School of Arts and Humanities (ARH)

ENG2006 Enhancing Academic English Skills

Group Essay & Group Presentation Instructions

Group Essay (25% of the course mark)

Students work in groups of 2 or 3.

In this assignment, students research and collaborate together in order to write one group essay
which has a total of 1000-1200 words. Together, students should demonstrate that they can: (a)
identify and discuss a suitable issue for academic discussion; (b) select, organize and present relevant
evidence from a variety of sources; (c) develop a coherent argument using the evidence gathered; (d)
reach an appropriate conclusion based on the evidence and argument presented. The group will be
given ONE mark which will be the same for everyone. This mark will count towards 40 out of 50 of
the total marks for this assignment. Please keep to the word limit. Text 10% over the word limit will
not be read or assessed.

Each student should ALSO write a reflection of 150 words on their experience of working together
to write this group essay. You should write about what you contributed to this essay (what was your
role, what did you do), how you worked with other people, and what you learned from the writing
process and the experience of working together (NOT what you have learned about the topic).
This should be written with neutral language not informal language. This mark will count towards 10
out of 50 of the total marks for this assignment. Each student’s reflection will be marked
individually, and each student will therefore receive a different mark. These reflections do not count
towards the number of words in the above essay. Please keep to the word limit. Text 10% over the
word limit will not be read or assessed,

Submitting your work

The final assignment should be ONE document for the whole group, which includes your group
essay and all your group’s individual reflections at the end. Only the group leader submits the
assignment. The group leader must submit the assignment before the deadline in 2 places:

• upload it in the Blackboard Turnitin Inbox AND

• upload it in the Blackboard Assignment Inbox

Assignments submitted after the deadline will receive maximum marks of 25/50 (50%)

Assignments submitted 72 hours or more after the deadline will score 0%.

Text 10% over the word limits will not be read. Please keep to the word limit.

Type with double line spacing and please remember to include:

• each student’s name and student number; date of submission
• your teacher’s name and class number
• the word count at the end of the group essay
• each student’s name marked clearly at the beginning of each individual reflection
• the word count at the end of each individual reflection

1
 School of Arts and Humanities (ARH)
ENG2006 Enhancing Academic English Skills
Group Essay & Group Presentation Instructions

Procedure and suggested timeframe

Day 1-6 – RESEARCH AND PLANNING

• Work together to choose a general and broad topic area. You will write either an argumentative essay,
problem-solution, cause-effect, or compare-contrast essay.
• Brainstorm together 3 or 4 main ideas around this area to research in more detail.
• Each student should do their own library and internet research around all the above ideas.
• Come back together and share your research.
• Discuss together how to narrow your ideas and decide a specific topic for your essay.
• Brainstorm together 3 or 4 main ideas around your specific topic.
• Decide who will research which idea.
• Each student should do their own library and internet research around their one idea above. Make sure
to each use one or two reliable sources. Make notes from your sources and paraphrase the ideas. Make
a note of the sources you used, so that you can reference them in APA style.

Day 7 (during your next tutorial) – DISCUSS YOUR RESEARCH WITH YOUR GROUP

• During your class you will have some time to discuss your research. Please come prepared.

Day 8-13 – DRAFTING

• Make a writing plan together and decide how you will draft each part together
• Draft each section
• Re-read and edit the sections together
• Make sure the essay is coherent between the different sections.
• Present the main ideas to the class (See instructions for the Group Presentation) to collect
feedback; revise further if necessary
• Remember to include in-text citation and a bibliography in APA style

Day 14-16 – PROOFREADING

• Each student should proofread the essay and make notes on what needs to be corrected
• Come back together and use your proofreading notes to edit the draft into the final version.
• Write the word count at the end of your essay. Please keep to the word limit. Text 10% over the
word limit will not be read or assessed.

Day 17-20 – REFLECTING

• Each student should write a 150 word reflection on their experience of working together to write this
group essay. Make sure to write about what you have contributed to this essay (what was your role,
what did you do), how you worked with other people, and what you have learned from this process
of working together (NOT what you have learned about the topic).
• Write your name at the start of your reflection. Reflections without a student name will not be read
or assessed.
• Write the word count at the end of your reflection. Please keep to the word limit. Text 10% over the
word limit will not be read or assessed.
• Come back together and paste each reflection at the bottom of the essay.

2
 School of Arts and Humanities (ARH)
ENG2006 Enhancing Academic English Skills
Group Essay & Group Presentation Instructions

Group Presentation (20% of the course mark)

The Oral Presentation is meant to provide each group with an opportunity to present ideas from their
essay to the whole class to collect feedback before submission. Group members will present together
but they will be assessed individually.

Details
Date of presentation: Week 8 and Week 9
Note: The order of presentations will be decided by the teacher.

Time allowed: 10 minutes, followed by a minimally 3-minute Q & A session

Points to note
1. The content of the presentation should be derived from, if not the same as, that of the
essay due for submission one week after the presentation.

2. The presentation could be a straight summary of the essay OR a discussion of relevant

ideas arising from the research in preparation of the essay.

Preparation
1. Conduct research on the content.
2. Decide on your topic.
3. Structure the content. (Steps 1 – 3 should more or less have been done if your presentation
is going to be a summary of the key ideas from your essay.
4. Think of ways of catching the listeners’ interest: examples, anecdotes, impressive statistics,
and interesting quotations.
5. Plan the exact words you will use for the opening, the transition points, and the conclusion.
6. Check the overall length. As a rough guide, allow about 1 minute for every 100 words; one
A4 page, double-spaced, takes about 3 minutes of speaking time.
7. Do a rough draft of your visual aids.
8. Assign sections to individual presenters.
9. Individuals finish preparation of visual aids. Direct reading from notes/PPT will result in F.
10. Practise alone and then together as a group. Individual presenters should be aware that
they are delivering parts of an overall presentation and so they should use proper
transitions and cross-references. All the parts should be cohesively and coherently linked
so that they will not sound like some loosely connected individual ideas.
3