My own approach is to use a fairly standard text and then use R to
illustrate/demo the implementation of the concepts. My goal is to
balance both a conceptual understanding and an ability to implement in
R. Of course, during the demo, I tend to tackle the data from a data
modeling frame of mind rather than a cookbook approach. I have been
using Zar for a number of years, and this year switched to Q&K, and
have been trying to write 'labs' that use the examples from the text
for illustration.
However, I must say that this is done within the context of a 4 hour,
integrated lab/lecture graduate course. It would be much more
difficult without the integrated lab component.