Essay.

Last night I completed a group essay for one of my education classes, and it was one of the most different approaches I'd ever been involved with in writing an essay. And it was all by accident.

I got paired up with two girls to write an 8-10 page essay on assessment. I, being the habitual procrastinator, didn't get to even starting it - a response/analysis of a case study - until much later than my group-mates, and as a result they basically wrote 9 pages without me, in rough draft, fulfilling the requirements of the assignment.

In some cases this would be disastrous for me. I might have had surly group members, who, at this point, would have written me a scathing email about my lack of participation and input - and I was in fact worried that this was going to be the case. Fortunately, it wasn't, and it ended up being to our group's advantage. The other two members of my group had completed a rough draft, but I found that, after reading the draft, I still had quite of bit of material that I could add - a few key points were missing, and there were quite a few language-related problems. But more importantly, being the third-in-line at the essay gave me an opportunity to act as the group's 'fresh pair of eyes' - something most essay writers don't bother getting or don't have time for.

It ended up that the three of us were equal contributors to our group essay - but in an unconventional way. The essay only really needed two writers, but having formed a group of three to complete the assignment, and purely by accident, we formed a group that worked so much better than if we had all tried to write the essay cooperatively at the same time.