Every three years, the Freshman Core Committee recommends a pool of textbooks for English 1101 and 1102. The department approves the committee's choices and reviews texts more frequently when new editions of approved texts are released. All full-time, tenure-track faculty may choose texts that are not approved, other than the Blair Handbook, 5th edition, which is used in all composition courses.

For the 2008-2009 academic year, the department recommends that ENGL 1101 faculty adopt Collages: A Reader for Composition, the department's custom textbook for that course.

Other books in the 1101 pool include:
Lynn Bloom. The Essay Connection. Houghton Mifflin
Linda H. Peterson, John C. Brereton, and Joan E. Hartman. The Norton Reader. Norton
Stephen Reid. Purpose and Process. A Reader for Writers. Prentice Hall
Harvey S. Wiener and Nora Eisenberg. Great Writing. A Reader for Writers. McGraw Hill

The 1102 textbook pool will include:
DiYanni. Literature. McGraw Hill
Gwynn. Literature. Longman
McMahan, Day, and Funk. Literature and the Writing Process. Prentice Hall
Meyers. Bedford Compact Introduction to Literature. Bedford
Schlib and Clifford. Making Literature Matter. McGraw Hill