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 __**Collaborative Writing **__  **What is it?**

Collaborative Writing (CW) is students working together to create any part of, or a whole piece, of writing. It can also be used to brainstorm a topic to help students come up with ideas, or as a revising tool to help students add details to a piece they have already started. 


 * When is it used?**

CW can be used in just about any classroom or situation. Some ideas for use are:


 *  To help struggling writers come up with ideas or add details.
 *  To encourage more advanced writers to further develop their ideas and add more details.
 *  To give all students motivation.
 *  Because teachers can easily incorporate authentic tasks using CW because they have an audience other than the teacher.
 *  To encourage students to work well together.
 * How do I create the groups?**



Vass (2002) did a study on two pairs of elementary school girls working together to write a poem. One pair consisted of girls who were good friends both in and out of school, while the other pair consisted of girls who were only acquaintances, though both said that they had a positive attitude toward the other. After working together, both pairs wrote comprehensive, well-written pieces, but the process they took to get there were very different. The main difference between the pairs was that friendship pair spent no time deciding roles or how to divide the work to make it fair and simply focused on the wording in their piece and the detail/idea development. On the other hand, the acquaintance pair spent a great deal of time defining roles and sometime argued when figuring out who would do what during the process. Throughout their work together, they continued to redefine their roles as they worked as they needed to without much discussion.

Cross-ability groups work too! Sutherland and Topping (1999) did a study comparing mixed-ability groups to same-ability and found that collaborative writing worked well in both cases! The pieces that were produced from both groups were better than what they had been producing individually. In addition, after working together, their individual scores improved as well.

Only you know how your students work together best. If there are friends in your classroom that you know will work well together, pair them up! They’ll spend more time writing and less time defining roles. If you know that there are students who really clash and have issues outside of school, it would be obviously beneficial to make sure they don’t end up in a group together for this assignment since it’ll take away the benefits. With older students, if you think they can handle it, let them choose their own groups. Choose the size of the group based on the assignment the students are completing (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 2001) and let what you know about your students and the way they work guide the groupings.

 **What kind of writing can I use CW for?**

Anything!


 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Creative writing. Kids can use their imagination together to come up with really silly stories! Pearson (2004) did a study that followed children working together to write funny stories. The tales they came up with were more creative and more detailed because children laugh more together than by themselves.


 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Narrative writing. Personal narratives would obviously be a little harder because they each have their own stories, but they could try and write a story about something that happened in the classroom or make up an adventure story!


 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Expository writing. It’s usually hard to get kids to write an expository text by themselves, but with another child (or other children) it alleviates some of the pressure they feel and also allows them to have someone to develop ideas with.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Students can really use any medium they want. Simple paper and pencil will work fine since each student in the collaborative group can have their own way to write down their ideas, but a word processor is a great tool too! If the students are using the word processor, they will definitely need to work together and you don’t run the risk of the students working by themselves even though their task is to work together.
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Persuasive writing. This type of writing is also sometimes hard to get kids to write about, but if they have someone else to come up with an argument with, their ideas will be more fully developed. Sometimes they may not agree on which side of the argument they want to follow. In cases like these, I would suggest letting the students still work together to brainstorm and discuss their ideas, but then let each child write their own piece based on the argument they chose.
 * What medium should I have my students use?**

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Noël and Robert (2004) did a study based mostly on adults who collaboratively write to find out what technology people use when co-writing. They found that co-authors mostly use word processors, but a select few also use online collaboration software such as //Collectio//. Teachers can try and use online software in their classrooms also! When using any technology, however, teachers need to make sure, as always, that the students have a good grasp of how to use the software so their time is spent writing, not figuring out how to use the technology.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">**<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">But won’t it b e hard <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;"> to manage? **



<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s possible that using collaborative writing will be difficult to manage, but the research shows how beneficial writing in this way really is. The ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report (2001) showed that collaborative writing can even be used in college and is definitely something that is used in the workplace, although it is not always formally called collaborative writing. Because of all of this, by teaching students how to write collaboratively at a younger age, they will be able to do it better as they get older and use it authentically.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Some more positive benefits are:

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Better student engagement.
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stronger voice development (Pearson, 2004).
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Less anxiety from the students (Sutherland & Topping, 1999).
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Improvement in individual writing after using collaborative writing (Sutherland & Topping, 1999).
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Better finished product (Noël & Robert, 2004).
 * <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Know they are held accountable for doing their work since another student is relying on them (ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, 2001)

These are just some of the positive aspects of collaborative writing and if you use it, you might find even more! Try it out and see what you can discover about your students’ hidden abilities!

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 14pt;">**<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">References **

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Noël, S., & Robert, J. (2004). Empirical Study on Collaborative Writing: What Do Co-authors Do,Use, and Like? //<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing, 12(1), 63-89. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database. //

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Pearson, C. (2004). Children writing funny stories: some reflections on the impact of collaborative talk. //Literacy//, //38//(1), 32-39.

(2001). Pedagogical Support for Classroom Collaborative Writing Assignments. //ASHE-////ERIC Higher Education Report//, //28//(6), 1. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(2001). Forming Groups, Training Students to Be Effective Collaborators, and Managing Collaborative Groups. //ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report//, //28//(6), 51. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database. <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Sutherland, J., & Topping, K. (1999). Collaborative Creative Writing in Eight-Year-Olds: Comparing Cross-Ability Fixed Role and Same-Ability Reciprocal Role Pairing. //Journal of Research in Reading//, //22//(2), 154. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database. <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Vass, E. (2002). Friendship and collaborative creative writing in the primary classroom. <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10.8pt;">//<span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Journal of Computer Assisted Learning// <span style="color: #800080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 12pt;">, //18//(1).