Collaborative Assignment Analysis

ENGL C0862

Introduction to Teaching

 Writing & Literature

Professor Barbara Gleason

December 11, 2014

Caitlin Geoghan

Justin Lokossou

      First-Year Composition classes are constructed with the intention of discussing and building certain skill sets that will allow students to become competent writers. WPA Outcomes refer to the set of goals that serve as a standard for which all students should have risen to by the end of the semester. This collaborative project was centered on students creating a narrative in the form of an educational brochure on a subject of their choosing. Students will use Google Drive and email as electronic mediums to communicate with one another and assemble their assignment. Students are guided through the information they want to ensure is in their paper, as well as given instruction on how to access the multimodal aspects of the assignment.     

Asking students to write a brochure stems from an interest in the growth of the student as a writer. The initial goal is for students to work on something they enjoy. When students work on projects that they find interested, they are more likely to perform better than if they were assigned a topic. Having students work in groups also helps improve the confidence of the students working together, particularly if those students have trouble with English as a language or are simply just having trouble transitioning into college. Focusing on subjects of interest and working with someone will take the weight off of the shoulders of many students who are daunted by the idea of having an assignment to do. Selecting the kind of writing a student has to do can also put a damper on or fire up their creativity. There is more room for creative expansion with this multimodal assignment than if students were simply asked to write a paper. Google Drive as the primary multimodal tool is very effective. Google Drive allows students to share information with each other via the cloud. Students could even work on the same paper at the same time by accessing the file via Drive. All changes are automatically saved to the file on Google Drive.

 The WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition requires that students have an understanding of and are proficient in utilizing multiple avenues towards creating, developing, and strengthening writing projects. Students are to learn to scaffold their work through several stages before they even begin the first draft. The primary goal for this assignment was akin to one of the goals listed in the WPA Outcomes statement, which is for students to “experience the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.” By working on this project using email as a main means of communication, students will learn how to both work independently and within a group. They will also be expected to learn to handle certain multimodal outlets. Appendix B helps students visually see how to access templates and upload them to Google Drive. This is particularly effective for those who are not computer literate and may be daunted at the prospect of having to do a multimodal assignment.

The assignment is carefully structured in order to ensure clarity on what the objective is. Scaffolding was a major aspect of this assignment in order to minimize the possibility of confusion and ease any difficult that students may have. A brief of the assignment is the first item that students are shown, followed by examples or possible subjects to use for the brochure. Sections 2, 2.1, and 2.2 are important because of how they guide the student down the various processes that come behind the first page of paper. The evaluation criteria is presented in the form of questions to help them develop independence. By asking these questions as they work on their projects, students will be able to reflect and review their own work, revising where needed.

This multimodal assignment requires students to construct an educational brochure on the subject of their choice. The work has been carefully scaffolded to stretch over the course of three weeks and contains an electronic component in the form of email and Google Drive. In addition to learning to write a well-structured educational piece, students are expected to be competent in working with templates on Microsoft, as well as using Google Drive for the purpose of collaborative projects. Students should also be able to evaluate their own work by using evaluation criteria to question whether or not they have completed every aspect of their project.

 Works Cited

"Council of Writing Program Administrators." WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition, Approved July 17, 2014. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.