Group Agenda – Week 2

1. Talk about your Brainstorming

So, on Monday, everyone wrote down some ideas and thought through possible directions you might go with your “How-to” essays. I want to give you all chance to share those ideas and questions and really try to narrow down the focus of your essay.

For this, make sure everyone takes some time to share your brainstorming activities and questions and talk through the possible genres you might write about. Try to get feedback from everyone about both the conventions of these genres and possible examples you might use for your discussion. Also, try to answer everyone’s questions to the best of your ability. Take notes – either individually or as a group, and make note of which questions still remain unanswered.

2. “How-to” Activity

For this, I wanted to give you all a chance to work together to try your hand at creating a “how to” document… to help with the way you approach the first essay but also to get to know one another and get more comfortable navigating Google Drive. This is not something you should rush through – take your time here and have fun with it. We’ll be sharing these next week in class.

In your groups, do the following:

To get started (the prep work):

  1. In the either your group’s folder or the Class Activities –> Week 2 folder (in our shared class folder), one person should create a new folder with the names of your group members.
  2. In that folder, each group member should create a copy of your “Brainstorming/Writing Activity” that you completed during the last part of class on Monday. (You can either create a new document and copy and paste what you wrote or you can actually create a copy through Google Drive.)

The Activity

  1. Read through one another’s analysis of the “how to” documents you discovered/wrote about in class. (The “Part 2” of the Brainstorming/Writing Activity.)
  2. Talk about what the various “How to” examples you found all have in common, what you found was different between them, etc. Basically talk about what you wrote about in your Brainstorming Activity.
  3. In a shared document in that folder, as a group, try to come up with 3-4 different conventions of the “How to” genre according to your examples and analysis. Write these down. (Reminder from our discussion last week: the conventions are the things that most examples of the genre have in common. They all serve a purpose and are what the audience expects of the genre . These can be choices in formatting, style, tone, approach, content, language, characters, plot-lines, elements of a story, etc.)
  4. In that same shared group document, and following the conventions that you’ve established as a group, write your own “How to” as a group…
    • This can be about anything (it does not need to be about writing)
    • Come up with something that you feel like you can explain
    • And follow the conventions of the genre (#3 above) to write your group’s “How to” document.
  5. Have a discussion reflecting on how this might help you with your approaches to your own “How-to” drafts. Have someone take some notes and write down some key take-aways.
  6. Don’t forget to complete your Participation Notebook Entry #2 afterward in your individual folders. 🙂