English1130Winter2012/Collaborative Paper and Presentation

Description
In this assignment, you will work with other members of the class who have TED talks that relate to yours to produce a collaborative paper and presentation. Think of this paper as a way of having a conversation with other members of the class. You are writing to each other as well as to a larger audience.

You should begin by reading, thinking about, and discussing each other's amplification papers, looking for points of agreement and disagreement, similarity and difference. A lot of that material can be kept. But the point is to make that material do new work by looking at it in the light of what other people have done. The point here is to make your individual work part of a larger project without losing it's texture and substance.

There must be an introduction and conclusion, which can be written by committee.

Argument: The paper should have a thesis that encompasses the result of putting all these projects together. It doesn't have to be, or even shouldn't be, one person's amplification paper thesis. Rather, it should reflect the tenor of the overall discussion

There must be consistent MLA formatting and a Works Cited page.

Some Rules
Each member of the group must produce a roughly equal amount of writing to the other members of the group.

Each member's writing must be clearly marked as his or her own.

The introduction and conclusion of the paper can be group-written.

Each member of the group is responsible for the discussion and integration of his or her own research but also for one other formal element or writing task for the paper. These tasks include:
 * Writing the introduction
 * Writing the conclusion
 * Sequencing the parts of the paper and writing transitions
 * Formatting the paper correctly
 * Organizing the presentation

It is the job of the group members to determine who does what job in the project.

Presentation
A presentation that uses digital tools (Prezi, Powerpoint, Keynote etc) will be a part of the assignment.

The presentation must convert the paper into primarily visual elements that allow the group to explain their work to the rest of the class.

The best presentations will be eligible to participate in Student Research Day in the spring.

Logistics
Your group will require some kind of online collaborative writing tool to produce your paper efficiently. I recommend Google Docs or Drop Box.