Reflections on Changing Textbooks

Last night, I finished teaching my (two-semester) Torts class for the third year in a row.  I really love the teaching part of the job.  I thoroughly enjoy the Socratic dialogue, exploring the concepts, and interacting with students.  However, I’m beginning to wonder if I should change textbooks.  It’s not that I dislike the text I use.  In fact, I think it’s great.  But I feel a little stale teaching the cases yet again.  I know the cases are new for these students, but I worry that my familiarity with them dampens my enthusiasm somewhat.  Obviously the downside to changing texts is the amount of preparation time.  That time could, of course, be spent on scholarship instead.  The positive points seem to include a potential for increased enthusiasm and the ability to use cases from the old text as fairly complete hypotheticals.  If anyone has changed textbooks, I would appreciate hearing about your experience.

–CJR