21 Navigating Your

Collaborative Project

Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

Overvew

From school to the workplace, managing team projects isn’t always easy,
but this chapter aims to prepare students for success.1 In this chapter, we
guide students through different tools for working with others, maintain-
ing project goals, and completing projects where technology is at the fore-
front. We provide information for students on what to expect from their
instructors, as well as how to set boundaries with and get to know their
team members. This is accomplished through rapport, understanding of
access needs, and methods of communicating. We also introduce students
to key organizational documents that will allow them to better structure
their group work. To this end, we discuss the purpose and creation of a
team contract and project schedule. Finally, we introduce various tools
which can be used to compose collaboratively across various forms of me-
dia. After reading this essay, students will be elevated from novice to navi-
gator of any group project!

T
he notorious group project. As the bane of many college students’
experience, working with your peers to successfully complete an
assignment or project is rarely an easy feat. It would not surprise
us if starting a new collaborative project with team members you’ve never
worked with before caused you to feel a little (or a lot!) anxious about
what’s to come. Maybe you’re worried that you’ll have to take on the bulk
of the work yourself. Or maybe you’re concerned that you won’t get along
with your team members. These concerns are all perfectly normal, and

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352
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 353

some of your team members may share similar worries. However, collabo-

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rating with your peers can be a rewarding experience!
While it may seem like your instructor is assigning a group project just
to torture you, there are actually many great reasons for these types of proj-
ects. You are probably aware that there’s an emphasis on collaboration in
the workplace (Bruffee 647; Ede and Lunsford 60; Wolfe 5), and employers
are looking for individuals who know how to work in a team. Beyond pre-
paring you for the workforce, these projects have a lot of educational bene-
fits as well. Scholars have found that when you work with a team there are
more opportunities to learn and increase your understanding of concepts
and materials (Bruffee 644; Wolfe 5), which in turn can promote better
writing (Bruffee). Collaborative projects can also lead to developing a com-
munity with the people you work with, which can grow into friendships
and partnerships for other classes (Brumberger 197; Hunzer 68).
Working with a team, however, doesn’t always come naturally. (If you’re
one of the students who felt anxious at the prospect of working in a team,
we’re sure you already know this.) Luckily, there are some practical steps
that you and your team can take to help ensure that you’re all on the same
page when it comes to completing your project. There are also some great
technologies and tools out there to help you collaborate with your peers. In
this essay, we’re going to tell you about some strategies and tools you can
use to have a positive experience working in a team. We’ve broken this up
into three sections: (1) communication strategies and tools, (2) account-
ability and organizational strategies, and (3) technologies for collaborating.
We will delve into the value of these section topics, discuss what tools are
at your disposal, and how to use them to your (and your team’s) advantage.

Communication Strategies and Tools

It probably comes as no surprise that great collaboration takes strong com-

munication skills. Team members must be willing to communicate with
one another to share ideas, acknowledge when they need assistance, and
provide support to everyone involved. Reaching a level of comfort when
communicating as a team requires rapport—or close, interpersonal bonds
that aid in understanding each other’s feelings and communicating clearly.
Rapport can encourage accountability and provide you with the opportu-
nity to enjoy the collaboration process by creating working relationships
with your teammates (Murphy and Valdéz). Rapport doesn’t mean that
you have to be friends with your team members. While it may seem like a
great idea to form groups with your friends, it can complicate the collabo-
 354 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

rative process and damage friendships if the project doesn’t go as planned

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(Cecil 34-8). Instead, think of rapport as becoming colleagues with your

team members—you need to have respect and appreciation for each other
in a professional sense. So, remember, even if you are not or do not become
great friends with your team members, you can still end up with a success-
ful project as long as you share mutual respect.

