On Deck:

• 5 minute review of goals and the (adjusted) stasis procedure
• 20-30 minutes to prepare your pitches, and post them on the 99 problems page
• your pitches
• your re-commitment to three potential ideas/teams 

Due Next Class:

• Read:  
• (It's On Blackboard and available through the Library):  Stasis Theory as a Strategy for Workplace Teaming and Decision Making
• A PDF of the First Chapter of Wolfe's Team Writing: available here 
• Write: SWA 5 (Due Next Class) Two or three paragraphs with your answer to the following prompts:
• After reviewing all the current ideas for project three, what are your top three current choices for a project and why?
• After reading the two pieces on "Teaming" and the challenges for Professional/Technical writing projects, how do you think each article offers: (1) arguments about the exigence or relevance for effective and critically aware team-writing, and (2) several strategies that you think would help you manage a team?

The way you pitch a problem to the class should follow the stasis procedure up to the key "resting point" (stasis) for today in our discussion or debate:  

Is this potentially a viable and interesting technical report?

1. Conjecture questions(stasis stochasmos)— 

• Is there an act or problem to be considered?  
• Can or should something be done about problem X?  
• What facts do we know?  
• What caused a problem?

ATTITUDE FOR TEAM DISCUSSION = FRIENDLY (ALL IDEAS CAN BE TABLED), OPEN TO BIGGER IDEAS (KNOWING THAT YOU'D HAVE TO FOCUS THE PROJECT), OPEN TO MULTIPLE INTERESTS (AND TO FINDING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES/FIELDS) 

2. Definition questions(stasis horos)—

• How can the act or problem be defined?  Is it a social, economic, ethical, technical, technological, communication, organizational, educational... problem?
• Is the problem part of a larger set/class of problems?  
• Are there multiple parts to the problem?  
• Should you focus on one specific part of the problem? 
• Can our problem  be addressed by the goals of a Report Genre (feasibility study, proposal, empirical report)?

ATTITUDE FOR TEAM DISCUSSION = FRIENDLY BUT DEBATING (ALL IDEAS MUST BE CATEGORIZED AND TESTED), STILL OPEN TO BIGGER IDEAS BUT YOU ALL MUST CONSIDER SERIOUSLY HOW YOU HAVE TO FOCUS ON A MANAGEABLE PROJECT, WHICH MEANS YOU MUST START TO UNDERSTAND THE CONSTRAINTS/AFFORDANCES OF THE GENRE (WHAT IT'S SUPERSTRUCTURE ALLOW/ENABLE YOU TO DO, WHAT THE GOALS OF THE GENRE ALLOW/ENABLE YOU TO DO) 

3. Quality (stasis poiotes)—

• How serious is the act or problem?  
• Who might the problem affect (stakeholders)?  
• What is the specific exigence for writing something?
• Who might the audience be for the report?

ATTITUDE FOR TEAM DISCUSSION = INQUIRY BASED...ALL INITIAL IDEAS ARE TAKEN AS TOPICS TO BE EXPLORED: MEANING  READ ABOUT GENERALLY AND INITIALLY EXPLORED VIA COMPARISONS TO SIMILAR WORK/REPORTS,

A KEY POINT OF EMPHASIS IS THAT TEAM MEMBERS EMBRACE THINKING ABOUT THE PROJECT RHETORICALLY: MEANING THEY ARE FINDING WAYS TO EXPLORE/DISCOVER THE KEY GOALS FOR THEIR TEXT AND KNOW THESE MUST BE CONNECTED TO AUDIENCES -- AND TEAM MEMBERS ACCEPT THAT AUDIENCES MUST BE ANALYZED THROUGH A MORE FORMAL PROCESS...

4. Policy or Translative(stasis metalepsis)—

• Should this problem/act be submitted to some formal procedure? 
• Or what forms of research, writing and subsequent action might be required?
• What else needs to be done to solve the problem?  
• In addition to several authors in the class, who should be involved in solving the problem? 

ATTITUDE FOR TEAM DISCUSSION = DEBATE/DISCUSSION AND SEEKING CONSENT FOR FORMALIZING ROLES AND PROCEDURES.  ALL MEMBERS ARE PLANNERS FOR DEFINING THE PROJECT'S GOALS, AND RESEARCH PROCEDURES.

For your pitch:

1. Briefly tell us your top 5 (or so) ideas
2. Walk us through the best one (or two), telling us why you think it would be viable and interesting to further plan out as a technical writing project
3. Be prepared to answer stasis questions about one other (which may be a good or bad idea)