Xavier Faculty Writing Group

In support of your scholarship, we implement a semester-long scholarly writing group at Xavier through the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development. The group, based upon a UNCF-Mellon productivity seminar, seeks to create a community of teacher-scholars supporting each other, investing in the idea of daily writing, and increasing their scholarly output. If you think you might be interested in this model, please read on!

Basic Description of the Xavier Faculty Writers’ Group (XULA-WG)

The goal XULA-WG is to facilitate greater day-to-day and week-to-week scholarly productivity among a small group of faculty members who desire to advance their scholarship but are looking for greater structure within which to accomplish their goals. The methodology behind the group draws on a number of ideas for productivity, but is focused on daily contributions to scholarship in order to maintain momentum and the camaraderie of writing group dynamics. In utilizing Wendy Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks and Robert A. Day and Barbara Gastel’s How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, the group requires that each participant have already selected a piece of scholarship that they have begun in some form that they plan to submit for publication by the end of the semester. Additionally, we will be utilizing a variety of techniques and practices to encourage small yet productive allocations of work time in what we know to be already very overfilled weekly schedules. Finally, we will be requiring progress check-ins to help everyone remain on a steady track toward completion. Participants will be expected to attempt daily writing, attend weekly writing sessions (one hour), and report to the group weekly through progress checks on Brightspace. We will also be providing resources to faculty who participate to help them develop their own vision of their academic strategic plans and productivity pipelines.

Participation Requirements

At the start of every semester, we issue a call for participation to Xavier faculty via email.

• Applicants must have a piece of existing scholarship that they will work toward submission at the end of the fall semester. While it can be in any state currently (conference paper, beginning of a draft, extended abstract, etc.), we ask that you commit to seeing this piece through to the end of the 12 weeks and submitting it for publication.
• Applicants must be willing to commit to the following attend the virtual Writing Kick-Off.
• Applicants must be willing to meet weekly for one-hour writing session (time to be determined by the group).
• Applicants must be willing to check in electronically once a week to share their progress with the group and provide feedback to each other via the Brightspace group.
• Applicants must be willing to commit to a minimum of 15 minutes of writing per day throughout the semester.
• Applicants must be willing to follow the general timetable set by Wendy Belcher's Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks or Robert A. Day and Barbara Gastel’s How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper (depending on track) and to share their work in small chunks to fellow writing group participants.