Rapport Building
How do you build rapport with your team? The answer is pretty
straight forward but often overlooked: spend time getting to know your
teammates. Ideally, your instructor will coordinate teams well before you
start a major collaborative project. This creates an opportunity for you to
test the waters with each other, chat informally, and build rapport before
the hard work begins. Even if this isn’t the case, there’s no time like the
present to begin getting acquainted! As a starting point, ask each other
basic getting-to-know-you questions to get a feel of your similarities and
differences.
Once you know your teammates better, you’ll also want to talk about
cultural norms and access needs. Ideas of acceptable or unacceptable be-
haviors differ for people based on parts of the country, different parts of
the world, particular gender identities, and involvement in different com-
munities. What you might find rude could be perfectly polite to someone
else. For example, you might think that showing up late to a meeting is
entirely okay, while someone else could find your tardiness incredibly rude.
Understanding these cultural norms ahead of time can help you avoid un-
necessary tension. To jump start this discussion, consider:

• What are your assumptions about professional behavior in an ed-

ucational setting?
• What are your preferences when it comes to communication? For
example, do you have particular times that you do or do not want
to be reached at, methods of communication (phone call, text,
email, etc.), and/or any particular style you prefer (blunt, direct,
gentle, diplomatic, etc.)?
• What, to you, does successful collaboration look like? Does it in-
volve everyone getting a chance to share their ideas, having equal
input on the project, and/or contributing the same amount of work?
• Why are these values important to you?
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 355

After thinking through your team’s cultural values, you’ll want to con-

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sider everyone’s access needs. Having a discussion around access needs can
open a lot of doors for everyone. Conversations around access will require
you to think through what you need from your teammates in order to
fully participate. For example, if you have trouble speaking up, you might
need your teammates to directly ask you to respond when they introduce
a new idea or want solutions. Or, if you’re hard of hearing, you may need
your teammates to look directly at you or speak loudly when talking. As
you continue working on your project, you may find that your access needs
change or you find a new way of working which you feel would be more
beneficial to yourself and the group. This is to be expected! While you may
be uncomfortable speaking up at the beginning of a project, you may later
find that you are much more comfortable voicing your opinion. Therefore,
we think that it’s valuable to speak up about your changing access needs
and to check in with your team about theirs. Having this open line of
communication will help everyone contribute to the project. To begin a
conversation around access needs, you might want to consider:

• Have you ever been a part of a group project that felt particular-
ly inclusive to you as a learner and individual? What specifically
about the group made it feel accessible or inclusive to you?
• How do you learn best? Are there ways that your group members
can support your learning?
• Do you have any accommodations already in place that might be
helpful for your teammates to be aware of?
• What should your team members know about you in order for you
to be successful?

Furthermore, as part of your rapport building process, you’ll want

to challenge any preconceived notions that you have about your team-
mates based on their gender, race, disability status, sexuality, religion, age,
and class. For example, if one of your teammates is considerably older or
younger than you, what are your assumptions about them? Then, consid-
er how your assumptions will shape your rapport with this team member
and ultimately your collaborative project. Assumptions based on someone’s
identity markers could hurt your opportunities to learn from one another
and work together successfully.
Now that we’ve addressed the foundations of strong communication
skills, we want to turn your attention to some tools to keep you in com-
munication with your team. To help your team determine what tool you
might want to use, we’ve put together a list of some common and easy to
 356 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

use technologies. However, these technologies are just starting points for
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you to consider, and there may be new and better technology available to
you that could work just as well or better. We encourage you to experiment
and find out what works best for you and your team.

Asynchronous Chat
When working in a group, everyone likely has their own schedule and time
set aside to work on the project; thus, coming up with multiple meeting
times to fit everyone’s schedule isn’t the most realistic approach. Asynchro-
nous chat tools are a great way to overcome this barrier and send infor-
mation to the group so your teammates can access it on their own time.
There are many different services which allow for the “group chat” model,
all which have their own characteristics to meet your needs. For example,
in an age where Android-users bring green text to group chats, GroupMe
is a free texting app for groups regardless of phone operating system. Also,
with desktop access for varied communication access points and ease of file
sharing, GroupMe comes in handy as both a chat area and sharing of doc-
uments. In addition to GroupMe, WhatsApp and Google Hangouts are
more common texting tools which may be more accessible to teammates
who are international or are better acquainted with such tools, though the
mechanics work very similarly, providing more opportunities for video and
voice communications.
Discord is one of many resources for asynchronous communication.
This is a platform in which you can create a “server” and organize differ-
ent channels which have their own topics. Though more work goes into
setting up a server than simply starting a group chat, it is a valuable tool
for more complex projects and larger groups who must collaborate across a
greater number of tasks. In addition to providing individual text channels,
Discord offers opportunities for more social aspects to further build rap-
port and to create areas for sending memes, coordinating social meet-ups,
and other non-school related functions without clouding up the important
task communications. While there are limits to the sizes of files which you
can share, Discord in tandem with Google Drive is a powerful and use-
ful combo!

