Choosing Groups and Topics for Your Grassroots Articles

This week, we're going to use the perspectives gained in your portfolios to go ahead and write articles for the Grassroots Writing Research Journal (GWRJ).

Unit 2 / Midterm Assessment

Purpose of GWRJ Articles
Today we're going to look at how to prepare and submit articles to Grassroots.  First, though we need to consider some important questions:

• What are the Goals of the Journal?
• Who is the Journal's Audience?
• Who is Our Audience?  (and how is this audience different?)

For specific information regarding what the GWRJ editors are looking for, please see the Call for Papers on Moodle.

Choosing Your Focus
My original plan was to spend a few weeks on this project, but the timeline for the Grassroots publication won't allow this much time.  This is part of how your Midterm Portfolio will help - by examining prior work and commenting on it, you're better equipped to talk about the writing process as it applies to yourself and others.

Take a look at your Personal Writing Interests Writing Inventory worksheet.  (It's a long name for a short form, I know...)  Today, you'll be using these interests to decide how you'll work in groups and then to decide how you'll write your essay.

Find Your Personal Interests: First, fill out the form.  (You'll be turning these in, so please write legibly.)  Think about which assignments were the most interesting, and which genres you've enjoyed the most.  If you worked with people you'd like to work with again, keep that in the back of your mind, but don't let it affect what you list as your writing preferences.  The goal for today is to match everyone up by interests.

Decide If You'd Like to Work Independently or With a Group: For this project, you'll be picking your own groups or working independently.  Please try to find classmates who have written down similar interests - this will make group work far easier on everyone in your group.  If you work as a group, you'll all turn in a single essay for the group, and groups may contain anywhere from 2-6 people.  If you'd like to work independently, you'll still be part of a discussion group, but you'll each turn in a separate essay.  Groups of 2-3 people may be assigned to larger discussion groups.

Create a Facebook Document: Once you're in your groups, create a Facebook document with your group members, the name of your group, and a description of what your project will entail (this can be in the comments).

Start Planning: By the end of class, you want a rough outline of what each group member will be preparing for Thursday's class.  By Thursday, you'll need a rough draft to be workshopped within your discussion group during class.

Start Writing: If you'd like to submit your article to Grassroots, you'll need a final draft ready by Friday, but submission is optional.

Within your writing groups, you'll staple together all your interest inventories and hand them in before leaving class.

Introduction to Fiction and Poetry
 Poetry - Fiction - Essays

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