Next week, your task will be to work through Chapters 1–2 of the workbook. In them, we take a broad, "big picture" approach to your book, ensuring that your scope, claims, and evidence are aligned (and/or making plans to better align them) and articulating what we call your book's organizing principle--the fundamental logic that animates your chapters as units in your book.

One thing to keep in mind is that, as we'll emphasize this week, your book's structure is a key part of its argument--certain organizing principles support some claims better than others. To understand better what we mean by this, you can watch this 1m video:

For instance, an author-centric organizing principle supports a claim about how various authors develop notions of family; a trope-centric organizing principle supports a claim about the various tropes authors use to theorize "the family"; and a region-centric organizing principle supports claims about what notions of family emerge in different regions. Here’s another 1m video where we walk you through some concrete examples:

Assessing the alignment between your book's organizing principle and its claims will make your Week 2 work, where you'll be articulating what we call your "book questions," more straightforward.

On Monday, June 3, the Week 1 unit will open. At that time, you should visit the “Full Introduction to Your Week 1 Work” lesson and watch the video or read the transcript. Then, visit the “Week 1 Encouragement, Troubleshooting & FAQ” lesson, where you will find a ton of common questions. Click on any to expand to watch the video answer or read its transcript. If you have additional questions, feel free to post them in the Week 1 discussion board, or bring them to our support, accountability, and troubleshooting calls.

On Tuesday, June 4, Allison will lead the support, accountability, and troubleshooting call (1-2 pm Eastern / 10-11 am Pacific) in this Zoom room. She’ll also lead the call on Thursday, June 6 (1-2 pm Eastern / 10-11 am Pacific), which will include a mini-workshop on contacting editors in the same Zoom room. You don’t need to have done anything to attend; this is your time to connect with us and with others. Though if you do have a question or want help, please share during a call or on the Week 1 discussion board!