Focus on Collaborative Writing: English III's Constitutional Convention

Lately the junior class has been studying the Revolutionary War and the Consitutional Convention in US history. What better way to follow this up than to experience first hand the thought process and hard work that goes into creating an effective and successful constitution? This is a particularly useful task as the last SA constitution at Prep was written and disappeared, apparently, before anyone currently on campus can remember--if it ever existed.

Under the guidance of Mr. Rasmussen (English Dept. student teacher), English III turned into a real-life writing subcommittee to begin correcting this omission. Our class became the meeting place for developing Prep's very own Student Association (SA) constitution that would include sections from the preamble to the amendments, and everything in between. Our goal is to provide, in useful and concrete form, fundamental guidelines detailing the functions of the SA.

Thoughtful, good-quality writing usually goes through six stages: thinking, organizing, drafting, revising, proofreading, and sharing. Creating a new Prep SA constitution is an on-going collaborative writing process that will involve all of these steps--just like individual writing. So far, we've done lots of important thinking, tussled over the best organizational pattern, and now we're ready to figure out by whom and how the document will be drafted so that it is useful and representative for the whole Prep student body.

With recent memories and participation in the SA of Sacramento Adventist Academy in mind, Mr. Rasmussen helped us to start thinking about and organizing our ideas for the constitution. We started by looking at parts of the United States Constitution and describing its purpose and structure. We then carefully took into consideration the purpose we wanted our own constitution to serve, and what we want to accomplish through this constitution. These thoughts and ideas were then compiled into a general list of "Things a Good Constitution Does"--a document that would be very useful for analysis and planning along the way. (This list was re-written numerous times as we thought of more to add.)

Next, our class split into three groups to eamine three other high schools' SA constitutions. Each group analyzed the structure and content and then and made a basic outline of "their" school's constitution. As a class, we compared the three outlines, debating what we liked and disliked.

For the organizing step of the writing process, we then took all of the items on the list of "Things a Good Constitution Does" and individually created a concept map in order to see the connections between the ideas. Then, we redrew the maps within our three groups--incorporating ideas from all of the group members. The three groups then compared the revised concept maps and discussed the good and not-so-good points of each. Mr. Rasmussen wrote each idea on a separate index card, and--based on our concept maps--we organized an outline.

When we had finished the outline, we felt that before we could go any further, input from the student body and faculty was essential. We don't want to create a junior class constitution; we want to create a Prep constitution. With this goal, the junior class took charge of a Friday assembly period so that we could solicit the input of all Prep students. We distributed the outline and the list of "Things a Good Constitution Does" to everyone, and we put up big posters with questions to help us know what the students of Prep think should be in the SA constitution. Some of the questions were, "What is missing from the SA constitution?" "How can we improve the constitution?" and "What do you like about the constitution outline?" Afterwards, we reviewed and compiled the input--focusing on comments that were directly related to the constitution.

We have now reached the drafting step in the writing process. The responses from the student body suggest that we should create opportunities for many students to be involved in most of what needs to be done from here on out. Some suggestions have been to begin drafting in the student senate. Others have suggested that the process be continued in US history or even governement class. These details will be worked out in the next week or so.

We have really enjoyed working on this project with Mr. Rasmussen. It's been a lot of hard work; some parts of the process have been fun, and other parts have not been as interesting. But, it's interesting to imagine how similar we have been to the drafters of the United States Constitution. The writers of that document didn't always agree, and neither did we. They had a lot of work to do before they could begin writing, and so did we.

We are all excitedly waiting to see the final product, and we are all very proud of our English III class. This is no ordinary English project. Our class will leave not only memories but a legacy behind when we leave Prep. The final product will be something to be remembered and used at Prep in years to come. --English III

Remember, three clicks to English homework: www.pucprep.org, English Dept, and Assignments.

--Mrs. Dibben