The Worth of a Project

Group projects are hard.

I think that at some point in every person’s life, they’ve had one of those group projects that make them never want to work with another person ever again. When I was told at the beginning of this semester that I would be working with the rest of my nine-person class to create an ebook about digital literature together, I agreed on the outside, but on the inside I was cringing.

A whole semester for a group project… I was definitely prepared for the worst.

At first I think it was difficult, everyone had their own ideas of what should and shouldn’t be included, how it should be formatted, who was in charge of what, as well as so many other issues. But as we began to actually communicate with each other and realize the importance of (the dreaded) peer editing process, we began to learn and grow together as a class instead of trying to learn individually, which would have failed. While it stretched us all, the fact that we had to rely on and help each other ultimately created unison throughout our ebook while still maintaining each individual identity and opinions. The work wasn't always evenly distributed, and this did cause some issues, but we had some kick butt people who really took their work into stride even when they were overwhelmed. This project never would have worked though if each of us hadn't buckled down and opened ourselves up to criticism and critique from our professor but also each other.

My class' whole purpose was to create an ebook about studying literature in the digital age. In some ways our project helped me with this concept, and in other ways I felt it took away from it. While our ebook as a whole definitely shows ways that digital literary study can be furthered, I did feel as though we focused so much on individual aspects of this concept that I barely actually got to put these theories into use. But I do believe that this ebook will be able to help me, as well as others, as we make the transition from classic literary studies to digital literary studies. And I don’t believe that it’s a “one or the other” situation, I think it is possible that both digital and classic can work hand in hand if we let them.

For myself, this project taught me the value of letting others read my work. I hate sharing my work before I believe it's perfect, and this forced me to. I learned that some situations require me to work with others, and this made me take interest in their works as well. And I also learned that my opinion can matter out there with this new turn of the digital age.

So what began as a social nightmare in my eyes, ended as a project well worth my time that taught me not only about digiliteracy, but also the value of a group project done well.