Some Helpful Guidelines to Make the Project a Success
Here are some tips to make this a fun and useful learning activity for the course:
- Do your share of the work: This is a team project, so not doing your part will also ruin the work of your partners
- Make sure your materials are posted BEFORE class begins: We will walk the paths during class, so your materials must be posted ahead of time
- Have fun with this project: I designed this project partly to make technical writing more fun, so try to enjoy this work (if you don’t enjoy this project, you are really missing out)
- Be creative: I want you to write directions that are accurate, but take the time to liven things up a bit; some of your steps can ask your readers to pause and think, to smile, to get a drink of water, to curse the unfairness of the cosmos, or even to help an old lady across the street (if you can find one)–the point is to add a little life to your directions (one semester Team Pirates wrote all their directions in old English and printed their clues on old fashioned-looking crinkly paper)
- Be sure to mark the last stage of the hunt so people know they have reached “the end”
- Be sure to label your envelopes so teams don’t pick up the wrong set of directions: It can happen that 2 sets of envelopes will get posted on the same bulletin board which is ok, so long as the envelopes are labeled
- Post in place where the directions are not likely to be taken down
- You can write whatever sort of directions you think will work and help people find their destination, just don’t use building names and it is best not to make your directions too simple (you don’t want the project to be boring)
- Ask for a reasonable amount of walking: An extra benefit of this project is to get you outside (hopefully the weather will be good) and walking, but please don’t make people walk up and down the same hill multiple times and keep everything within the main confines of the campus (no dragging people to Robert Shaw Parking Lot or up to Philly Street)
- Regardless of your team size, each team should write a total of at least 4 sets of directions, one starting set and 3 more sets: The starting set of directions won’t contain a clue, but the other sets should contain clues
- Post multiple copies of your clues and directions: Several other teams will try to walk your path, so if you only post one set of directions, the second team to come along won’t find anything and will be forced to stop
- Work in good taste: You can use a fun clue and be creative, but this is an academic project, so please don’t write anything offensive
- Limit liability concerns: It’s probably best not to write directions that ask people to jump out a window, especially since you are liable for what you write
- Always use common sense when following directions: If step 4 tells you to jump out a window, think twice before you follow those instructions!
- This project works on trust: This class is for upper classmen and I trust that you can do this project, have some fun, walk around outside unsupervised, and yet still learn something (please honor my trust in you by enjoying the project and some freedom while still trying to do your best)
- Bring your sense of fun and humor when we try this: No matter how hard everyone tries, there is bound to be confusion, perhaps even frustration, but that is part of the fun and part of the larger lesson about how challenging it is to write effective directions
- I hope this will be a memorable activity for you: I try to teach a lot of useful, practical things you can apply to your on-the-job writing in the future, but even if you forget some things, hopefully you’ll at least have a story to tell people later about that crazy technical writing class you took with Dr. Pagnucci