“Let Them Read Drafts!”—Integrating Teaching & Scholarship

Are you writing?

“Estimates typically attribute some 85% of publications to some 15% of those who could potentially write them,” wrote Robert Boice in his 1990 Professors as Writers (p. 7). Academics struggle with writing while also invested in good teaching. Let’s face it, most of us aren’t writing.

Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published yet another article on helping us write. How do we not only build habits to support writing, but also use those habits to advance writing toward publication?

With a little help from friends, Wabash, and Anne Lamott, I am learning that writing is more likely to happen when integrated with teaching and service. Not only can writing happen, but writing can be better when integrated with these “other” areas of professional life.

Three Ways, Three Times

One key is to remember: anything you write can and should serve more than one purpose. Early on, colleagues counselled me to use every project in at least three ways, at least three times. Either by intentional design or spontaneously, creatively link a conference presentation to a guild workshop to a course assignment to a sermon to an article draft. As long as we are clear about how the writing meets the purpose of the conference, workshop, course, church, or journal, integrating writing across professional, ecclesial, and public audiences can improve our writing because good ideas typically develop over time and in conversation with multiple audiences.

Like brioche of “Let Them Eat Cake” fame, students need to delve into the kneading process that moves academic writing from idea to publication. Many of us get stuck believing that a first draft should be a polished draft, which is far from the case. Sharing drafts can also begin to address power dynamics by opening up what can be seen as exclusive academic conversations.

I have observed that newer faculty desire to share only polished work with wider audiences. Of course we do! In the PhD process, we spend years crafting drafts upon drafts of a polished dissertation that we defend in a public performance—all this before the long process of dismantling this labor of love and sweat in order to rewrite the whole thing for publication later.

For many theological faculty today, vulnerability and job security are already palpable, notwithstanding rapid ecclesial and institutional changes. We need to keep working on something new, which will be more likely if we invite other people to read what we are working on, well before it is polished. Here are some things I have tried and found fruitful:

1. Assign a Draft as Course Reading

Include an article draft or potential book chapter draft as a class reading assignment on the syllabus that isn’t yet fully drafted at the beginning of the semester. It is one thing to make reference to your work in progress while teaching. It is another thing to put your draft on the syllabus.

When I was working on the last chapter of my first book, I put it on the syllabus. It aligned very well with the course objectives and thus became an excellent opportunity to integrate writing and teaching.

Because the draft was on the syllabus, I had to get it done two weeks ahead and posted for students’ access. And, I did get it done. Was it polished? Of course not! But, the project remained on schedule and benefitted from good conversation with students and in conversation with other assigned reading for the particular day. It helped my teaching and the in-class conversation helped my writing.

2. Participate in Round Table Writing 

Structure a seminar with a class round table writing process. Contribute your writing along with students. Advance your faculty writing while also strengthening a communal sense of collaboration with a group of students and even within a larger school context.

Sharing a draft in an introductory course reminds you to show how your work advances a field of study’s trajectory, places your work in historical context, and communicates to a broader audience. I found this particularly helpful when rewriting a highly theoretical project like a dissertation for a broader audience. This also works well in an advanced seminar connected to your current research. I recently read an account on this very blog where one semester’s class wrote material for the next semester’s class. When you share in the writing process with students, accountability is structured toward productivity and better writing.

3. Write as Public Theologians

Include a public theology project as a course assignment. Create and contribute to a class blog. A few years ago, my ethics seminar struggled to relate Augustine’s Confessions to contemporary church contexts. So on the spot before I had ever written one myself, I said: let’s each write a 200 word blog for a church newsletter entitled: Why we need to read Augustine today. It was amazing that blogging opened up the text to me and to wider audiences.

I regularly ask students to write an op-ed or letter to a denominational body connecting course themes with current events. I recently shared my letter to my local state legislators about the ethics of a health care bill and students shared their diverse letters with me.

Make your teaching, research, and service count more by letting these different audiences read drafts. What would you work on if you had more time to write this semester? How might you bring a draft in conversation with your students? As scholar-teachers, it’s well worth a try!

Photo Credit: “Knead” by yasamaster  – CC by 2.0

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