SPRint

The SPRint project was a project of the Institute for Writing Studies as a cooperation between the universities of Prof. Dr. Katrin Girgensohn, Prof. Dr. Nadja Sennewald (SRH University, Campus Berlin), Prof. Dr. Kirsten Schindler (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), Prof. Dr. Sarah Brommer (University of Bremen) with the collaboration of Prof. Dr. Kirstin Bromberg (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences).

Funding: Foundation for Innovation in University Teaching

Förderzeitraum: 09/2022-08/2023

The project:

A booksprint is a format for the collaborative writing of texts, usually specialised books and articles (cf. vimeo.com/425448988). In booksprints at the university, students write a text for a real audience, e.g. a research article or a popular science article, together in a week with different roles and with the help of creative and didactic writing methods. The real publication (e.g. as a blog post) is a decisive motivator. Students are supported by a clearly moderated and structured timetable and schedule, explicit allocation of roles, visualised project management and the use of digital platforms. The topics to be written about are developed in advance by the students and their lecturers in a specialised course.

A total of 6 booksprints were realised: 3 in Berlin, 2 in Bremen and one in Wuppertal. Extensive detailed planning was carried out with the lecturers for all booksprints, with customised preparation including handouts and schedules. In addition, guideline-based qualitative interviews were conducted with the teachers for all booksprints as a formative evaluation and the booksprint organisers (the academic staff as booksprint facilitators) wrote detailed reflections. This data was analysed collaboratively by the project team and discussed in a communicative validation round to which the students were also invited.

The transfer of the project results initially took place as part of a workshop at the European Association for Teaching Academic Writing (EATAW) conference in Winterthur in July 2023. The workshop also generated further impetus for the transfer through the involvement of the participants. The project results will also be published in the Special Conference Issue of the Journal of Academic Writing.

Publication "Booksprints in university teaching"

The evaluation results and all materials have also been published as an open access book by the publisher wbv Media as part of the series "Theorie und Praxis der Schreibwissenschaft". The first part of the publication introduces the concept of booksprints in university teaching by providing a theoretical framework and explaining the practice of booksprints in detail. The results of the evaluation of the project are presented in the second part, in which theses generated from the data explain what, in our experience, contributes to the success of booksprints in university teaching. A third part uses the example of an ideal-typical process to show how a booksprint is planned, carried out and evaluated in university teaching and integrates the materials and handouts developed in the project for further use.

Writing Studies Working Group (2024). Booksprints in university teaching. Learning to write in a team. Bielefeld, wbv Media.