About a book

andere arbeiten lassen … Lernen und Lehren an Hochschulen mit dem A A L
(ISBN 978-3-947287-05-5)

During 2018 and 2019 I offered extracts on the page Work in Progress, titled "eel … engage everone in learning". After clearing the innerbook for printing I adapted the text on this page and the blog entries with the extracts.

Some of you may already know what I mean with the acronym "Aal" in German. The prospective readers are students, teachers, lecturers and last not least managers in higher education. As the book is currently in print and is expected to be published in November 2019 I redirect from now on to the publishing house Weidenborn Verlag and it's page "andere arbeiten lassen", where you can download an extract and have the opportunity to pre-order the book.
 

I thank the readers of my blog for their insights and my colleagues who edited the manuscript: Jan, Robin, Frank and especially Nastassia.

Making a book is not just writing. It is constructing something with the encouragement, support and help of colleagues and future readers. That the "eel" and my books from 2017, the "moose", became such beautiful books is especially the merit of a dear friend who tremendously worked on the editing of my photos and figures for the book. Beside this the paper and the bookbinding of the printing company are of a high quality. So the books got a special and sustainable style. Thank you all.

The writing started pretty unspectacularly on the evening before New Year 2018. I just sat down, collected some texts from former years and wrote a first introduction. A few months earlier I had sketched a mindmap on the contents of the book. I knew that I would do the writing in periods, weeks, where I could retreat to a small village near the North Sea (07 Jan 2019 Learning German with the Moose). 

Nearly 22 months later, the work was done. The metaphor "the project is your baby" is a view, that artists, project managers, students and writers often agree to. Okay, then this project was an elephant's baby. Not really. If I sum up the hours worked and assume twenty productive hours per week (any other thing is organizing, administration, socializing) then it is human. 821 hours. 41 weeks. This is an experience I'm well acquainted with from former books.

What I find remarkable is how unobstrusive it is to start the work on a book and to finish it. Just sit down and write the first introduction. Just sit down and clear the innerbook for printing. That's it. But inbetween there are hours of flow, moments of joy and learning and of dialogues with colleagues, friends and readers. That is why I love writing.

And of course I hope that the readers will enjoy the book just like I enjoyed the construction process. You can download an extract on the page andere arbeiten lassen of the publishing house Weidenborn Verlag. 

Christa Weßel - Monday, 28 Oct 2019

Blog sections Writing & Publishing and Higher Education

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