A group project at the center
Students study their own reading and writing, compare what they found in a group multimodal piece, then research a writing challenge in the scholarship, using their own data and their group experience as evidence.
Process: Directed drafting1 round of revision
- Personal
Autoethnography
1,000+ words. Data are the student's own reading and writing artifacts.
- Multimodal
Comparing Notes
Groups of 3–5 compare their autoethnographies and make a co-authored digital essay. 1,250+ words or the equivalent; no PowerPoint as the final piece.
- Research
Standing Challenges in Writing
A writing problem that keeps showing up, researched in the scholarship, with the student's autoethnography data and group experience as evidence. 1,250+ words in 15 weeks; 1,000+ in 8.
What carries forward
The first project to the second is the tightest link in any combination I’ve used: the group project is built directly on the autoethnography data. Groups compare their processes, not their current group dynamics, and make a short film, webpage, infographic, digital collage, or comic about what they found.
The third project draws on both earlier ones. Students cite their own autoethnography data, and they finally write about their group’s dynamics, which the narrative sheet told them to save for the third project. So every stage feeds the next, and the last one gathers everything. In the 15-week version, four discussion boards also connect the units: edited freewriting, meaning-making, challenges in academic writing, and writing a thesis before versus after the draft.
Students can keep revising earlier projects through the final portfolio, and the sheets suggest they do it after the next unit teaches them something.
Where I've used it
- 15 weeks, in person · Fall 2026
- 8 weeks · Fall 2026