Video Conferencing
There are a variety of different programs out there which enable you to
video conference with your team. When meeting in person is difficult,
but face-to-face connection is something the group prefers, tools such as
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 357

Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams present a virtual stand-in for

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direct contact. Video conferencing can also be used as an informal way to
get to know your group members and further build rapport. These tools
should be used in place of asynchronous chat when making major deci-
sions and brainstorming. When selecting a video conferencing program,
considering what platform your group members are most familiar with and
what capabilities the programs have is important to ensure comfort and
accessibility. You’ll also want to take into account any licensing agreements
your school may have with these programs, in case additional features are
available to you for free. To find out more, you could ask your teacher or
the information technology office at your school.

Project Tracking and Organization

Organizing and tracking the work each member needs to accomplish for
the project can get tedious and tiring. Thankfully, there are many online
tools that allow for organization of collaborative projects! These resourc-
es—such as Trello, Todoist, or Padlet—allow for the creation of different
boards and tasks which help track the progress of the project. Trello is built
to organize collaborative projects by creating boards to show you what
needs to be completed, what’s being worked on, who’s assigned to each
task, and when everything is due. Todoist offers a less complex interface
where you can easily input your tasks, assign them to collaborators, and
check them off when they’re completed. In both programs, multiple users
can access and edit the boards to create to-do lists and track the progress
of the project. You can input all the tasks created for your project schedule,
set reminders for when they are due, and track how much you have left to
work on. Padlet functions as a virtual post-it board, building spaces to post
content, interact, comment, and create a personalized workspace. While
some features for each of these programs are blocked by paywalls, the key
features (which can help your team stay organized) are free. Overall, orga-
nizing collaborative projects by presenting goals, progress, roles, and due
dates provides an effective way to stay accountable, on track, and efficient
when working with others.

Accountability and Organizational Strategies

Since you’re working with other people, communicating expectations and

developing organizational strategies is crucial. These strategies are funda-
mental to the success of your project; without them, there’s a risk of having
 358 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

a turbulent or unsuccessful project. For these reasons, we’re introducing

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you to two important documents: the team contract and project schedule.
To develop these documents, we drew heavily from Team Writing, a book
by Joanna Wolfe—an expert on writing strategies for collaborative proj-
ects—with modifications based on our experience. These strategies can
also be paired with or augmented by those that Lance Cummings, Rin
Jackson, and Moriah Yancey share in “Technologies Of Trust: Creating
Networks Of Goodwill For Collaboration.”

Team Contract

The team contract is an organizational document designed to establish

your group’s goals and expectations for the project. This document helps
you to communicate with your team about expectations for successfully
completing the assignment, brainstorm possible conflicts and how your
team will resolve them, and start thinking about the individual strengths
each of you bring to the group. While this might seem like unnecessary,
additional work, the team contract can help you solve problems before
they even start by setting expectations in a neutral environment. The team
contract consists of four sections: (1) team goals, (2) division of labor, (3)
commitments, and (4) conflict resolution. And, to help you visualize what
this document might look like for your team, we’ve included a sample team
contract at the end of this chapter for you to reference, using fictional stu-
dents and situations (see Appendix 1).

Team Goals

This first section focuses on what you’d like to learn or gain from this
project and how your group defines quality work, which can help steer
your team towards a rewarding and successful project. When defining
what constitutes a successful project, it’s really important to move beyond
a statement such as “getting an A” and toward breaking down the criteria
you will need to accomplish to achieve that A. In the example we’ve pro-
vided, the team has a goal of “Educating ourselves and others about how
social media reputation affects school admittance and landing a job by
referencing reliable and peer reviewed sources.” As you can see, this goal
is much more detailed than “getting an A” and can be broken down into
concrete steps that the team can implement while completing their project.
To get you started on this section, here are some questions your team
can ask yourselves:
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 359

• What does quality work look like for this project?

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• What do you hope to accomplish as a team?
• What do you hope to learn or gain from this experience?

