The First Shitty Draft

Lecturing is a compelling form of pedagogy when the subject is information intensive and complex; however, students may feel that the lectures are heavy and dif cult to internalize. In this article, an alternative to lecturing is described, namely, the writing of a “ rst shitty draft” of a textbook during a trend forecasting course that was then given to students to read on their own instead of them listening to lectures. The course Trend Forecasting serves as a case example in which draft-based teaching took place. It becomes apparent that by allowing the students time and space of their own to explore the materials and topics of the course, they work actively and produce interesting results as coursework. This outcome is well in line with recommendations by Ronald Barnett, making this pilot a concretization of Barnett’s ideas.