The Book Project

To begin the semester, we will be putting together a small book.  This project will serve the purpose of breaking the ice with writing, helping you all get to know each other better so that we can form a writing community, and providing a low stress project where you can learn how to use the computers and the software.  The book will contain six short pieces of writing-- three individual and three collaborative. 

Team Work
For this first project, we will be working together in "teams" or groups to produce our books.  Although each of you will turn in an individual "book," each person's book will contain three collaborative pieces that you create from synthesizing material from your peer's work.

Turning in your Writing Pieces
While composing , save each separate writing piece as a document in a word processor and keep them in a place you can find them.  Once you have these pieces completed, then you will turn them in to the online learning environment.  I will provide explicit instructions for turning in these pieces (don’t worry).

Working areas for teams and the whole class
Each team will have a group area within the online learning environment for them to post their work. Please be sure to label your message in the Discussion Forums so that others will know what you are posting (for example--Subject: My Piece #1).  

Dividing the Book Project into Three Parts
We will do the Book Project incrementally. The Book Project as a whole task is divided up into three parts:
-- Book Project Part A (BP-A) = the first drafts of Writing Pieces #1-3.
--BP-B = the first drafts of Writing Pieces #4-6
--BP-C = all pieces revised and put into a "book"

The Writing Piece Topics

Writing Piece #1:  Who am I? Who I am.

Don’t be overwhelmed or intimidated by this question.  Of course in the deep, cosmic sense we probably will never have a complete answer to this question.  That’s not the depth at which I am asking this question.  Instead, I want you to think of it as a question among acquaintances and peers who you are getting to know.  I remember when I was in a phase of doing many job interviews, and the question I had the most difficulty with was, “So, tell me a little about yourself.”  It took me a while to figure out that they didn’t want to know who I was in the depths of my soul--they just wanted a little general information about me.  Below is a list of information you may or may not want to include in this piece (or course you can choose to put other things in):

Name

Age

Where you are from

Where you went to high school

Any accomplishments you’ve had worth mentioning

If you work, how much do you work and what do you do?

What you think you may get a degree in (if you know at this point)

Describe yourself as a writer--what are your strengths and weaknesses

What would you like to get out of this class

What hobbies, sports, or activities you like to do

A person you admire (and a little about why)

What music do you like?

What are some of the values you hold strongly?

Name a place you’d like to visit someday and why

Save this piece as a file on your computer.  When you finish pieces #1-3, you will turn them in to the online learning environment.

Writing piece #2:  Describe your room (or house)

Take a piece of paper and a pen and pretend that you are a painter.  Your job is to draw a sketch of your room or your house--except you will use words.  Study the hand out about descriptive techniques, and try to incorporate these ways to enhance your description.  As much as possible be detailed.  Include not only visual images and details, but include other sensory information such as smells, sounds, tastes, and feelings.  Many times things or places have a story associated with them--don’t hesitate to include this anecdote. 

 Be sure in your description at least to use the descriptive techniques covered in the handout I have given you.

Save this piece as a file on your computer.  When you finish pieces #1-3, you will turn them in to the online learning environment.

Writing piece #3:  What does education mean to me?

You’ve been in school for a large part of your life, and here you are again in college.  What does education mean to you?  I want you to look at it from three perspectives: past, present, and future.

Past:  What has education meant to you in the past?  Did you like school or not like school?  Why?  Were there any individuals or experiences you had (positive or negative) that particularly shaped your attitude toward school?  (If it helps, you might focus your discussion to your time in high school.)

Present:  What does education mean in your present life?  What are you having to do or give up so that you can come to school?  What difficulties or excitements do you face now as you are in school?  Is it a deep commitment of time or energy for you now, or only something you do on the side?  How does you education fit into your present life?

Future:  What do you believe that education will mean for your future life?  What are your hopes and aspirations for where it will lead you?  How do you think you will look back at your education?  What influence do you think it will have?

(You may put your piece in any order you wish--it doesn’t have to go past-present-future.)

Save this piece as a file on your computer.  When you finish pieces #1-3, you will turn them in to the online learning environment.

 (Book Project Part B includes Writing Piece #4-6)

Writing piece #4:  Who are we?

Look at your peer’s responses to Writing Piece #1 and make some generalizations about who you all are as a group (I encourage you to look at other Writing Piece #1s beyond your team to expand your perspective if you wish).  Try to find commonalities and differences, as well as terms and descriptions which encompass the whole team.  Imagine that instead of only trying to describe your self to a peer in this classroom, that you are trying to describe the students in this class to an outsider.  In your writing piece #4, use the pronoun “they” or "we" as you describe the group.

Save this piece as a file on your computer.  Then post the draft as a message into your groups folder inside the Discussion Forum.  Subject: Who are we?

Writing Piece #5:  Where Do We Live

Look at your peer’s responses to Writing Piece #2 and write a piece that is a collage--copy and paste out pieces from your peer's #2 piece and create a new piece. 
Go to a peer’s message for their piece #2 and read it.
Click and drag across text you find interesting. 
Then go to EDIT >> COPY (or hit CONTRL-C).
Next go to your word processing document for piece #5 and hit EDIT>> PASTE (or CONTRL-V).
Return to the Discussion Forum and read the other piece #2s of your peers to find more text to copy and paste into your collage.

This is like putting together snippings from a magazine onto a bulletin board.  Have fun with this piece.  Each snippet from a peer's piece is a separate piece, and you will put these fragments together into a sort of impressionistic picture. 

Save this piece as a file on your computer.  Then post the draft as a message into your groups folder inside the Discussion Forum.  Subject: Where do we live?

Writing Piece #6:  What does education mean to us?

Look first at what your team members had to say in answer to this question in writing piece #3 (you will need to visit their rooms to find the pieces posted as Notes inside each person’s room.  Then compose your own response to this question (What does education mean to us?) following the same format as outlined in writing piece #3--What did education mean to us in the past? What does education mean to us now? What do we believe education will mean to us in the future?  Try to find commonalities and differences, as well as terms and descriptions which encompass the whole team.

Save this piece as a file on your computer.  Then post the draft as a message into your groups folder inside the Discussion Forum.  Subject: Education us

Response questions (for BP-B)

FOR WRITING PIECE #4:

            1.  What do you like best in this piece?  Point to one or two things.

            2.   What is unclear or hard to understand?  What needs clarification?

            3.  What MORE is needed to make a more complete description.

FOR WRITING PIECE #5:

            1.  POINT to descriptions or parts of the collage you liked and found striking.

            2.  Comment on the overall impression given by the way the writer has pieced together this collage

            3.  What MORE is needed to make a more complete description.

FOR WRITING PIECE #6:

            1.  What strikes you as the most true in this piece?

            2.  POINT to places you found hard to follow clearly.

            3.  What MORE is needed?