Patricia Kennedy

Human Rights and the Rule of LawMarch 31, 2004

Princeton Writing ProgramUnit Three Writing Group Guidance

As a writing group has more resources than a solitary writer, it is important that you all take advantage of your time together. I’ll require that you meet two more times with your group before the first draft is due on April 15th (times and dates are left up to each group, and you’re free to meet more often). With each meeting, you will hopefully discover the advantages of your relative skills as you become more familiar with each other’s work. Moreover, you’ll be more likely to be honest with one another as your comfort level in the group increases. Follow these guidelines to gain the most from the experience.

FOUR Keys for Working in Groups*

TALK but BE AN ACTIVE LISTENER. Talk a lot to each other, but don’t let one person’s issues dominate the group. Talk as often and as much as you can with one another (exchange e-mail addresses, set up additional times to meet—I’d recommend that you simply set a fixed time every week and prior to the meeting, set up a plan for what you’ll cover). LISTEN to each other carefully, and hold each other accountable for what is said and written! ASK QUESTIONS! With each conversation, you will educate each other about shared challenges and sharpen your own understanding of your argument as it evolves.

FOR THIS FIRST MEETING: Discuss what you’ve found out about your incident/phenomenon, and then ask each other what specific tensions are present in each event/phenomenon. Help each other identify these tensions, as they will be helpful in generating preliminary theses and motives!

DESIGNATE A LEADER/MODERATOR. This role can rotate among group members for each meeting, but this person will guide the discussion, make sure that the work progresses, and keep track of time. In a writing group like this, make sure that each person’s work gets some time in the spotlight. This can be accomplished by dividing up the time evenly for each person’s topic. For example, in this first meeting, have one person keep an eye on the clock to ensure about fifteen to twenty minutes of good conversation about each person’s research issues and/or questions. With groups of four or five, bear in mind that the conversation may be more susceptible to tangents, so the leader will need to keep everyone focused.

TAKE NOTES. Always have a pen and a clean pad of paper right beside you so that you can jot down any ideas that come to mind as others are talking or if someone raises an interesting point or question. You’d be surprised how often a great idea can slip away if you’re in the midst of an animated conversation, and you have no place to record what’s going on inside your head. Better to keep your notebook handy so that your inspirations are not lost! You’ll be so happy you did it after the fact, and it’s also a great habit to get into for all of your seminars.

READ WORK OF MEMBERS PRIOR TO MEETING(for later meetings). As you all begin to produce preliminary thesis statements and then pieces of your drafts, it will be important to get genuine, studied feedback from your group members. The level of focus with which one reads can significantly affect the impression made by a piece of writing (or even a few lines of an argument). If you take a small chunk of quiet time to read your group members’ writing prior to meeting, you’ll be able to offer much more honest and productive feedback than if you try to quickly read each other’s work while the writer is sitting nearby and other distractions are present. TWO KEYS for HELPFUL FEEDBACK:

(1)Come to each meeting with some good questions to ask each writer, and

(2) Specific questions you want answered about your own writing should accompanyany draft. This will be crucial to getting constructive advice about how to make your writing accessible to your audience.

FINALLY, (I guess this is FIVE!)

Remember that you may not always share the same opinion. Agree that disagreements may happen, but that there can be some useful insight within any tension you find.

*Some of the advice contained herein is adapted from, The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1995). pp. 31-34.