First Draft

The elation on completing the first draft of my Project Power textbook cannot be underestimated. I feel wonderful! This book represents one-hundred and four pages (not counting index, titles and so on) of work that is basically as distilled version of a course I've taught for the past three years. 

Although wanting to turn class handouts into a publishable work is understandable the decision is not necessarily automatic. The very basic criteria need to be met: 

• Are the handouts linkable into a theme or teaching purpose?
• Is there a balance of activities present?
• Do the activities lend themselves to a textbook format -- or are they too idiosyncratic for general use?
• Is there enough original material?

. . . and so on.

After collating my handouts, I found that I had fifteen task sheets, fifteen examples (text-based mainly but some PowerPoint files) and about twenty pages of assorted hints, activities, resources and worksheets. A lot of the actual classroom time was taken up by teacher explanations, students working through the materials (a good thing) and one-to-one point-by-point teacher-to-student advice. In other words, the class time comprised far more than the actual handouts. As they were, a textbook they did not make.

Timing and spacing were the biggest absences. If I had a handout, being present in the classroom I could adjust the timing of the lesson to suit the particular students there. I can add more practice time, develop a weakness, ignore a point everyone can do. But a textbook is a distance tool. It needs to consider timing and different timing possibilities and contain a flexible yet consistent approach within pages that will never be used with the writer present. 'Spacing' in this context means the idea that a handout, which is nominally a single page, may be longer or shorter depending on the immediate pre-classroom need. The question of how activities should be spaced is one that underpins the very genesis of the published textbook.

Weeks of thought and preparation went into answering these questions. The draft contains these answers, but they must be thought of as only temporary. Later reflection, editors, classroom trials will all point to different versions of the answer. That process must begin now.