Division of Labor

For this section, you should determine how you want to structure your
team’s work. There are lots of different ways to divide the labor amongst
team members. For example, each individual member could decide to take
on a particular role (e.g., project lead, writer, editor, citation manager, head
researcher, or designer), everyone could collectively work on all aspects of
the assignment, or some combination of the two. Different methods of
labor division may be better suited for different types of assignments, so
consider which option might work best for your team and the project at
hand. In the example, Juan, Olivia, and Lex assign themselves both indi-
vidual roles (e.g., Juan is project lead) and overlapping roles (e.g., Juan and
Lex are the primary writers).
To get you started on this section, here are some questions your team
can ask yourselves:

• What skills and strengths do you have as individuals?

• What are some areas that you’d like to improve upon over the
course of this project?
• Based on your previous answers, how would you like to divide the
work up?

Commitments

This section will help you and your team be on the same page when it
comes to your individual commitment to the project and other important
responsibilities that you might have outside of school. You might work at a
part-time job (like Olivia), play on one of your school’s athletic teams (like
Lex), be a part of an on-campus organization (like Juan), have parental re-
sponsibilities, or care for a sick family member. All of these responsibilities
can impact the amount of time you can devote to your project and when
you can meet with your team. When you start assigning tasks for each
member and deciding when you’ll meet outside of class to work on your
project, acknowledging and planning for these commitments can help you
all have a smoother collaboration experience.
 360 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

To get you started on this section, here are some questions your team
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can ask yourselves:

• How much is everyone willing to contribute to the group? If some-

one does not want to contribute the same amount, how will that be
reflected in the evaluation (if there is one for this project)?
• What are some of the factors that might affect your performance
or availability? How can the team assist you with navigating these
responsibilities and your commitment to the group project?
• What do you need from your teammates in order to contribute suc-
cessfully to the project (e.g., due date reminders, clear expectations,
and notes)?

Conflict Resolution

This final section might be the most important of the team contract—it
will help you decide how possible group conflicts may be resolved in the
group, even before they happen. If you have concerns regarding your team-
mates’ contributions, deadline adherence, decision making, or other group
issues, then this is the place to address it. Sometimes, when conflict hap-
pens, students are nervous or unsure of how to confront their team mem-
ber about the issue. However, when you plan ahead and anticipate how
your team will respond, you can feel more prepared to talk to your team
members, since they already know what your team has decided to do. This
section might also help prevent conflict, since it brings to attention how
everyone’s actions can impact the team and what the consequences are.
To get you started on this section, here are two questions your team can
ask yourselves:

• What are some conflicts you’ve encountered in previous groups?

How did you resolve them? Did you think this was a fair resolution?
• What are some potential issues (e.g., missed deadline, unacceptable
work, and lack of communication) that you are worried might arise
during this project? How do you hope that your group will handle
them?

Project Schedule
After you’ve finished creating your team contract and had the opportu-
nity to brainstorm what you want to do for your project, the next step
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 361

is creating a project schedule (see Appendix 2). The project schedule is a

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document that lists and assigns tasks necessary for completing the project.
In other words, it breaks down all the work that needs to be completed into
actionable steps or tasks and evenly distributes this work across team mem-
bers. By completing this document, you will be able to meet deadlines,
complete all the necessary work for your project, and ensure that everyone
has a fair and even amount of work.
When deciding how to distribute the work, you don’t have to assign
everyone to the task in which they are strongest. For example, even if Juan
considers himself to be an expert writer, that doesn’t mean he should take
on the bulk of the writing work. Another team member, like Olivia, might
be keen on developing her writing abilities. Allowing her to take on some
writing tasks during this assignment can help her develop her writing abil-
ities by learning from her peers—which is one of the goals of collabora-
tive assignments. Therefore, take the time to determine what each of you
would like to do by considering everyone’s strengths and interests.
To ensure the distribution of work is even across team members, you’ll
want to assign each task a complexity value. When you assign complexity
values to tasks, you are recognizing that each task takes a different amount
of time and skill. For example, if you and your team need to create an
annotated bibliography (like Juan, Olivia, and Lex), you might determine
that finding sources and reading the sources are two different tasks that
take varying amounts of time to do well. It’s also important to account for
recurring work which each team member may do that is not accounted
for on a project schedule. For example, Olivia says that she will be a note
taker for the group by keeping and distributing notes to the team after each
meeting. As such, it may be important to assign Olivia fewer complexity
points to account for this additional work that is not tracked on the project
schedule.
As you begin working on your project schedule, here are some questions
you’ll want to consider:

