CONTEXT
As members of a nonacademic writing class at Syracuse University who made it through the final drop deadline and managed somehow to find the strength to make it through to the end of the semester, we were faced with a new challenge.
Throughout the semester our work had been laid out to us. Create a graphically enhanced, easy to understand, interesting paper from a textual, technology jargon filled paper. Chose a random number from a bag, match your number with the number of a certain
scenario, and write a process paper resolving the scenario. Write a resume and a cover letter. And of course keep up with the weekly list serve posts. Until now.
Our final assignment for the semester was to create a web page on the Internet that involved
- nonacademic writing in its content
- contributed something to the Internet community, at the same time was not already out on the net
- was focused enough to have reasonable boundaries but at the same time allowed enough room to interpret individual projects
We filtered through the various individual topics and finally we committed to Dave Daly's "Syracuse Snow Page." Our reasons for choosing this topic varied, but we generally felt that we had all experienced the infamous Syracuse snow first hand and it woul
d be interesting doing a web site that reflected our experience. With that, it was up to us to chose a project leader, divide ourselves into the various groups based upon the various topics outlined in Dave's proposal, chose group leaders, write about the
various sub-topics, create our own schedules, determine layout and content and put it all together on the Internet.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
PROJECT ADVISOR
The writing instructor took on the role of CEO of the project. She played
the
role of advising the group members either one on one or advising the group
through
the project leader. It was her responsibility to receive, grade and give
feedback of carbon copies of all memos, weekly progress reports from group
leaders as well as group members, and all agendas and minutes from meetings.
PROJECT LEADER
Dave Daly was chosen project leader because his topic for the web project
was
liked the most. He was responsible for overseeing the entire project and did
not belong to any group. He was responsible for creating groups based on the details of his projec
t and delegating members to groups at their own disgression. It was his job to communicate with the various group members and group leaders to monitor progress. He was responsible for calling weekly group meetings and setting agendas for those group meet
ings. During these meetings, he reported on the progress of the group and laid
out the future tasks of the group for the forthcoming week. It was his responsibility to arrange meetings with the group leaders to determine and coordinate the progress of eac
h of the teams. During this time, structure and physical layout of the project was determined. He was also responsible for updating the project advisor on the progress of the group.
GROUP LEADERS
- Kioko Mwosa, Graphics
- Jon Kurland, Normal Winters
- Jim Besha, Fun in the Snow
- Mark VanZandt, Snow Facts
They were chosen by the members of each of the groups and acted as the link
between the project leader and the group because they had the most HTML
experience and would be able to teach the rest of the group members.
- They assumed responsibility for the group and assigned tasks among
each of the members.
- They created schedules and deadlines for the
various group objectives.
- They wrote memos to the various group members,
groups and other group leaders requesting input and reporting project status.
- They attended weekly project leaders meetings where they summarized the
progress of their group and coordinated schedules with the other group leaders
.
- They scheduled meetings with their group members and reported on the
agenda of the leaders meeting.
GROUP MEMBERS
- Kristen Einstein, Graphics, Reflections
- Larry Jones, Normal Winters
- Wendy Posso, Normal Winters
- Dave Cooly, Fun in the snow
- Heather Jennings, Fun in the snow
- Aditya Chauhun, Snow Facts
- They completed the tasks and objectives as assigned to them by the group
leaders.
- They made up weekly progress reports in memo format, outlining
the progress that they had made so far and what they hoped to accomplish in
the next week.
- They attended the weekly meetings with the entire group
where they had the
opportunity to raise questions or provide information to the other groups.
For a lighthearted version
of the roles and responsibilities click here
Together through research, individual writing, group work and a lot of HTML
coding, we were able to come up with this web site which provides the Internet
community with an interesting, yet factual information resource. This will
hopefully pave the way for future WRT 405 classes and provide them with a
point of reference as
the information superhighway continues to expand into the classroom.