– Hi, everyone. I’m Niya Bond, the Faculty Developer here at OneHE, and I’m so excited to be here today with Jim Lang who’s going to be telling us all about his latest book. You probably know Jim from the community. He’s been such an important part of the community and has also contributed courses and resources. And so, Jim, we’re always glad to have you and always glad to get to chat with you. Tell us all about your book.

– All right. Thank you, Niya. Yeah, I’m looking forward to sharing the ideas from this book broadly. The book is kind of taking my long standing interest in teaching, which I’ve shared here on OneHE in many ways. But then, also marrying it with my disciplinary training as an English professor for many years. My interest in writing and how we can reach audiences with our writing. And so the book is called “Write Like You Teach”. I just got my first, the copy of it myself last week. So, it’s great to see it actually as a physical artifact now. And the idea is pretty simple. Honestly, you can sort of get it from the title, right? So, the idea is that those of us who teach often feel like, well, you know, I can write for my disciplinary colleagues, but it’s challenging for me to think about how to expand that audience to other folks. And actually the subtitle of the book is “Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience.”

And so, the idea is if we take what we know about how to help learners in the classroom, and then apply that to our writing strategies, because when most people come to a non-fiction book or essay, they’re trying to learn something, right? So, essentially I’m just trying to convince people, you’re an expert at helping people learn. You do it in this one context, and the strategies are not that different when we move into the written word. And so, the book kind of makes that argument, explains the principle, then walks through the sort of strategies that you would use from the classroom and what they would look like when they’re used in your writing. And so, the ultimate goal is really to help people see how they can expand their audiences, get more readers for their work. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be writing for disciplinary colleagues, we should be. That’s part of what we do as scholars. But sometimes many people wanna go beyond that and try to think how they could draw more people into their fields, in the same way we try to reach and bring more students into our disciplines and our department. So, write like you teach. That’s the basic premise.

– I love it. And you know, so often I find myself talking to my learners about the way that skills that we use in the classroom transfer to other elements of their life, building that contextualization. And so, that’s doing that here in a different and important way.

– Yeah, it’s actually . Ask the teachers to be convinced about themselves, right?

– Yeah.

– Yeah, so… And one of the things, the driving things for me for this book was that I’ve been writing for the higher education public in a more general way beyond my discipline for many years. Like, I’ve been writing for The Chronicle for 20 years now. And people often ask me, you know? I would like, or say something to me. You know, I like to be able to do that kind of work, but I just don’t have those writing skills. And people often ask me, “How do you get your books published? How do you write that kind of book?” And I kinda just found myself saying these things over and over to people. And eventually that kinda turned into the plan for the book. This notion that yes, I kind of developed these skills myself, but they’re not, like, mysterious. You can sort of follow a pattern to think about, even how you, the way you design a course, you can almost follow that pattern in the way you design a book or even an essay. So, this really kinda way for me to kinda take something I’ve been saying to people for a long time and kind of put it into this book form.

– Well, I love that. And I love the idea of kind of using backwards design to build a book or a piece on a smaller scale. So, you mentioned some key strategies that you’ve uncovered and shared in the book. Can you talk to us a little bit about those?

– Yeah, so I think the easiest ones to explain, first of all, are the question or problem that drives a book or an essay. And let’s just say, we stay with the book for a second here. And so, I think this is true that even when you design a course, right? You can design a course and say this course is gonna cover X, Y, and Z and that’s how you sell the course to your students. But actually you know, we know it’s better for student learning and motivation to say, “Here’s a big problem or a question or a challenge that we face in our lives. This course is gonna help you develop the skills or the knowledge that you would need to solve this problem or answer this question or develop that skill,” right? And the book can be done the exact same way, right? So, I identify a problem first. I don’t come out and say, “I’m an expert. Listen to me. I know something,” right? I mean, that’s our first impulse ’cause we are experts and we know important things. But we have to draw people in by saying like, “Why? Why do you need to know this stuff? Why should you be interested in it? How will you benefit from either this course or this book?”

And so, the first thing I try to help people do is dig down. What’s the deepest question or problem you are really, that’s driving you, that drove you into discipline and that’s driving you to present this work to readers or audiences. So, the first thing is that driving question or problem and how that could be anchored as part of a book. Secondly, you know, I wrote a book about attention and distraction. And so, I also try to think about that too. And the same way a learner in a classroom might get distracted or bored or feel left behind by the pacing. A writer has to do the exact same kind of thinking about that, right? How do I make sure I’m not presenting dozens and dozens of paragraphs that look exactly the same way without any breaks, dense information or ideas. How do I break that process up? How do I make sure that people get variety in what they’re reading? So, it’s not just abstractions and principles and theories, but those are being mixed in with stories, even images or graphics or questions, all those kinds of things.

