When I first heard Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton I was, like everyone else, immediately blown away by its combination of music, history, emotion and empowerment. My second reaction is one only teachers can relate to: asking “How can I use this in my teaching?” I’ve been working on this project since 2015. Thanks to a grant from Open Oregon, I’ve been able to improve my materials and create a workbook that I hope will let others access this incredible musical.

The workbook is designed to be used over a 10-week college communication course. It is designed to cover academic listening, pronunciation, and public speaking, using a thematic approach tied to the musical Hamilton. Ideally, students would access the workbook in print form, as it is meant to be an interactive “notebook” which will be filled with notes by the end of term.

This site contains links to PDF and Word versions of workbooks, along with supplemental materials, for ESOL Reading 6, 7, and 8.

Reading 6 Course Description:
Presents reading as a process that involves determination of purpose, selection and adjustment of strategies, analysis and reflection of underlying meanings, and integration of prior knowledge with new knowledge to address the purpose. Covers content comprehension, textual analysis, critical thinking skills, study skills, and language analysis at the high intermediate level. Includes reading diverse texts for a variety of purposes. Reviews pre-reading techniques and includes finding themes and main ideas, summarizing, paraphrasing, inferencing, and using context clues, word forms and common affixes.

Reading 7 Course Description:
Presents reading as a process that involves determination of purpose, selection and adjustment of strategies, analysis and reflection of underlying meanings, and integration of prior knowledge with new knowledge to address the purpose. Covers content comprehension, textual analysis, critical thinking skills, study skills, and language analysis at the advanced level. Includes reading diverse texts for a variety of purposes. Reviews pre-reading techniques and includes finding themes and main ideas, analyzing figurative language, summarizing, paraphrasing, inferencing, and using context clues, word forms and common affixes.

Reading 8 Course Description:
Presents reading as a process that involves determination of purpose, selection and adjustment of strategies, analysis and reflection of underlying meanings, and integration of prior knowledge with new knowledge to address the purpose. Covers content comprehension, textual analysis, critical thinking skills, study skills, and language analysis at the high advanced level. Includes reading diverse texts for a variety of purposes. Includes finding themes and main ideas, analyzing figurative language, summarizing, paraphrasing, evaluating sources and analyzing arguments, inferencing, and using context clues, word forms and common affixes.

This site contains links to PDF and Word versions of workbooks, along with supplemental materials, for ESOL Writing 6: Paragraph to Essay Workbook and ESOL Writing 8: Academic Essays and Research.

Writing 6 Course Description:
Review of the writing process and development of the essay. Covers descriptive, narrative, process, and comparison/contrast essays. Review of verb tenses, sentence types, punctuation, and spelling patterns. Introduction to adverb and adjective clauses, reported speech, passive voice, and gerunds and infinitives.

Writing 8 Course Description:
Develops upper-advanced writing skills. Includes grammar and mechanics, and builds upon expository essay styles by introducing outside research. Explores concepts including but not limited to the cultural expectations related to a U.S. academic environment with an increased emphasis on basic research conventions. This is the fifth course of a five-course sequence.