 delete	2011-03-30 11:14:41										recommend it	Yes	I have used Reading our Histories: Understanding Our Cultures and like it, but it is very expensive, and we use so little of it. Much of the explanatory material is replicated in A Writer's Reference, so I don't think we need that part of the book. Couldn't we just use a cheaper book of essays on various subjects? All we need is readings to refer to in the essays.
3 delete	2011-03-30 12:02:00				recommend it		am ambivalent	am ambivalent			am ambivalent	No		I am ambivalent to A Writer's Reference because I do not feel it is necessary to have students purchase a text when there is reliable and solid information online. I am ambivalent to the Clifford and Schilb texts because Matter is too large for our purposes and Making Arguments has limited readings.
4 delete	2011-03-30 12:05:41	am ambivalent	recommend it	am ambivalent	recommend it	am ambivalent	recommend it	recommend it	am ambivalent	don't recommend it	recommend it
5 delete	2011-03-30 14:47:51	recommend it			recommend it				recommend it		recommend it	Yes		I was surprised at how positive my students were about Barrios, Emerging. I had thought it might be a little too challenging, but the response on end of term evaluations was overwhelmingly positive. Students told me they found it refreshing to talk about "real things."
6 delete	2011-03-30 15:17:38				recommend it		recommend it					Yes
7 delete	2011-03-30 15:57:30		recommend it				am ambivalent	recommend it			recommend it	Yes	For 105: Ourselves Among Others, Seeing and Writing (both from Bedford St. Martin's)	Just a general observation on 106 texts--most of them are extremely large (and expensive)and while the variety is nice, I'd really love to see more small, manageable readers for 106.
8 delete	2011-03-30 16:08:03				recommend it		recommend it				am ambivalent	Ambivalent
9 delete	2011-03-30 17:55:17		recommend it		recommend it		recommend it				recommend it	Yes
10 delete	2011-03-30 21:23:48		don't recommend it		don't recommend it	recommend it	recommend it				recommend it	Yes	I would like to see Changing Society remain a choice for 105. For reasons, see below.	Changing Society is a great text for 105 because readings are current, short, and representative of various points of view. They cover topics students are interested in: cars and energy, tv, digital life, et. al. I did not like From Inquiry to academic Writing because readings were too long and challenging for students. Acting Out Culture pieces are out of date - especially on digital age. I like A Writer's Reference, especially the custom version, as it standardizes rubric, essay jargon, etc. BUT I don't think students like using it - I think it's time for an online tool, where students live.
11 delete	2011-03-31 10:23:02	am ambivalent	am ambivalent	recommend it	am ambivalent	am ambivalent	recommend it				recommend it	Yes
12 delete	2011-03-31 18:38:25		am ambivalent		recommend it		recommend it	recommend it		am ambivalent		Yes
13 delete	2011-04-01 18:04:44							recommend it	am ambivalent		recommend it	Yes
14 delete	2011-04-02 11:08:25				recommend it						recommend it	Yes
15 delete	2011-04-02 15:38:44		don't recommend it	recommend it	am ambivalent	am ambivalent	recommend it		recommend it		recommend it	Yes		Reading Our World by Yagelski was an excellent selection with well thought out topics and readings. This text has a great philosophy that was maintained throughout and which enabled me to discuss not only a reading�s topic, but also the art of writing and the decisions that writers make while creating and revising their work. Chapters 1 and 3 were invaluable because they laid the groundwork of good writing by introducing students to the Rhetorical Situation, which was well represented throughout the text by the consistently used color-coded glosses and grouped questions which allowed students to review material, challenge their ideas, and engage in critical thinking/research. Finally, since some of my students were struggling financially throughout the semester, being able to find all of the readings online and supplementing those versions with reserve texts and their friends� books enabled them to only purchase the Hacker Handbook. This has been my second favorite text at MSU -- Kathleen McCormick's being my favorite.
16 delete	2011-04-06 10:41:05				don't recommend it						am ambivalent	Ambivalent		I do not recommend FROM INQUIRY TO ACADEMIC WRITING. Actually, I found it very useful and solid in the first part -- the chapters that deal with how to write an essay. The second part, however, has been very disappointing. Many of the readings are outdated, biased and difficult to read (ie poorly written). They don't seem to reflect the breadth of the conversation on current cultural topics as I understand them. I feel I have to significantly adapt the reading list to make it relevant and interesting to my students. For example, the chapter on gender (chapter 15), to me, reflects a point of view that was current circa 1978. The notion that gender is socially constructed is presented as fact in the chapter introduction, when it is certainly debatable. Judith Lorber presents evidence of gender as a social construct in a case study she cites (624-5) which has since been debunked. (The subject of the case study wrote a book contradicting the earlier findings.) Gender relations have evolved, and the conversation has progressed. I wish the chapter reflected some of that -- the greater numbers of women who graduate from college today, etc. The actual conversation is more interesting than the readings reflect.
17 delete	2011-04-10 17:18:00				recommend it		recommend it				recommend it	Yes
18 delete	2011-04-10 18:41:25				recommend it		recommend it	recommend it	recommend it		recommend it	Yes
19 delete	2011-04-11 08:43:12		recommend it				recommend it				recommend it	Yes		Acting Out Culture is structured wonderfully, but some of the articles are odd. I must pick and choose carefully to create complimentary readings.
20 delete	2011-04-11 09:09:32		recommend it								recommend it	Yes
21 delete	2011-04-11 09:33:16						don't recommend it		am ambivalent		recommend it	Ambivalent
22 delete	2011-04-11 13:26:39				am ambivalent			am ambivalent	am ambivalent		recommend it	Yes		Many good readings in Making Arguments About Literature. The companion reference book offers compact interpretations and commentary. I like that the book is under 1000 pages. Would be nice if the book had a more logical sequence to its arrangement. As is, I find myself doing work that the editors could have done.
23 delete	2011-04-11 18:07:37		don't recommend it	recommend it	am ambivalent		recommend it				recommend it
24 delete	2011-04-12 00:11:08		recommend it				don't recommend it				am ambivalent	No		Making Literature Matter is expensive and its drama section is very very weak. There must be better texts out there than this one for our department.
25 delete	2011-04-13 19:07:07		recommend it		recommend it		recommend it	recommend it			recommend it	Yes
26 delete	2011-04-13 21:52:24						recommend it				recommend it	Yes
27 delete	2011-04-20 14:05:42				am ambivalent						am ambivalent	Ambivalent		I am ambivalent about Greene. Its strengths are its relatively low price,the very appropriate and useful supplementary material on the texts, and the questions, which are also good at getting into important aspects of a text in concrete ways. There is a large selection of poetry and fiction. The section on fairy tales is popular with students and with some supplementation can produce a good unit. On the other hand, the drama selection is very limited, many of the readings from all genres are old warhorses, and it is enormous. I hate carrying it around. I am ambivalent about A Writer's Reference because I find the Montclair section very useful. Much of the material about writing argument, however, seems geared to information type writing rather than the analytical arguments we try to teach.