Group Agenda – Week 8

For this week, you’ll be completing two separate tasks – a collaborative invention activity and a collaborative brainstorming activity. (Many of you found the collaborative research activity helpful, so this will be similar in nature.)

Read through the directions below and just let me know if you have any questions along the way. Once you have completed the group work, don’t forget to complete your Participation Notebook entry in your individual folders.

1. Collaborative Invention Activity:
   For this activity, you’ll be revisiting your virtual tours that you completed during Week 6. With your group, create a document in your group’s folder and do the following:
   • Each group member should remind the rest of the group what virtual tour(s) they did, what they liked about it, didn’t like about it, found interesting, etc. This can have to do with the location, with the format, with the accessibility, etc. I suggest you revisit your participation notebooks for reminders, as a lot of you commented on this there.
   • After everyone has talked about their tours, again, then the group should collectively pick 2 that they find most interesting, compelling, notable (either positively or negatively)… basically, just pick two virtual tours for the group to focus on.
   • For both of those tours, as a group, take some time and think about the other possible genres that you could write about that place in. In other words, think about if you were going to change the genre from virtual tour to some other genre. 
   • As a group write out your thoughts in response to the following questions (in your preferred format):
     • What genre do you think would work well for this place? And why?
     • What would your purpose be?
     • What aspect of the place would you focus on? Why?
     • What kind of language would you use? Why?
     • Who would your audience be? Why?
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2. Collaborative Brainstorming Activity:
   For this activity, you should spend about 10-15 minutes per group member (aka writer) and do the following:
   1. Each group member should briefly discuss the place they are thinking they will write about for the final project and what aspect of that place they will focus on. (**Note: Do not mention the genre you are thinking about writing in, if it’s at all avoidable.)
      • If you are still unsure about the place, use this time to try to decide.
   2. Everyone in the group should then try individually to come up with 3 different genres that they think would work well to achieve the writer’s purpose. Once you have a list, share it with the writer.
   3. After everyone has a list of three different genres for the writer, talk about it. Explain why you think those genres might work, how it could be approached, what language they could use, etc. What other examples of this genre can you point to that might be helpful? (It would be great if you could include links for your group members here.) The writer should be also taking notes throughout this time.
   4. Help each group member narrow it down to at least 2, if not 1 genre, that they will write in for the final project with a brief explanation about each.
   5. Make sure you have notes, reflections, comments, sources, etc. in either a group document or folder to demonstrate the work that was done during your session.
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3. Don’t forget to complete your Participation Notebook entry by the end of the day, Friday, 2/27 🙂