Departmental Open Textbook

New Free Online Textbook for Beginning Italian!

Starting in the academic year 2024-25, the Department of Transnational Italian Studies at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges has adopted a free, online, open textbook for its Beginning Italian courses. The title is Cotto e mangiato: Corso di Italiano multiculturale and was designed specifically to meet the interests and expectations of Tri-Co students. The textbook is accessible at the following links: Volume 1 and Volume 2. These volumes are derived from Voci: Corso elementare di lingua e culture italiane, a former online platform previously distributed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license and used by the Department for the academic years 2022-23 & 2023-24.

A recent survey from the College Board found that students spent more than $1,200 on books and supplies during the 2019-2020 academic year (Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2020). The cost of Italian-language textbooks adds to the financial burden, particularly for BIPOC students, first-generation college students, and those from low-income backgrounds. With support from four digital grants awarded by Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College Libraries, the Department launched this Italian-language open educational resource textbook with Haverford Pressbooks in Spring 2021. The goal was to make language instruction affordable and accessible, addressing the biases inherent in commercial textbooks. This new Open Educational Resource significantly reduces the financial burden for low-income and first-generation students enrolled in both Beginning I and Beginning II courses.

Olivia Colace ’25 and Ava Panetto (HC ’23) collaborated with the Department on this project. Their contributions were crucial in developing the OER platform and tailoring the textbook to the needs of Bryn Mawr and Haverford language learners. Many traditional elementary textbooks reinforce existing biases by presenting discriminatory and stereotyped images of Italian society, particularly regarding family, professions, gender, and race. In contrast, Cotto e mangiato promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion through a zero-cost learning platform.

The open structure of the textbook allows for continuous updates to reflect evolving standards in Italian culture, such as discussions on femininity and masculinity, racial and gender discrimination, geopolitics, migration, incarceration, and issues of power and justice. “For example, we revamped the way vocabulary related to family is taught, replacing traditional terms with authentic materials that challenge the notion of familial relationships as solely biological or legal bonds, a perspective that many learners find exclusionary,” says Luca Zipoli. Roberta Ricci adds that Cotto e mangiato helps students understand 21st-century Italy through cross-cultural comparisons and learn inclusive language practices related to non-binary genders, plural agreement, and adjectivation.

Cotto e mangiato: Corso di Italiano multiculturale is currently under development. Any comments, questions, or suggestions are welcome. Please contact authors Roberta Ricci and Luca Zipoli.

—Grazie e buona lettura!