Some faculty members prefer that students keep journals in spiral-bound notebooks. Other faculty have students write with word processors, in which case students should be expected to run a spell-check. If students write an entry in-class, a teacher can ask students to revise it to hand in the next class period. Collaborative Learning Studies have shown that teaching can be more effective when it is done in segments no longer than 20 minutes. As a result, faculty often vary their activities in each class period, using short workshops.
Groups can discuss the assigned topic, or do formal invention techniques together.
In many professions and academic disciplines, writing is typically done by teams. While asking a group to produce a single piece of writing is not appropriate for 180, all collaborative work can prepare students for that method of writing. One way groups can work as a writing team is to divide responsibilities for research and pool their research findings. Many faculty members use groups for students to read and comment on drafts of one another's papers, often using a response guide provided by the faculty or generated by the whole class. It takes preparation and patience to get groups to work well together.