Major Project Framing Essay

During the Grant Writing course, I found an organization with which to cooperate in
the process of seeking a grant. While I chose the school where I currently work, the
process allowed me to reflect with other members of staff to find priorities for grant
money. What does the school want to accomplish? How do we wish to go about
accomplishing this goal? We discussed how the school needs to work to make
students more competent in science and technology as well as increase students
global awareness. I felt I needed to work with another teacher to see how it should
work as a third party grant writer. I conducted a survey of the staff to find who had
specific needs that would also address the goals of the school. To this end, two
teachers stood out as working toward those two goals: one had already received
grants to travel to conferences about project based learning and makes connections
for students with a global community she wished to find grant money to allow lowincome students to travel outside the U.S.; the second also had previously received
grant money but for science equipment and supplies he wished to find grant
money to create science-centered programs that would allow students to have
hands-on experience in science. The second, Adam Benoit, was chosen because of
my interest in his goals, the fact that he had specific ideas already in mind, and
that, at least for now, the county where I work does not allow student groups to
travel outside the U.S.
In my other coursework related to professional document creation, the imperative of
collaboration has been consistently discussed in terms that the writer must have a
relationship with those connected with the document in question. Whether it is the
Subject Matter Expert (SME), the grant seeker, or the grant maker, communication
is key to creating an effective, clear document. In the case of this grant proposal, I
conducted an interview of Benoit to better understand the needs and goals of the
program he wished to start. I, of course, needed that understanding before I could
begin searching for and communicating with a possible grant maker. I had no idea
the extent of grants that are available. I understand how having specific needs and
goals becomes important in order to narrow the search to those grant makers with
similar needs and goals.
We decided to apply for a grant from a companys foundation that works in North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee and which specifically gives money to
education in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. I
communicated with the grant maker organization a few times, but I feel that my
collaboration with the grant-making organization was inadequate and untimely.
One of the most important concepts I learned while working on this project has been
to see a copy of the application before writing the proposal. I suppose the real
lesson is that I should have listened and gotten in touch with the funding agency
earlier in the process. Waiting meant that I didnt get access to the application until

after I had submitted my draft for peer evaluation. There are some areas in my final
version that I would have liked to have my peers to evaluate.
Perhaps that lack of collaboration with the grant maker is one reason that Benoit did
not receive the grant when he applied. With communication in mind, I helped
Benoit draft a letter to the organization to ask for feedback concerning the proposal
so that it can be improved upon. We have not yet received that feedback. It is
something I should have already learned via other coursework but did not
adequately apply to the development of this proposal. Within my coursework for
Copy Editing and Editing as Management, the importance of the audience is
emphasized, even to the point of ones need to have test runs of documents and
receive feedback. In fact, I have (finally) learned that lesson: when I have given
written instructions to my students for an assignment, I often informally assess how
my students understand the instructions; now, I sometimes formally assess whether
they have understood the assignment by having them comment on the instructions.
This process has helped some of my written instructions to become clearer to the
students. In the future, I will endeavor to remember that the collaboration to create
a document needs input from the audience of that document.
I found the mind frame needed to create a document for another persons
ownership is a reflective and interesting process. Not only did I often need to ask
Benoit about different aspects of the project, but I had to do research as well. For
instance, learning the acronym STEM was imperative to finding sources of funds.
There are a multitude of sources with the goal to develop STEM skills. While I may
have heard the term before, I had not paid any attention to it as it did not seem to
pertain to English. Now, I realize that my own incorporations of technology can be
seen as extending STEM skills; English, nor really any subject, should be limited in
scope. Not only was I able to look at a document through the lens of another
persons purpose, but I was able to reevaluate my own purpose.
In terms of moving forward, I think that future grant proposals from my school need
to focus more on how THIS school would be the best investment for grant money. I
need to differentiate my organization from any other that may have a similar
proposal, to be able to show that the greatest success would come from awarding
grant money to my school. Part of that will be accomplished through improving how
I present the school to the grant maker, but another part is through knowing the
grant makers goals and fully addressing how those goals can ONLY be met by
awarding my school/program the money.
In terms of this specific grant and program, we had discussed revising it to reapply,
but Benoit has changed his mind. We will, again, try to get feedback from the
funding source, but in our discussions Benoit would like to seek grants in a different
direction. We are currently looking for a grant that would provide a larger amount in
order to start a different program. This one would teach computer programming.
The funding would provide computers and software; unlike the funding for robotics

kits, the computers and software can be reused for years and thereby reach a larger
portion of the school. Not only would this benefit the schools goal to improve
students competence in science and technology, but it may better address the
goals of funding sources by creating a program that is not limited by more finite
resources. We hope that we can take what we will learn from the feedback of this
projects funding source together with what I have learned through my coursework
to create a proposal for this new project.