English 0950 Project
Working in Groups: Writing Collaboratively

Goals | Main Assignment | Plan for Completing this Project | Process Memo | Project Requirements | Additional Readings

Goals:

1. To work collaboratively with other writers on an assignment;
2. To gather information from personal sources (by interview or observation);
3. To analyze the data collected, evaluate the group members' various interpretations, and synthesize the ideas of the group.

Main Assignment:

Write a 3 to 4 page report that describes how the group gathered the data, compiled the information, and arrived at conclusions about collaboration.

Plan for Completing this Project

1. Form a group of three or four writers. In your group choose one of the following options for gathering more information about collaboration (group work or team work).

• Interview one or more people with professional experience working collaboratively. In your interview(s) explore why people work collaboratively, what the positives and negatives are, and what makes collaboration successful.
• Observe people engaged in group work. How do they interact, what do they do, what do they say, what do they accomplish?

2. Think about what you already know about this topic, what questions you have, and where you are likely to find answers to your questions. Use the strategies you learned in Discovery Grove to make notes of your thinking. Share you notes with your group.

3. Read and share with your group background information on your topic (that you find in the library or on the internet). Hint: a good search key term is "Authorship--Collaboration."

4. Think and plan together how you are going to conduct your interview or observation. Who? What? When? Where? How? Go to Planning for help with this part of the project.

In the New Century Handbook, read:

• "Collaborate," section 4c
• "Build community through electronic mail," section 21b
• "Collaborative writing via networks," section 21a-4.

5. Write: take notes during the interview or observation. After the interview or observation is over, further expand your notes with more details that you recall, impressions and feelings you had as you were conducting the interview, or observation, and any new information or insights you have now about your topic.

6. Collaborate: share your notes with your group and gather together all the data you collected.

• Create a map or outline of all the information the group has collected.
• Discuss how your interpretations differ from each other. As a group, add notes about these differences to the data you have collected.
• Together draft notes about what the group has learned about the topic from this interview or observation. These are your findings or conclusions.

7. As a group, write a 3 to 4-page report in which you:

• describe how the group gathered the data;
• compile the information collected during the observation or interview; and write your group report as a single, coherent paper.
• present the group's findings or conclusions to the class or to another group. Practice the reader response strategies discussed in the Powerpoint presentation: "Writers' Groups: Giving and Receiving Readers' Responses."

8. Individually, write a one-page process memo.

Process Memo

Individually, write a one-page process memo that answers these questions:

• How did the group select the topic and decide to do an interview or observation?
• What problems did the members of the group encounter in doing all the tasks of the assignment?
• How did the group members work together or divide up tasks to complete the project? For example,
• Who actually made the phone calls and physical arrangements for the interview or observation?
• Who was the group's note-taker as you analyzed and compiled data? Who drew the map or wrote the outline?
• Who wrote the first draft of the report?
• How did the group share the draft to revise it?
• Who typed the final draft?
• Did everyone in the group proofread and edit the final draft before you turned it in for credit?
• How does this collaboration compare with other group work you've done in the past?
• What advice you would give to other students attempting this assignment next term?
• Do you have any questions about your writing or this class?

Project Requirements

To receive credit for this project, you each must turn in
___ your own notes
___ any working drafts you may have
___ the final draft of your group's report
___ your individual process memo.

Additional Readings