Group Projects

This page takes on three important questions about the group project you are required to do in the first half of the course: what, what for, and how to. My goal is to make this page as useful to you as possible, so let me know if it can be improved. If anything is awkwardly worded, vague, or missing, please contact me with constructive criticisms and suggestions. Thanks.

What

The group project entails forming a group, choosing a date and topic related to the readings for that date, formulating a research plan, dividing your labor when putting it into action, synthesizing your efforts, either running thirty to forty minutes of a class (during the first half of the semester) in which in which you present what you've learned and/or draw on what you've learned in crafting activities or discussion topics OR creating an analytical, group-authored web site (before you leave for spring break), and writing a report on, reflection on, and assessment of your group's work in the project.

Groups will have great latitude in choosing their research topic and mode of running the class. However, each group must meet with me once (at least two weeks before its presentation is scheduled) and keep in touch with me on its plans and progress. For our preliminary meeting, the group should come with possible focuses for research and for the class, along with questions about any aspect of the project. During that meeting, I'll explain why I put the readings together for that day and how they relate to other texts we've read, answer questions you have, facilitate a process of choosing a research topic, and offer suggestions for research processes and feedback on presentation/activity ideas and goals. After that meeting, the group should feel free to modify its plans without feeling the need to run every little thing by me for approval. But if you want to change something major--like your research topic or your goals while running the class--please let me know, so I can give useful feedback and suggestions.

No later than one week after running its class or completing its web site, each group must turn in a dossier of sources used for its project (either in the form of an annotated bibliography or by attaching a note to a copy of the actual sources used that explains how you used each), along with an introduction (on your goals and objectives) and group-authored self-assessment (of what happened during the class period and of your mode of working together as a group); students will also email me individual self- and group-assessments and reflections on what they learned by doing the project.

Each student will be graded individually, although a significant part of his or her grade will include how successful the group's teaching was and how well the group worked together. As 20% of your final grade, this is one of the most significant assignments in the course, so take it seriously and start working on it early!

What For

It's a cliche, I admit, but you really do learn the most about something when you teach it (or try teaching it) to someone else. So one goal in assigning a group project in this course is to have you learn more about some aspect of the works and writers your presentation falls on, mostly through your research and planning for that half-hour-to-forty-minute portion of the class period your group will run. Another goal is to get you in the habit of using the resources available to you--the editorial apparatus of your anthology, the links on the web site, and above all, the works on reserve in Reed Library--when doing research with a purpose. The assignment thus gives you the opportunity to get out of "book report" mode--out of simply finding something out about something and summarizing it. Rather, the purpose of your research is to help you shape your objectives for your analytical web site or class presentation/discussion/activities. Another major goal of the group project is for you to gain proficiency in "oral communication skills"--not simply lecturing in front of a group (if you choose that mode of running the class), but the kind of communication that's essential to the success of your group collaboration, to directing a class discussion, to running a particular activity, and to crafting a group-authored document. This is where the final goal of having you work together on this project comes in: by reflecting on the relation between your plans for the class period and what actually happened during it, by considering where the class period went well and what you'd most want to change in either your plans or the way you tried to implement them, and by collaborating on a three-part written reflection and assessment, you are meant to develop and improve your critical thinking and writing skills.

So there's a lot you can learn from the process of completing this project: from your experience of the challenges, frustrations, and satisfactions of research, from your experience of "being responsible for" a portion of our class time or the production of a web site, from your experience working together as a group (about setting goals, dividing labor, and reaching consensus), and so on.

Finally, I'm hoping that the things you learn in and from this project will carry over into how you approach subsequent classes--about preparing for class discussion, about being an active learner, about what it means to gain a small degree of expertise on a particular topic, about how you and your peers might appear from the perspective of someone "running a class." Hopefully the experience of "being responsible for" a portion of a class period and learning from how other groups handle that responsibility will raise serious questions for you about what it means to take responsibility for your own learning.

How To

I don't want to limit the creativity of your group's approach to creating a website or running a portion of a class period by laying out a step-by-step approach. So much is dependent on your individual interests and interpretations, your beliefs about the most effective modes of teaching, and the way the people in your group interact with each other that it's probably impossible to create such a list, anyway. But what I can do is offer some examples of kinds of things you might consider doing when running--or getting ready to run--a portion of the class period.

