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| The idea of a group of thirteen year olds let loose to explore their own learning experience strikes fear in the hearts of many teachers. After all, who knows what they might come up with? However, this very question is the best reason I can think of for collaborative learning -- indeed, who knows what they might come up with? | |
| Many believe writing and reading are solitary pursuits best performed without the interference of others. After all, great writers write alone, right? One high school student, when asked to respond to the idea of collaborative writing, argued that " Creativity is a drive that originates deep in one’s soul, almost incomprehensible even to the mind in which it originates. Trying to combine this creative drive with others’ . . . makes a huge melange of creativity that is absolutely worthless" (Brockman 61) This may be true in some cases, but one must remember all good writers have good editors, and all good writers draw their inspiration from others as well as from themselves. Maybe writing isn’t as solitary as it first seems. | |
| Good writers know they need others to be better writers. Talking about writing provides insight and inspiration not available to the solitary writer. Because of this, good teachers realize students need to share their writing and their writing processes with others in order to become better writers. After all, language, written or spoken, is all about communication, so communicating with others about it only makes sense. | |
| Carrying this idea into a classroom can be a scary procedure, however, especially for those teaching young people. Not only do students in elementary, junior high and high school not know how to communicate about writing, they often have trouble communicating at all. Teachers are used to having control of the classroom and classroom activities at all times. Giving up any part of this control is risky business -- so, perhaps for some, sticking to the tried and true method is best. | |
| The fact is, staying with the old methods is just as risky. Students aren’t benefiting from the old ways of teaching writing. It shows in the work they produce. High school students are often lacking rudimentary grammar skills and are unable to write comprehensively. College freshmen cannot express themselves on paper. Students need to move from one community to another: from the inarticulate to the articulates. According to social constructionist Kenneth Bruffee, in order to do this, students need to learn to speak the same language (214). They learn this by belonging to a support community made up of others trying to make the same transition. The job of the teacher is to help construct the support group, then facilitate learning the new language: how to talk to each other, especially about writing (217). Obviously , this alters the traditional role of the teacher as a fountain of knowledge, showering the students with his or her own insights and truths. As Bruffee points out, for students, conversation with the teacher is conversation with someone from another community. Before this conversation can be successful, students must first learn to converse with their peers. | |
| The obvious place for this process to occur is in the pre-college classroom. By the time students graduate from high school, they should have already made this transition. Those who do not choose to go on to college will still need the communication skills gained by this process, and those who do attend college will be able to communicate their ideas clearly in a classroom environment instead of struggling with every thought. | |
| The framework for this transition can be constructed early in a child’s education. The very act of learning to write can be facilitated by small groups. The language experience approach of teaching literacy encourages the use of material transcribed by children’s dictation. Children work together in large or small groups to construct a story about a common experience while the teacher records it. This allows students who have not yet learned to write to begin talking about stories and ideas with each other in a comfortable, non-threatening way (Salinger 163). Collaborative writing is "a powerful way to encourage students toward fluency" (220), something that is especially important when students are beginning to write. For young writers, collaborative work helps them to learn the purposes and procedures of writing. Within their own group, students support each others’ explorations and promote experimentation (220). | |
| Students benefit from the process of collaborative learning as it is occurring -- benefits are not just in the future. Bettina Hollman, junior high language arts instructor, believes: "students have a way of putting ideas and words into understandable ‘kidspeak’ that teachers are unable to master. [The student’s explanation] makes that topic more understandable to his peers." Students communicate within their support community using terms they are familiar with. The teacher, not a community member, does not have this vocabulary and therefore cannot participate in the conversation in the same manner. In this way, students are helping each other gain the knowledge and skills necessary to make the transition into the articulate community. | |
| Allowing students the freedom offered by collaborative work also allows them to grow in ways the teacher may not have anticipated. Students who do not function well in a large classroom setting may shine in small group work. Students may also feel they have more control over their own learning experience and therefore become more interested: group work often takes on an unexpected life of its own with very positive results. As Hollman says, "Students feel like they have ownership . . . because they are not being ‘talked at’ by the teacher, but are discussing intelligent topics and ideas with their peers." Students are free to find their own strengths within the group and develop them while learning from the strengths of other group members. Based on research and observation conducted in a ninth-grade writing classroom, Helen Dale states that "By contributing where they had the most to offer, students not only learned their own strength, but also modeled those strengths for others" (67). | |
| Collaborative work also allows students and teachers to use peer pressure for positive results for a change. Dale states "when students write together, there is often peer pressure to think well and write well" (67). When the opinions and grades of other students depend on each group member’s work, students who may not usually put forth much effort are often pressured into trying harder than they would for themselves. | |
| The results of collaborative writing can be astounding and extremely beneficial -- and benefits are not just confined to the English classroom. Collaborative work forces students to listen to opinions other than their own. It forces them to learn constructive criticism and how to talk to other people about important issues in ways that will bring about positive results. Their writing benefits, too. Peer editing and collaborative writing makes students more aware of audience awareness (their audience is continually present and providing feedback), planning and revision (Dale 68). This increased awareness will benefit not only writing done for English class, but any form of written communication. | |
| Practical teachers will realize the drawbacks to collaborative learning, especially when dealing with younger students who may not be entirely dedicated to the idea of furthering their own learning. The biggest challenge for the teacher in a collaborative classroom is keeping students on task. As Hollman states, "THE TEACHER HAS TO BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE!" Teachers concerned with fairness and giving credit where credit is due are often concerned that only some group members do the work and others ride their coattails. An increase in the use of collaborative learning in the classroom should eventually remedy this problem, however; students will learn who does not contribute to the group and will not want them to be a part. Ideally, each student will at some point be forced to assume some responsibility. | |
| In my own experience, students are usually concerned enough about their own grades and performance to make a real effort at working in a group. While teaching sophomore English I assigned a group of students the task of collaboratively writing a script for a skit that would be performed by the rest of the class. The writers were nervous about the assignment at first; they were unsure how to divide responsibility and were concerned about their individual evaluations. With a bit of encouragement, they pulled together and began tossing out ideas for plot, characters and dialogue. They worked together for the next week while their classmates worked on other aspects of the large project. Several times throughout the week the group explained their ideas to interested classmates and accepted input from them. By the time the skit was finished, it was a creation of the entire class. Because of this, the students all felt some ownership in the skit and looked forward to its performance. They also got more out of the entire project because they were exposed to different opinions, viewpoints and style preferences. The collaborative nature of the project pulled the class together and created a feeling of community that had been lacking before. | |
| Collaborative learning is not foolproof, of course, but neither are more traditional learning and teaching methods. The possible benefits of collaborative writing far outweigh the disadvantages. The current state of literacy in our schools forces us to consider new alternatives and let go of the "tried and true," which has proven to be not-so-true after all. The image of the solitary writer doesn’t work for everyone. We recognize that different students have different learning styles; we now need to seriously consider how to accommodate these different styles and incorporate them into teaching. Moving away from the teacher centered classroom and toward a more student centered method allows for innumerable new possibilities. After all, who knows what they might come up with? | |
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| Brockman, Elizabeth Blackburn. "English Isn’t
a Team Sport, Mrs. Brockman." English Journal. 83:1 (Jan
1994): 60-62.
Bruffee, Kenneth A. "Thinking and Writing as Social Acts." Dale, Helen. "Collaborative Research on Collaborative Writing." English Journal. 83:1 (Jan 1994): 66-71. Hollman, Bettina. Personal Interview. 5 March 1999. Salinger, Terry S. Literacy for Young Children. Columbus, OH: Merrill, 1996 |
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