Writing in class
group chats.

Before ENC 1102, I mostly saw research as choosing a topic, finding enough sources, and writing a paper. This project made me realize there was more to it than that. I started with something familiar: college students often create unofficial class group chats to ask questions and compare what they think an assignment means. Once I chose that topic, I still had to decide what kind of writing I was studying, find out what earlier research had already covered, and choose a method that would protect the privacy of the people in the chats. I also had to change my claim when the interviews did not fully match what I expected.

Almost every major assignment became part of the same project. I set out the question in the Initial Research Proposal, researched four sources for the Annotated Bibliography, and used the CARS exercise to focus on the difference between instructor-managed messaging and student-run chats. I then interviewed five people and coded their answers for recurring ideas. When they brought up incorrect information, notification stress, and students who rarely posted, I changed my original assumption that the chats were mostly helpful. My final argument is that these chats can make it easier to ask questions, restate official instructions in familiar language, and participate by reading or reacting. They can help, but students still need to verify important information and set reasonable boundaries.

I separated the portfolio into a start page, an outcomes page, and an artifact index so readers do not have to search one long page for everything. The three major assignments are also available as web pages and downloadable files. The Process Archive contains the smaller assignments, CITI training, and peer feedback I used along the way. The third Gordon Rule artifact is the final paper submitted August 2, while Draft 1 and Revision 1 are still available for comparison.