Putting It Down On Paper

The Age

Tuesday March 4, 1997

Margaret Cook

Writing for students has become something of an addiction for Jules Aldous, reports Margaret Cook.

WRITING textbooks wasn't something Jules Aldous planned to do. In fact, Mrs Aldous, who has achieved considerable success in the field, admits she pretty much "fell into it" about eight years ago.

"I was working at the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Board (now the Board of Studies) on study design in legal studies," she remembers. "I was also a member of the Victorian Commercial Teachers Association, which had a publishing division, and I was asked to write a text book for year 12 legal studies. I'd never contemplated doing that but (looking back) it was a good time for new textbooks because the VCE was just coming in."

Mrs Aldous says it was a logical time to publish, but she also believed she could offer an approach that was consistent with the new VCE and which used contemporary events to reflect the contents of the course.

Writing the 500-page Making and Breaking the Law (co-authored with Diane Levey) was hard work, she says. It took more than a year and was fitted into a new job as a full-time education officer with the Federal Parliament in Canberra. "I've been teaching for many years but trying to put on to paper - actually writing down - what you do in the clasroom was enormously difficult," says Mrs Aldous. "So much that you do in class you don't formally document. I also had to keep a consistent style and find the time to do the research.

"The law is constantly changing and you have to anticipate what may change by the time the book goes into print. It also has to be accessible and the examples have to be appropriate for students to look at. In class, you know each personality, what they are all interested in, but in a textbook you must try to generalise interest for other students.

Mrs Aldous, who teaches legal studies and studies of society and the environment at Shelford Anglican Girls' School in Caulfield, has since updated Making and Breaking the Law on her own and is now working on a fourth edition.

She has also written The Legal Maze for year 11 legal studies with Leanne Newson and the two have recently completed a second edition. Her other publications include two textbooks on the environment and citizenship for years 9-10, as well as topic booklets (mainly in legal studies) to help VCE students with their Common Assessment Tasks (CATs).

MRS ALDOUS admits that writing textbooks - despite the pressures of deadlines and fitting it in with her teaching - has become something of an addiction. But each one gets easier, she says, and she enjoys the discipline. "The other thing is that I only write on things that interest me. And, because they interest me, I can immerse myself in them, particularly legal studies, which is a passion of mine."

One advantage of combining teaching and writing is that many examples she uses are ones that have worked well in her classes. Another is the feedback she gets from her students.

"They are very good at telling you which things could be better (in the textbooks) and they often come up with suggestions," she says. "Sometimes, what I include in my writing falls out from what I do in class, particularly at mid-school level. Often I incorporate activities into my writing because they have worked well."

Unlike fiction writing, when anyone can submit a manuscript to a publisher, "you tend to get approached to write text books", says Mrs Aldous. She also believes that aspiring writers probably need to be teachers in order to understand the dynamics of a classroom, how to structure activities and how textbooks are used in class.

"A starting point would be to look at the curriculum and how it is interpreted in the classroom," she says. "Before I even begin working out the structure of a book and then writing it, I think a lot about the curriculum, how I can link it to the content, and what I'd be doing with it in the classroom. It's also important to look at what else is on the market, the different approaches that are used and why some textbooks work and others don't."

Mrs Aldous says her books "hold a substantial share of the market", but she stresses she does not write them primarily to make money.

"From what my editor tells me, the market is highly competitive and there are many other titles," she says. "Students are also very conscious of their budget and you must keep your books within a reasonable price range . . . The hours you put in are not realised in the money and I won't be retiring on the royalty cheques. But I do get a great sense of pleasure and achievement. I also get positive feedback from teachers, for example: 'I'm really interested in a certain topic. Why don't you write something on it?' That is very gratifying."