Group Short Story Project (Junior English)
This is a potential group project that I would assign to junior-level English class, particularly English 8 or 9.
Project Overview
I would ask the students to pair up with two other people who they knew that they could work well with. I would then put two groups of three together. They would be expected to plan the story together and assign each other roles. Each student would be responsible for two "sections" of the story (which would work up to roughly two paragraphs of writing for each student). Their final mark would be broken down into two marks. The first would be a group mark that was based on how well the story "flowed." For this mark, I would want to see that there was a clear conflict that drove the entire story and transitions between the different sections of the story (so that it read smoothly as a whole, rather than six separate parts). The second mark would be an individual mark, based on how well they addressed the section of the story that they were assigned as well as the actual quality of the style of their writing). I believe that this would provide that necessary balance between autonomy and accountability to the group.