Write Like You Teach Book Discussion: Part 1 √ §

Join us for the first of two workshops designed to help you kickstart a writing project for an audience of generalists outside your discipline or outside of academia. In the first session, we’ll discuss the Introduction and Chapters 1-3 of Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience (2025), by James M. Lang. 

From the book cover:
“After years spent cultivating their expertise and passion for a subject, scholars are uniquely positioned to write great books. Yet, accustomed to writing for an audience of their peers, many scholars find it challenging to adapt their writing to a style that is accessible and engaging to the general public. James M. Lang argues that academics are regularly called on to pitch their research to a general audience: their undergraduates. If only there were a way to translate the skills they use in the classroom into their writing. . . .

In Write Like You Teach, Lang—a veteran writer and teacher—distills the elements of good classroom teaching into guidelines for writing for a general audience. He encourages authors to pay attention to how their readers learn and to embrace exploration, experimentation, and creativity in their writing. … Each chapter of Write Like You Teach ends with writing prompts to help would-be authors practice their newly acquired skills, and an appendix provides additional advice on publishing and promoting one’s work. Teachers who follow Lang’s suggestions will find new ways to connect with their readers–and like any good student, they will never approach writing the same way again.”

In the spring, we will discuss the second half of the book. You may join us for one or all of these discussions as your schedule and interests allow. 

Since the publisher has not made this book available as an unlimited-use ebook, the FDC will purchase individual access codes for e-books for the first 25 people who register for and commit to attending the first session by October 21.