• What are all the steps that your team will need to take in order to
complete the assignment? How much work is each of these tasks?
• What part of the assignment are you particularly excited for? How
would you like to contribute to that component?
• Are there recurring tasks that are not being accounted for in the
project schedule (e.g., scheduling meetings, taking group notes,
and reminding the team about deadlines)? How complex are each
of these recurring tasks?
 362 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

With an established team contract and project schedule, you and your
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team are ready to move onto the real deal: producing your project! In the
next section, we’ve provided some examples of technologies you can use to
find the best fit for your team and assignment at hand.

Technology to Support Digital Multimodal Projects

In a world where online work is ever more prevalent and meeting up with
team members to work on every detail is unrealistic, options to compose
projects long-distance are made easier and more accessible through online
means. While multimodal projects are still very relevant, the days of glu-
ing pictures, graphic printouts, and other content to a tri-fold board are
becoming less frequent—online and digital productions are vastly more
common in academic use. Multimodal refers to multiple modes or meth-
ods of communication in a message. This term may be a new addition to
your vocabulary, but it is a concept you’re already familiar with. Multi-
modal media ranges from fliers with relevant photos and text to videos or
audio components for a project; essentially something that is more than
just text-based. (If you’re interested in learning more about multimodal
composing, we recommend checking out Melanie Gagich’s “An Introduc-
tion to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing.”) This section will dis-
cuss tools for creating digital multimodal media, presentation-based, or
text-based products.

Multimodal Media Production

For collaboration with a heavy multimodal component, sending the same
file back-and-forth isn’t the most convenient. To help with this struggle,
different multimodal media technologies exist for multiple users to work
on one product, from fliers to video production. If you’re working on a
static design, like a logo, flier, or social media post, Canva has a free plat-
form for multiple users to access in content collaboration and design. With
many premade templates to choose from, this technology helps alleviate a
lot of pressure that can come from building a project from scratch. Similar
to Canva, other tools such as Pixelied and VistaCreate have useful default
templates instead of starting with a blank page. These tools allow for more
than one person to have access to the project, but typically only one person
can actively make edits at a time. Regardless, this is a great way to create
crisp and professional materials for classes without needing major graph-
ic design skills. All the tools have countless free-to-use designs and stock
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 363

images, but there are paywalls for certain upgrades and access to more

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images and designs. However, a student email address can also unlock one
free year of Canva Pro, which grants users access to content behind the
paywall. (Many other online resources, such as GitHub, provide access to
extended free trials or immense discounts to many multimodal software or
programs when you use your student email address.)
If you’re looking to create something more interactive, like a website,
we recommend trying out Wix or Weebly. Each of these platforms allow
you to create free websites with easy-to-use website building templates.
Like many of the resources we introduced, they do have additional content
hidden behind paywalls, but the vast majority of the resources are free and
available to students. With drag and drop editing features, you don’t need
to have any coding experience to use them, making them fairly intuitive to
learn. If you do get stuck, there are loads of free tutorials available online to
help you figure out how to put your plan into practice. Additionally, these
sites support collaboration. You can easily add collaborators to contribute
to the website and determine how much editing access they have. In very
little time, your team will have a professional appearing website.
If you’re interested in video production, it’s worth checking your
school’s library or computer labs for free access to programs like those
available in the Adobe suite. Support for learning these programs may be
available through your campus resources or free tutorials online. When
creating static projects, you can use programs like Photoshop, Illustrator,
and InDesign. Premiere Pro and After Effects are available for video pro-
duction and motion graphics. If you and your team have access to Apple
devices, you can also use iMovie. If this is an option, there is a Cloud
sharing method for easier access to projects in-progress; this way, all team
members have access to the most updated version. This method might be
a little more clunky, since it’s not directly tied into the programs like the
other options we’ve suggested, but the video editing programs that do sup-
port team collaboration typically require a monthly fee to access.
Finally, if you and your team want to create a podcast, you might want
to check out Audition (part of the Adobe suite), Garageband (for Apple
users), Anchor, or Podbean. Audition is a more sophisticated and powerful
program with more than just podcast options. But don’t be intimidated!
Adobe provides a simple tutorial for how to create different project types
using Audition and includes a pre-set template and default options for easy
beginner production. However, you will be limited to working in a space
on campus or where you have access to the program, and there are more
steps involved if you want your podcast to be published. Both Podbean
 364 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