So, all the things that we would think about in terms of cultivating attention in the classroom, they can also be thought about by authors of books or even even essays. In fact, if you look at for example, like, places like the Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Ed, you’ll often see those longer essays have subtitles and section breaks. That’s just a very common way to say, “Okay, the reader needs a break here.” It’s also a transition moment to say, “Now, I’m moving out onto something else.” And so, but we do the same things in the classroom, right? We recognize that learners need a break, right? Let’s stop for a second, we’ll do something else. And also like, okay, we’re done with that part. Now, we’re doing something different in class today. So, these things are really similar. Those are two easy ways to kinda describe correspondences between writing in the classroom.

– And I can see those connections you mentioned earlier to course design. You know, as you were talking we think about cognitive load and you know, I teach online, so chunking information online and the way that you mentioned in the same way that you would in a book or an essay or any other kind of medium where you’re, you wanna keep people’s attention, and also give them multiple ways to engage.

– Yeah, multiple ways to engage. Actually it’s a really another way, a good way to think about what’s going on in a really successful book. And so, actually there’s chapter on varying your evidence. And so, most of us come from evidentiary traditions in our disciplines, right? Scientists like to work with their experiments in the labs, mathematicians work with the numbers. You and I coming back from English backgrounds or communication backgrounds, right? We work with words and the text itself, for example, like a literature scholar, you know? You’re working with the text of the poem or the novel, whatever it might be, right? So, we all have these different things that would convince us in an argument that we have something useful to say. But for a general reader, you need to have more, you can’t just sort of lock into your one tradition, right? Because different readers will respond to different forms of evidence. So, if you’re writing for a broader public, you might be need to have some stats in there. Also some stories in there. You know, some images in there, some experiments in there, some interviews in there, right? And so, the more you kind of wanna expand your audience, the more you would wanna have more forms of evidence. And another way to think about it is more multiple forms of engagement so the reader can find a pathway into your book or essay that’s comfortable for them.

– Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, while we’re talking about engaging an audience, how do you recommend people get started on this practice? Do you have any tips in the book for this kind of writing?

– Yeah, there’s actually a whole appendix in the book, which is kind of focused on submitting, publishing and promoting your, like a trade book. So, a book that’s more aimed at a more public audience. And so, I go through the whole thing. You know, writing query letters, book proposals. Then, how do you work with an editor? And as you know, I’ve been an editor for a book series for 10 years now. And so, I’ve learned a lot from both sides of this process ’cause, and then also working with editors from the perspective of a writer. And so how do I, essentially, like, how do you help yourself get through that process? Because it’s a long extended process with relationships with an editor and copy editor, and proofreaders and marketing people, all that kind of process. You know, you can sort of just be in defensive mode and just doing what they tell you to do. But you also be, you know, entrepreneurial. You can be, make sure that you’re forming good relationships with those folks and doing the best work for the success of the book. So, and then the final part of that appendix is – it’s a long appendix – it’s like, you know, it’s maybe a fifth of the book, this is its final part, is about promoting the book too when it comes out. Or even promoting yourself even without a book. Like, as an expert in something, you know? How do we use these different tools that we have, like, you know, Substack columns and social media. Things like this, podcasts, interviews. How do you sort of build up what we call a platform so that then you become a known expert that readers will be drawn to for the next book you’re gonna write.

– And there’s always the next one if we know-

– There’s always a next book. That’s true. It’s kind of annoying sometimes, but there’s always a book. I’m always working back here, on somewhere back here.

– Yeah. Yeah. Well, can you tell our community where and when they can get this book?

– Yeah, the book is out on May 9th 2025. It’s University of Chicago Press and it’s everywhere you can find books. And you can certainly visit my website, jamesmlang.com, and you’ll get more information there. And also about potential workshops, you know? I can bring to a campus based on the book.

– Amazing. And I imagine we might be hearing more about this on podcasts or in other forums in the future.

– You probably will.

– Well, thanks so much for your time. Really thrilled to share this resource and check it out myself.

– All right. Thank you, Niya.