Week 7 Story: The Group Project

Group Project
**The updated version of this story can be found on my portfolio**

It was that time of year again, group projects were being assigned. The weak were being separated from the strong within groups, as it is typical for the workload to fall heavily on one member. However, who would that member be?

The whole class was buzzing as groups were assigned and designated a working area. Each group consisted of four members, and as Margot walked down the aisle of her advertising lecture she carefully summed up her three teammates.  The tallest of the three, Jim, had the most exhausted persona. His clothes were wrinkled beyond repair, hair was poking out of the top his baseball cap and had nothing but a pencil tucked into his flannel shirt pocket.

Unbeknownst to Jim, a sheepish blonde girl, Julia, had just sat down to his left and was presumably the second member of their group. Julia looked nervous and confused like she scared to interact with anyone near her. While she anxiously tapped her pen on the arm of her chair, the third member of the group arrived, Steven.

 As Stevens' eyes narrowed in on the group, he asked with a warm and excited smile, "this is Group 4 right? American Airlines?" to which Julia quietly murmured "Yes". Margot finally joined the group after having spent an ample amount of time sizing up each member. During the short walk down to the front of the lecture hall from the back, Margot had already predicted how the project would turn out.

Creating a promotional campaign for an organization such as American Airlines is quite the task involving the creation of multiple mediums to interact with, a campaign booklet highlighting each important element of appeal and a respectable amount of research on target groups.  A project of this magnitude is a hefty portion of each student's final grade, so the room for error is minimum.

Margot, eager to get the whole thing done with, immediately began collecting ideas from each member of the group including what each person was good at so responsibilities could be assigned.

Jim, after much deliberation, shared he was good at collecting images. Julia was a writing minor and offered to read over everything to format and correct any errors. Steven mentioned that he had worked in digital design before and could offer any assistance.

So, desperate to get the ball rolling, Margot asked everyone when they could meet up in order to finish the project that was due in a week. Just as she had suspected, there was not a common time for everyone to meet up for their schedules did not match up.

As class was dismissed, the group exchanged numbers in order to communicate about the progression of the project. Margot texted each day without ever receiving a response. Knowing that her grade would greatly suffer if the project was not finished in time, Margot began the monstrous amount of work herself.

When it came time to present their American Airlines campaign, everyone was present and the presentation was pulled up. The teacher signaled for them to begin, Margot smiled took a deep breath and began: "I am here today to share with you my plan in promoting American Airlines to be the top Airline in the world. Keywords being my plan, for I was the sole creator of this entire campaign. It is at this moment that I ask my group to take a seat as they offered little to no assistance."

The room was silent and the teacher offered little more than a blank stare making Jim, Julia and Steven the center attention. Julia, who undoubtedly was living her worst nightmare, quickly found the closest exit leaving behind her backpack. Unaffected and unconcerned, Jim found his seat and sat down as if it had nothing to do with him. As for Steven, he stood. Shock covered his face for he had managed to avoid doing group projects for three years of college, never being called out.

Margot looked to Steven with a warm and excited smile as she said, "please, take your seat next to Jim, you might learn something."

Authors note:

I based my story on a tale found within the Bidpai unit, The Crow, the Jackal, the Wolf, and the Camel.  The original story describes the relationship between the four animals and how three of them smoothly manipulate the camel into sacrificing itself to a Lion for the others had excuses to not. I do not know what it was, but as soon as the camel offered itself I thought about the dynamic of a group project. Typically, all members of a group seem to put their best foot forward upon receiving the assignment, however, when it comes down to it there is always someone who does a majority of the work. More often than not the camel of the group project takes pity on the on other members, but also is driven to get a good grade so they believe the rest of the group actually cannot help. However, people are typically not honest about their availability because they know the project will get done regardless. I wanted Margot to call out the rest of her team because I have always thought this type of situation would happen in one of my classes, however it has not but I do wish it would!

**The updated version can be found on my portfolio!**