and Anchor have direct upload for podcast distribution such as Spotify and
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other popular podcast apps, in addition to their own apps for creating your
podcast. Podbean offers basic analytics, up to 5 hours total storage, and a
limited monthly upload until you hit paywalls for more advanced features;
this includes collaboration, as the free and lower tier packages only allow
for one admin per account. On the other hand, Anchor allows multiple
people to record and participate simultaneously for each episode, and they
have a strong mission statement about keeping the art of podcasting free
and without barriers or any paywalls to premium access and storage or
upload amounts. Take the time to brainstorm with your team if learning a
new medium is right for your project!

Presentation-Based Production

Stitching together everyone’s PowerPoint slides before the deadline or fig-

uring out what other visual aides to use when presenting in a group is often
stressful and difficult. Google Slides dominates the collaborative presen-
tation space, ensuring each member has equal access to the entire project.
This is beneficial in confirming that the design and content are consistent,
allowing for more professional outcomes and easier group communication.
Another common tool is Keynote; this works similarly to the other presen-
tation tools, as they all allow for simultaneous collaboration and sharing
with others. However, Keynote is specific to Apple users only, though there
are ways to share the file so it is accessible to PC users, or provide file access
through iCloud on Windows. Whatever program you choose to use, verify
that your file type is accepted and accessible to your teammates as well as
to your instructor.

Text-Based Production
Typing sections of an essay into an email and having one team member
piece everything together into an entire essay is not the most efficient or
convenient way to write a group essay. You’ll have no idea what someone
else wrote until (and if) they send it. Instead, consider using a text-based
collaborative tool so your team can have equal access to writing and ed-
iting your document. The most intuitive example of a collaborative text-
based tool is Google Docs. While there are other tools, this remains the
most accessible and well-known means for text-based production without
any paywall or steep learning curve, especially if you’ve had experience
with Microsoft Word. Available for free and accessible on any computer or
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 365

mobile device, Google Docs allows multiple people to edit and type into

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a document simultaneously. You can keep track of what everyone contrib-
utes to the document in several different ways, such as through utilizing
the “suggesting mode” tool, tracing everyone’s contributions by examining
the “version history” of the document, or having each team member pick
a text color to type their part. This is also helpful when offering edits and
suggestions to other users. The comments feature provides a way to add
notes and communicate with your group about a specific section or sen-
tence instead of holding an entire meeting to discuss each point.

Conclusion

Collaborative projects offer you the opportunity to expand your skill set,
generate and challenge new ideas, build community, and prep for the
workforce. Composing as a team does pose some challenges you wouldn’t
encounter while working on a project individually. However, we’ve gone
over some important considerations, recommendations, and tools to help
you navigate this process. If you and your team commit to these practices,
then you’re setting yourselves up for success. Why should you believe us?
We drew on these techniques to work together to write this essay (and had
a lot of fun while collaborating), so we really believe that these suggestions
will work for you too!
 366 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

Appendix 1: Team Contract Example

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Team Goals
• Educate ourselves and others about how students’ social media rep-
utation affects school admittance and landing a job by referencing
reliable and peer reviewed sources.
• Learn new skills working in groups, creating a project scope includ-
ing team contracts, proposals, and schedules.
• Complete all assignments and work by the given deadline.
• Follow all guidelines for each component of the assignment. For
example, using correct font, spacing and following the word/page
count wanted for each assignment. Also, gathering at least 10 sourc-
es for our annotated bibliography and using 8 of those sources in our
actual paper.

