The Collaborative Textbook as Teaching Tool

Abstract

Creating a Textbook Writing Across the Curriculum activities have been successful not only in improving the art of writing but in fostering a wide variety of other skills critical to collegiate learning, such as conceptual integration (Weiss & Walter, 1980) and interdisciplinary study (Hamilton, 1980). The creation of a collaborative textbook, documents in which student writing representing the bulk of course work is assembled, has been used extensively with young students (Weiss and Walter, 1980). Its use as the exclusive text in a college setting remains unreported in recent educational literature, although this does not mean it is untried. Each semester during the 1992-93 academic year, two sections of undergraduates at Plymouth State College studied introductory psychology without purchasing any text or reserve materials. Students in these sections instead used a Writing-Across-the-Curriculum approach, in which writing and research skills were developed through mutually supporting projects. The students wrote their own textbook after researching key topics, while other students edited their work for accuracy, concepts, and form. All students reviewed and critiqued professional journal research for their semester papers. The students even proposed and wrote the questions on their final examinations. By the end of their term, participants had found, read, and critiqued journal-level research with the familiarity of graduating seniors. They had written an average of two pages of critical essays each week. Three out