Textbook

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Textbook writing

Firstly, textbook writing is related to instructional design and therefore you should think in terms of some instructional design models and methods.

However, textbook writing is a specific activity and we will try to figure out a few fundamental principles here.

Objectives

There are several ways to manage objectives (each ISD model or extensions like the Kemp will tell you more). Often, advise on writing textbooks suggests to plan book chapters in terms of desired learning level outcomes.

For example, the IOWA writing assistant identifies 6 levels of emphasis based on Bloom's taxonomy of learning that we reproduce here exactly as defined in Applying your results (retrieved 18:20, 27 July 2007 (MEST)):

  1. Knowledge: rote memorization, recognition, or recall of facts.
  2. Comprehension: understanding what the facts mean.
  3. Application: correct use of the facts, rules, or ideas.
  4. Analysis: breaking down information into component parts.
  5. Synthesis: combination parts to make a new whole.
  6. Evaluation: judging the value or worth of information or ideas.

Depending on your objectives you may put different emphasis on each level. You then can then define objectives, activities, assessment for the book as a whole but also for each chapter.

Here is an example for Synthesis. Target students are students in educational technology. They have to prepare an e-Text about e-learning standards as an activity.

  • Objective: "By the end of this section, you (as a student) will be able to design a learning object that introduces key components of e-learning standards, and in particular modeling languages.
  • Activities: Make your own summary of the most important concepts you can find in articles on educational modeling languages and then design of a course module with eXe
  • Assessment: The course module
  • Key Words: Design, formulate, build, invent, create, compose, generate, derive, modify, develop.

Objectives then can written out at the start of chapters and/or sections and activities inserted where appropriate. Hints for self-assessment can added too.

Language

According to Jones (2005), textbook writers have three choices: simplification, easyfication, or the scaffolding of concept knowledge.

Simplification strategies - enhanced cohesion/coherence
  • simplification of content: explain new technical terms as they arrise
  • simplification of form: make sure that the text has cohesive links and restores implicit relationships, e.g. when using general-specific of problem-solution progressions.
  • simplification by including explanations and exemplifications
  • using similar structures, i.e. syntactic repetition acts as a form of syntactic scaffolding.
Easification strategies - enhancing structure

The purpose easification is to “give learners an additional instructional apparatus by developing a kind of "access structure" around the text without his [sic] having gone through the intervening stages of simplified materials” Bhatia cited by Jones (2005:9). Examples of such devices are:

  • Provide introductory paragraph(s) to a text (or text segment)
  • Provide a structural analysis ('tagging' sections) to a text (or text segment), e.g. as in advance organizers.
  • Provide a schematic representation of a text (or text segment)
  • Add annotations/explanations to the text, e.g. marginalia
  • Add metadiscursive commentaries (before, in the middle, or after)
  • Add questions to encourage interactions with the text

Links

Software

See various writing tools for a longer list of tools and a discussion of various writing tool categories.

References

Textbook understanding

  • Conderman, Greg; Elf, Nanci (2007), What's in This Book? Engaging Students through a Textbook Exploration Activity, Reading & Writing Quarterly, v23 n1 p111-116 Jan-Mar 2007.

Practical Textbook writing

  • Mary Ellen Lepionka (2003), Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, ISBN 0-9728164-0-2
  • Franklin H. Silverman (2004), Self-Publishing Textbooks and Instructional Materials, ISBN 0-9728164-3-7
  • Mary Ellen Lepionka (2005), Writing and Developing College Textbook Supplements ISBN 0-9728164-1-0
  • Forbes, David J., (1996), Make History Textbook Writing "A Puzzlement", The History Teacher. Vol. 29, No. 4 (Aug., 1996), pp. 455-461. JSTOR Bitmap/POF

Research on textbook writing

  • Jones, Alan (2005) Conceptual Development in Technical and Textbook Writing: A Challenge for L1 and L2 Student Readers, Proceedings of the International Professional Communication Conference, Limerick, Ireland, 12-15 July, 2005.

PDF - Abstract

  • Bhatia, V. K. Simplification v. Easification: The Case of Legal Texts. Applied Linguistics 4(1), pp. 39-78.

Instructional objectives

See also: instructional design and instructional design method in particular.

  • Felder, Richard M. and Rebecca Brent (1997). Objectively Speaking, Chemical Engineering Education, 31(3), 178-179 (1997). HTML reprint
  • Gronlund, N.E. (1991)- How to write and use instructional objectives (4th ed.) New York, Macmillan.

An instructional design method defines how to organize the whole design process. Frequently such methods are tied to specific instructional design models who in turn are based on learning and teaching theory.