Division of Labor
• Juan: Juan is going to be the project lead, meaning he is going to be
organizing the time schedules and reminding the other groupmates
about deadlines. Also, if conflict arises he will take care of the situa-
tion by either making a decision himself or talking it out with the rest
of the group. Juan will also be co-lead writer because of his interest in
developing his writing ability.
• Olivia: Olivia will be in charge of the research and note taking aspect
of the project. This means she will make sure that the sources that
our group finds are both credible and follow the guidelines that are
given in the prompt. Also, she will take notes during our group meet-
ings and distribute these notes to the team members.
• Lex: Lex will be the other co-lead writer to help Juan with the writing
portion of the project so that he can handle other responsibilities as
well. Lex will also be the lead editor to make sure that the writing
portion of the project has little to no mistakes. They will either dis-
cuss the writing with the other groupmates or other resources such as
the writing center to make the writing quality as good as it can be.

Commitments
• Everyone in the group has their personal commitments and other ac-
tivities that they are a part of, but Juan, Olivia, and Lex are all willing
to put in 100% effort into the project.
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 367

• Although Lex is on the tennis team which is a pretty big commit-

WRITING SPACES 5
ment, they are not worried about managing their time and giving
their full effort into the project. They are, however, unable to meet in
the mornings because of tennis practice.
• Olivia has a part-time job at the campus bookstore, which will take
up some of her time, but she is confident that it will not get in the
way of achieving success in this project. She is also worried that her
writing skill will affect the group negatively, but plans on stepping
her game up and asking for help when needed.
• Juan is worried about other commitments, such as his fraternity, that
will affect his participation in the project, but is willing to stay up as
late as needed in order to succeed in the project.

Conflict Resolution
• If a problem occurs, the whole group will sit down and discuss the
problem until a compromise is reached. However, if the team expe-
riences conflict that is not resolved with 30 minutes of respectful
discussion, we will present both sides to their teacher and ask her
to decide.
• The team will establish a deadline schedule that each member will
need to abide by. If a team member misses a deadline, the project
manager will contact the group member through email and text mes-
sage to see why the deadline was missed. If there is no good reason
for why the deadline was missed, the team member will be penal-
ized with a 5 point deduction on their individual grade. If there was
a circumstance where there was an emergency, the project manager
will discuss with the rest of the group and come to an agreement on
whether or not to deduct points.
• If a group member turns in work that does not follow guidelines,
assignment criteria, contains many errors, and the quality of the as-
signment does not meet the expectations of the group, the project
manager will contact that group member and give them a one day
extension to fix all problems of the assignment. If the team member
is having trouble with the assignment they should ask the teacher
or the other groupmates to help in completing the assignment with
acceptable quality.
 368 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

Appendix 2: Project Schedule Example

WRITING SPACES 5

Deadline Task Assigned to Complexity

10/2 First group meeting to discuss Juan, Olivia,
everyone’s role and Team Lex
Contract
10/7 Brainstorm ideas for the Team Olivia, Juan,
Contract and Project Schedule Lex
10/9 Edit Team Contract Lex 1
10/9 Edit Project Schedule Juan 1
10/10 Meet at the library at 5:00pm Juan, Olivia,
to discuss Proposal Lex
10/13 Write initial Proposal Juan 2
10/13 Make comments on the Lex 1
Proposal
10/13 Edit Proposal Oliva 1
10/14 Final Team Contract and Olivia 1
Project Schedule
10/14 Final Proposal Olivia, Juan,
Lex
10/14 Start working on Annotated Olivia, Juan,
Bibliography at the library Lex
10/21 Each find 4 sources Olivia, Juan,
Lex
10/21 Work on Annotated Bibliog- Olivia, Juan,
raphy (in class) Lex
10/24 Write first draft of annota- Olivia, Juan,
tions for sources (4 per team Lex
member)
10/27 Edit citations for Annotated Juan 1
Bibliography
10/27 Edit annotations for Annotat- Lex 1
ed Bibliography
10/28 Final Annotated Bibliography Olivia, Juan,
is due Lex
10/30 Work on overall rough draft Olivia, Juan,
(in class) Lex
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 369

WRITING SPACES 5
11/3 Meet at the library to finish Olivia, Juan,
rough draft (5:00pm) Lex
11/4 Rough draft due Olivia 1
11/11 Edit the rough draft Juan 1
11/11 Comment on rough draft Lex 1
11/11 Take note of their adjust- Olivia 1
ments and make changes
11/13 Final Paper is Due! Olivia, Juan,
Lex

