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Writing Projects for Mathematics Courses: Crushed Clowns, Cars & Coffee to Go

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I am strongly in favor of using writing projects in upper level mathematics classes. They force the students to think long and hard about a particular problem and being forced to write up the solution organizes their thoughts in ways nothing else can. This book is a collection of writing projects used by the authors in their classes.
Each project begins with the following information:

*) Name of the project, the person who created it and the course it was used for.
*) The mathematical concepts needed to solve the problem.
*) The level of realism in the problem and data
*) The reaction the students had to the problem, in particular how difficult it was for them.
*) Credits
*) Any technology needed or that would be helpful, such as a graphing calculator or symbolic mathematics package

The project is presented in the form of a letter from an individual requesting their assistance and explaining the problem. A solution to the problem then appears after the letter.
In general these projects are real-world enough that the students can understand the need to solve them. This is of enormous assistance, as even the best math students have difficulty when writing about mathematics. I found the projects to be very helpful as I begin to ponder what kind of topics I would want my students to write about in a senior thesis project.