W05 Group Writing Project

The Group Writing Project (For the sake of differentiating these groups from all the other various ones, we'll call these groups W1, W2, W3, and W4.) This quarter you have the option to work collaboratively with five or six peers to write a lengthy mystery piece. We expect the length to vary greatly between groups; anywhere between 100-300 pages is acceptable. We would rather see quality writing over quantity. We have reserved two blocks of time for your group to meet and work together (see sections below for more details.) You will, however, need to do the majority of writing work outside of class. We have set aside only a minimum amount of group time, and you may wish to meet outside of class in smaller groups to write collaboratively. You may need to be emailing your work to each other outside of class to facilitate the collaborative experience. But we expect the final product to be wholly collaborative and not just individual pieces pasted one after the other.

The Group Brainstorming Session— Wednesdays, 11:30-1:00 Every Wednesday, you'll meet in your collaborative groups to brainstorm and plan your large project. The focus of this time is not to write but to establish the following week's writing/forensic goals. You will also need to reassess what you have written/researched up to that point. In this session, you'll need to also assess what each group member has accomplished in the last week and what they will accomplish before you meet the following week. Essentially, this meeting is a time to plan, outline, and re-evaluate. One of the faculty will visit these sessions to help your group define and write out concrete goals which the group and individuals hope to accomplish for the following week. During the brainstorming session, we expect you to keep an accurate and detailed minutes (see below.)

The Minutes kept during the Brainstorming Session We will supply your group with a minutes notebook. We will also go over how to keep the minutes during your sessions. Each week, a different person needs to keep the minutes. Besides tracking everything that is discussed, you must always note who is present at the meetings, who is late, who is absent. You must also record what goals the group establishes for itself for each subsequent week, as well as the weekly writing/forensic work that each individual agrees to complete. We will collect the minutes from your group twice during the quarter.

Group Editing/Synthesis Session— Thursdays, 12-2. Each Thursday, your group will meet and, using the writing/forensic work which each group member has completed from the previous week, you will organize and incorporate the work into a coherent whole. We strongly advise that each person read her new writing out loud or summarize her forensic work to familiarize everyone with the new material. The faculty will not be present during this session. The group will need to write a short, one-page weekly summary encapsulating all of the group's new work (revisions included). A copy of this summary is due to each of the faculty in their office by 1:45pm Thursday. We expect you'll want to hand-write these summaries, so please write legibly.

Group Peer-Evaluation In weeks 6 and 10, you will evaluate each of your project group's members. These need not be long evaluations— a total page of writing should be sufficient. We expect you to be respectful, honest, and fair. We would like you to print out your evaluation of each person on a separate sheet so that you can give your eval to him/her without their reading your evals of the rest of the group. Be sure you sign your name to your evaluation. We would like you to compile these individual evals on to one page (two max.) and turn them in to both faculty. The faculty may use your comments in their student evaluations.

Group Presentations All groups will be expected to present a 45-minute portion of their story or the solution and explanation for their crime scene. These presentations will take place during week 10 of this quarter. Additional details regarding this part of the assignment will be discussed in class as the quarter progresses.

Writing Group Project Periodic Due Dates Week 3— on Thursday of week 3, by 1:45pm, your group must turn in a hard copy of your current long piece to Evan. We are not prescribing any page length. Turn in your best work. Your piece should be a coherent whole— that is, it should read like the first part of a novel or novella, not as a collection of disconnected scenes. Be sure your group name and all group member's names are listed on the first page. Week 6— as with the week 3 due date, turn in your current long piece to Evan by 1:45pm Thursday. Week 7— your final draft of your group piece is due on disc to Rebecca by 1:45pm Thursday. Week 9— a hard copy and disc copy of your final group project is due to Evan by Thursday, 1:45pm.

****** IMPORTANT: If, for any of these due dates, your piece is sloppily done, if it contains numerous typos or grammatical errors, Evan will return it to your group UNREAD.

Group Writing Project's Workshop This applies only to the four groups doing the long creative writing project. (W1-W4) You will be turning in your writing week 7. We will put the four group's pieces on our website. W1will read W2's work (and vice versa) and W3 will read W4's work (and vice versa) to prepare for week 8's workshop. On week 8, Wednesday, 11:30-1:00, rather than having your group brainstorm, W1 will meet with W2 (and W3 with W4) to workshop each other's pieces. You only have 1 1/2 hours to workshop both groups' work, which leaves only 45 minutes for each group.

We expect every group member to have read the other group's work completely and to have written up at least two pages of comments. Besides giving the other group your comments, you MUST turn in a copy to Evan.

Considering the limitation of workshop time, we'd like you to hold two, simultaneous workshops. Each of these workshop groups should have equal representation from each writing group (i.e. groups W1-W4). First workshop one of the projects (the project's writers should take notes but not talk), using only 45 minutes. Then workshop the other one.

Updated on 1-03-05 by Rebecca Sunderman