Works Cited
Bruffee, Kenneth. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’”
College English, vol. 46, no. 7, 1984, pp. 635–52.
Brumberger, Eva R. “Collaborative Projects in a Technical Writing Class: A Cost/
Benefit Analysis.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 27, no. 2,
1999, pp. 194–202.
Cecil, Ellen. Approaches for Collaboration: Student Perceptions on Writing Together.
Miami University, 2015.
Cummings, Lance, et al. “Technologies of Trust: Creating Networks of
Goodwill for Collaboration.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 4,
Parlor Press, 2022, pp. 69–84, https://writingspaces.org/past-volumes/
technologies-of-trust-creating-networks-of-goodwill-for-collaboration/.
Gagich, Melanie. “An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Com-
posing.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 3, Parlor Press, 2020, pp.
65–85, https://writingspaces.org/past-volumes/an-introduction-to-and-strat
egies-for-multimodal-composing/.
Hunzer, Kathleen M. “Connecting Writing Process with Personality: Creating
Long-Lasting Trust Circles in Writing Classes.” Collaborative Learning and
Writing: Essays on Using Small Groups in Teaching English and Composition, ed-
ited by Kathleen M. Hunzer, McFarland & Company, Inc, 2012, pp. 217–24.
Lunsford, Andrea, and Lisa Ede. Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on
Collaborative Writing. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990.
Murphy, Moira, and Cecilia Valdéz. “Ravaging Resistance: A Model for Building
Rapport in a Collaborative Learning Classroom.” Radical Pedagogy, vol. 7, no.
1, 2005, https://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue7_1/murphy-valdez.
html.
Wolfe, Joanna. Team Writing. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2010.
 370 Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Tamara Gluck

Teacher Resources for Navigating

WRITING SPACES 5

Your Collaborative Project

Overview and Teaching Strategies

This essay is for students working in collaborative project settings for the
first time, but it can also provide a refresher for those well versed in team-
work. For this reason, we recommend having students read this chapter as
soon as (or, better yet, before) a collaborative project is assigned. However,
your work as an instructor should begin even earlier. At the beginning
of the semester, you should set the groundwork for your team project by
providing students with ample opportunities to get to know one another
and having them practice team skills on low stakes assignments, like in-
class work or minor homework assignments. This preparation will allow
students to begin building rapport with their team and test the collabora-
tive waters well before they’re thrown into the deep end with a high stakes
assignment. Scaffolded teamwork will help lead your students to a smooth
and successful project.
To this end, this chapter introduces fundamental collaboration skills
that will prepare students to tackle a variety of team projects (both textual
and multimodal) while providing resources on how to build rapport, com-
municate, set expectations, and create a product. To help students achieve
these goals, we’ve included important discussion questions for students to
consider when working in a team. These questions ask students to reflect
on their work styles, areas of expertise and growth, expectations for their
teammates, and more. Some of these conversations may be more challeng-
ing than others, especially the ones in which we invite students to examine
their cultural values and access needs. Some students might find these re-
flective questions to be intimidating or may have difficulty in advocating
for their access needs. As such, we think it’s important to set aside time for
your students to answer these questions with their teams during class time
or as a formal homework assignment.
By the end of this chapter, students should feel more comfortable work-
ing in a team, acquire organizational strategies for navigating team proj-
ects, be able to draw upon different methods for communicating, and have
ideas for different technology they can use to complete their projects.
Below, we offer five questions that you can use to help facilitate a dis-
cussion around key concepts in the chapter and group work in general.
 Navigating Your Collaborative Project 371

Discussion Questions:

WRITING SPACES 5
1. Have you ever had to work in a team in the past? What do you wish
you could have known before you started?

2. What are some of your worries or concerns about working in a

team? Did anything in the chapter help you feel more comfortable
with the process? What do you still have questions about?

3. What do you believe are some of the most important skills in-
dividuals need in order to make a team project successful? What
are some expectations you would have of your teammates in a
group project?

4. Take some time to think through your strengths as an individual.

What abilities do you have which may support your team? Now,
consider the skills that you’d really like to develop. What areas
would you want to improve on in a collaborative setting?

5. Working with a team requires coordinating tasks on both a team

and individual level. This chapter has provided some recommen-
dations on how to coordinate work on a team level. Given these
recommendations, how do you plan on managing your own tasks
for the project?