I have a semester project in one class- A group project creating a children’s book. The topic sounded like a lot of fun, and I was really excited about having an important project that would be fun to do. Early on, we got into groups, and our group was a little on the largish side. The professor warned us about the logistical challenges we would have with such a large group, but I kind of dismissed it, feeling that with more people to spread the work out, what difference did it make if everyone couldn’t meet together every single time?
Well, now I am starting to eat my words…Not only is it difficult to get the rest of my group enthusiastic, its also hard for them to take it seriously. Don’t get me wrong, I’m working with five other very hard-working students, who put forth the effort to excel in their classes. Many of them are more motivated about school than I am, but when things lead to this project, all I hear is excuses/disagreement :mad:
During the ‘proposal’ phase of our project, we set about assigning tasks. I volunteered to be the writer 
. I plumbled for ideas about what we would write our book about, and what age group we would target. Nobody could come up with any ideas, and then I had an epiphany- why not have children make illustrations, and come up with a story based on what they drew? At the time, it sounded much more creative and unique than most conventional children’s books, so I was really excited about this. However, this idea died three weeks later.
Why? Because not everyone was able to come up with illustrations children drew. Some simply did not have young relatives, or were close with kids. They felt that they didn’t feel like they were contributing anything, and since everyone’s grade is at stake here, they didn’t want me taking the lion’s share of the work/credit, so rather than re-work the idea, they wanted to abandon it entirely, and all of the sudden I was on my own. I had the painful realization that while we will come up with something as a group, in the effort to get everyone to agree on it in a timely fasion, the end result is going to be a heavily watered-down generic re-write of countless dozens of children’s books already written