• Some individual self-reflection might be a good way to start--particularly about the ways you learn. Think about the times you've been the most interested in a class topic or learned a lot from a class discussion or activity. Think about the times you've been absolutely uninterested in a class topic or learning nothing from a class discussion or activity. Do you notice any patterns? Any lessons for your group in these patterns? Another good way to go is to think about what you've learned in other courses (psychology, education, etc.) about how people learn; if there are people in your group who have taken courses that address this topic, draw on their relative expertise. You might also consider how learning takes place in other sites than the classroom (sports, music, student government, work, relationships, and so on) or in media that we don't normally think of as primarily pedagogical (for instance, what "lessons" about masculinity and femininity are taught in the WWF, in soap operas, in commercials, in movies, and so on)--and consider how your group might draw on (or refuse to draw on) some of the explicit and implicit pedagogies in play and at work outside of schools and colleges.
• Some group discussion (either face-to-face or over email) before meeting with me seems to be in order--about what interested you most about the readings, about what you'd like to find out more about, about what possible focuses for your portion of the class period emerge from those interests, about your beliefs about effective teaching and learning styles, and so on. Although I will explain my own goals for the class period and how the readings relate to what had come before and what comes after them, coming up with your own goals for your own portion of that class period is what this project is all about.
• Obviously there are many kinds of goals you might choose to prioritize during your portion of the class period: to impart information that you believe is important for better understanding of the readings (this could mean conveying something about historical context, about a debate among literary critics, about literary allusions in and influences on a work, and so on); to offer your own interpretation of a work (or works) and seek feedback or response from the class; to present a problem, issue, or question that you believe is important for the class to try to solve, consider, or answer; to design activities that help the class better understand the relations between the readings, between the readings and other texts we've already read, between the readings and historical events or issues, between the readings and contemporary events or issues, between the readings and their personal lives, and so on.
• Along with a multiplicity of goals, there is a great variety of ways of reaching them: lecturing, in-class writing, small-group discussion on the same topic or question; small-group discussion on different topics or questions, large-group discussion, and a wide range of activities.
• Let me close this list of advice by stressing the importance of being a good "audience" for other groups. Try setting an example --in being prepared to participate, in working within the parameters the group has established, in respecting their objectives and methods, and so on--so that they will want to also be a good "audience" for you!

Now, if your group decides that you all want a larger audience for your work than the class, you can create an analytical website. I can explain the basics of web authoring and give some helpful hints along the way. Here are some basic expectations of the group-authored website option:

• Once you've chosen a topic, you must do two kinds of research: research into the topic itself, and research into existing websites that also address that topic. The latter kind of research is so that you don't reinvent the wheel--if someone has already done a great job on a particular topic, it might be better to simply link to that person's website and shift your own goals for the project so that you are contributing something new to the web.
• In fact, a great way of choosing a topic is first to do an analytical inventory of the best websites on a given work or writer, so you can see what has been done well and what remains unaddressed.
• Come to think of it, there's a third form of research you might do: research into web design principles. This can be as basic as learning from the design of web sites you like (and copying those you like [when legal]), consulting on-line style guides, contacting a professor in Media Arts or Graphic Design and seeking advice, consulting books in the library on web design principles. Hey, if the world is (at least potentially) reading your site, you want it to look good, right?
• You must be particularly careful about documenting your sources and avoiding plagiarism. Since so much of what's on the web is so easily copyable, there's a huge temptation to present someone else's work as your own. Or to simply copy something from a book and put it on the web. Doing this will not only get you in serious trouble in school (see the Catalog for SUNY Fredonia's policies on plagiarism; many of the links under the heading "On Researching and Writing Well" on the links page contain definitions and discussions of plagiarism, as well), but can also get the school in legal trouble (copyright law is a really interesting field to go into these days, what with the issues raised by new media, new technologies, and new ways of using them). Disney, for instance, obsesses about protecting its copyrights--don't mess with Mickey!

This is only the bare bones of advice for the web authoring option. If a group decides it would rather create a website than run a class discussion, it should contact me immediately.

Let me close by reminding you that you don't have to wait to ask me questions until the time your group is scheduled to meet with me in person. Feel free to stop by my office during my office hours or email me if you have any questions about the group project that haven't been answered on this page. As I said at the start, I'll be revising this page in light of your questions and in light of the earlier group projects, so stay tuned....

ENGL 332: American Romanticism, Spring 2001
Created: 2/3/01 5:32 pm
Last modified: 2/3/01 5:32 pm