Working Together: Develop Guidelines for Group Work

Most writers can look back at a group project and find something they didn’t like about the experience. They might have been in a group dominated by an ineffective leader. They might have had to do far more than their fair share on a project. At the last minute, they might have been left in the lurch by someone who failed to deliver a critical part of the project. Whatever the reason, some writers prefer to work alone. Yet group work can be productive and satisfying, and most experienced writers can point to a wide range of situations in which working with other writers significantly improved their work on a writing project.

To get ready to work with other writers, reflect on your experiences with group work. Then, working with the members of your group, develop a set of guidelines that would improve the quality of group work. To carry out this activity, follow these steps:

  1. Individually, spend five minutes brainstorming or freewriting about your experiences with collaborative work. List both positive and negative experiences.
  2. As a group, discuss your experiences. Each person should note the advantages and disadvantages of collaborative work.
  3. As a group, identify the most significant challenges to working together effectively.
  4. As a group, create a list of guidelines that would address these challenges.

Once you’ve completed the activity, share your guidelines with other groups in the class. As a class, create a list of guidelines for collaborative work in your course.