"Write Like a Teacher: Expanding the Audience for Your Research" with James Lang

A workshop for TWU faculty (April 7, 2:30-4pm)

Are you engaged in research that deserves to find a wider audience? Are you an academic or teacher that would like to cross over the border between writing for your disciplinary peers and writing for more public audiences? This interactive workshop argues that the way to establish these goals is to draw upon our hard-won wisdom as teachers to create effective learning experiences for readers. This approach draws lessons from Jim Lang’s work as a book series acquisition editor, his multiple books aimed at general academic audiences, and his dozens of published magazine and newspaper essays. Participants will learn about the power of questions to drive writing projects, the use of evidence in public writing, and the importance of developing a unique writing voice.

James M. Lang is a former Professor of English and the founding Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University in Worcester, MA. He is the author of six books, the most recent of which are Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It (Basic Books, 2020), Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016), and Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (Harvard University Press, 2013). Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education; his work has been appearing in the Chronicle since 1999. His book reviews and public scholarship on higher education have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including The Conversation, Time, the Boston Globe, and Chicago Tribune. He edits a series of books on teaching and learning in higher education for West Virginia University Press.