Many writing teachers and researchers, such as Mary Soliday, Paula Treichler, and Terry Dean, recognize the needs of their students to investigate matters of private and public concern directly affecting their learning. Collective research projects offer students and teachers what Ann Ruggles Gere calls a temporary semi-autonomous community in which to study topics of critical importance to them. Collective research makes new demands on both teachers and students, as one collective project with nontraditional students at Northern Essex Community College (Massachusetts) demonstrates. Because the instructor considers learning to generate research topics a critical process, work on the project began in the 4th week and extended into the 7th. As the class settled on the topic of"Children's Problems," students chose to work on subtopics related to their interests and experience; then, they chose groups of no more than four to investigate these subtopics. Refining and negotiating the subtopics continued through the 9th week of class, as students sent delegates to the library and to community agencies for source material. Negotiation of roles for group members continued from the 10th to the 13th week, with each student responsible for writing at least a two-page section of the group paper. Students decided to treat the oral presentations, held during the final class, as a mini-conference; many dressed up for the occasion. Student evaluations of each stage of this process suggest that they were generally positive about the collective research project. (Contains 25 references.) (TB)