Making Time For Reflection, Final Distribution, And Assessment

By Author: Adela
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In addition to this final presentation, there are three additional actions that we believe are benefit to students in this project. First, because we believe that reflective writing helps students to articulate what they have learned, we ask students to write a reflective letter to their teacher about the collaborative Breitling Replica writing experience. This letter can be completed individually, or each writing team can develop a letter about their writing process. In the case of the UB Case Study, the following prompt elicited a collaboratively written reflective letter and could easily be adapted for other case studies such as this one:

1. Collaboratively Written Writing Process Letter

Discuss the following three issues:
(1) How your group worked together to complete this task
(2) Why you decided on the document design and the language you used for this poster, and how this design and language is consistent with the look of the Upward Bound mission, organization, and website(s)
(3) What revisions you made, based on the ...
... feedback you received (you could mention any obstacles or challenges with technology that you faced)

In most workplace writing situations, writers need to return to "final" drafts, once the draft is presented to a supervisor, staff, or external audience, for further editing. Because students are developing their work for an external audience who hopes to receive a new document in a usable form, we ask students to edit the document according to the client's feedback and then distribute a final copy (electronic, if possible, so that it can be altered as needed) to the client and to the teacher.

Finally, we evaluate students both individually and in their groups, using the process letters, the in-progress notes, the final copy of their document, and a rubric designed for this project.

2. Troubleshooting: Ways to Adapt This Project for Your Needs

We acknowledge that there are real-world hurdles in our Case Study Project. First, finding a client and keeping that client engaged in the project can be difficult. But we believe that some of that difficulty can be resolved early if the teacher is able to talk to the client and work through issues of time commitment and scheduling. A second hurdle is the issue of time constraints. One key feature of the Case Study Project is for all of the students in the class to work on a specific document for a specific client. But we want to note here, too, that the amount of defined activity (working on one specific document or for a specific client) can shift, depending on the teacher's goals for this assignment. A third hurdle may be a negative response from the client in relation to the work produced by the students. We address this issue by explaining to the client at the beginning of the collaboration that they are not committing to using the documents provided by the students and are welcome to further shape the document for their use after the completion of the project. Finally, we acknowledge that collaborative writing activities are often difficult for students. There is always a concern that one student will "carry" the project or that another student will neglect his or her responsibilities to the group. We try to account for that by encouraging regular progress reports, check-in memos, and real clients for students to work with. But we also employ cooperative Omega Replica Watches learning techniques in these assignments by encouraging students to assign roles and responsibilities to each member of the group, including titles such as client liaison, project manager, tech expert, editor, and communications director. If and when groups fail, we step in with teacher support to reinforce and encourage the use of these roles, and we also reassign certain roles as necessary.

Conclusion
In the end, we see writing and the ability to communicate effectively as having the potential to open doors for students. We want these doors to be open for all students—even those who may feel disconnected from other forms of school-based writing. As teachers, we want student writers to feel authorized to participate in conversations in their communities, to feel comfortable writing into new situations, to advocate for themselves and others through writing.