3: Service Learning Project

For your final project, you will interact (as an assigned group) with clients in a real world
writing environment to gain first-hand experience in and of professional writing. By developing
a writing project with a local organization, you will learn negotiation and collaboration
skills necessary to produce final documents satisfying to all parties.

Project summary
You will work in groups with a non-profit organization-client and negotiate a reasonable and
mutually beneficial writing/design project that will be completed by the end of the semester.
In working with community members, you will operate in a real world writing environment that
requires collaboration with your group, organization, and instructor to complete the project
by semester's end. Each group will be assigned a non-profit organization by the instructor.
It will be each group's responsibility to establish contact with its own client, communicate
online with the client to determine the needs of the organization that can be met by the group,
and inform the instructor of suggested choices.

Potential projects include any combination of the following options, totaling 3,000-4,000
words. (Note: A combination of visuals and text will lessen the total word count.):

  • Brochure
  • Policy manual
  • Newsletter
  • Press release
  • Web design project
  • Flier, or series of fliers
  • Market analysis
  • Internal policy documents or manual
  • User manual
  • Product or service description
  • Set of instructions
  • Advertisement, for specified publication
  • Style sheet
  • Discourse analysis memo
  • Usability report

    • It will be the responsibility of each group to research the history, mission and goals,
    and needs of the assigned organization. Regular communication, between each group and the
    instructor, will be required throughout the project. The professional level of this
    communication, and its extensiveness, will be part of each group's final grade.

    It is crucial that projects are appropriate in length and content. The project needs to
    take roughly four weeks to produce, so project options too small or ambitious may need some
    revision. It is also crucial that the project is mutually beneficial: the work needs to be
    of importance to the organization and educational for the students.

    Some requirements (There may be other requirements along the way):

  • Proposal: You will be writing a proposal for this project as a group. The proposal should
    provide details concerning the work you will complete for this organization. It should discuss
    not only the final results, but the major and minor steps you will need to complete along the
    way in order to ensure successful results.
  • Client Research Memo: As a group, you will research the client's organization in order to
    discover as much as you can about who they are and what they do within the community. You will
    prepare a memo to the instructor providing this information in your own words.
  • Instructor Memo: You must submit, as a group, a weekly memo to me discussing your
    progress, concerns, and ideas. Each memo acts as a progress report, from the group to me, to
    document the group’s progression through this project.
  • Client Memo: You must submit a weekly memo to your client discussing your progress on
    their documents needs, reassuring them of your work, motivation, and interest. This memo
    must be sent as an attachment to your client. Please make sure you review the class information
    on email etiquette. All email sent to your client must be copied (CC) to me. You must submit
    reports that summarize the results of conversations with your client.
  • Peer Evaluations:: As with project 2, you will be completing evaluations of
    each of your group members.

    • I will be asking your contact person to fill out progress reports that document your
    group’s progress on the project and any concerns they may have about your group work. These
    progress reports, from your client, will factor into your final grade.

    A portion of your final grade will come from your client (see Grading, below, for more
    details). You will be penalized for any work turned in late during this project. I cannot
    accept any excuses due to the limited time available and amount of work associated with
    this project.

    Before you provide final documents, etc. to your organization and receive a grade from
    me, you must submit revisions of your document and receive feedback on this draft from the
    client. Your final revision must show adequate work and changes based on my feedback and the
    feedback of your contact person from the organization. Failure to revise properly will result
    in a severe grade reduction.

    Note: I will not accept any documents or emails from individuals or groups unless there is
    appropriate group and assignment information in the subject line and/or the title of the
    document.