Collaborative College Composition:the Possibilities

Lynn A. Casmier-Paz

Dept. of English

College Composition—The Standard Process

Students get paper assignments from the instructor; Students research their papers in isolation (to prevent

plagiarism?); Students write rough drafts of their essays; They share their essays in class:

– Peer group reading and response– Group members are given their own hard copy of the essay draft;– Instructor-guided reading and analysis techniques

Peer groups give back the edited copy of the essay; Student writer revises the essay, based upon peer group

suggestions; Instructor evaluates the essay.

My Ideas: Revised College Composition Process as Collaboration

Students research their papers collaboratively, in the classroom; Students share ideas and help each other find information; Students write essays (this will stay the same—they write at home); Student writers bring essays on disks to Collaborative Classroom; Peer groups: students who share a “module” with the writer will read the essay

on the computer, and edit/make suggestions on the draft via Microsoft Word; Student writer saves the peer group responses and suggestions as a separate

file; Student writer revises the essay, and saves as a separate “revised” essay—

final draft Instructor evaluates all phases of the writing process Instructor also assigns a “peer group reader” grade for each student who

shares a module; Evaluation ideas? (can students then grade each other’s papers?)

Collaborative College Composition:Objectives

Students will learn how to do research in groups (possible plagiarism problems?);

Students will learn to do research on the Internet, and to determine appropriate and useful sites;

Students will write full-length draft essays for peer group responses and reading;

Peer groups will use word processing software to read and edit student essays;

Students will read peer group responses and revise draft essays to produce final drafts that show they have understood and responded to peer group suggestions.

Collaborative College Composition:Evaluation and Assessment

Students will be evaluated on every step of the writing process: Internet research; rough draft, revision, final draft;

Peer group readers will be evaluated on the substance, quality, and quantity of their suggestions for revision;

Student writers will be evaluated on the quality of their final drafts.

An Example of Collaborative Composition:From A Teacher’s Writing

The writing seen in the following illustration is from an article that has been edited for publication by using Word editing capabilities.

Editing in MS Word

Shows readers’ comments

Deletions shown in margins; revisions shown in red

Letters can indicate footnote comments or suggestions at the bottom of the page

Writers can accept the changes, or reject them—one by one, or all at one time

Conclusions

Students will need time in the classroom to learn the editing features of Word and Internet research strategies

Word’s features, although useful are not ideal The Ideal: GroupWare? Continue to research and try different collaborative

writing software/GroupWare:– Software: PROSE, INTERCHANGE, PREWRITE, R-WISE

Writing Tutor, Pre-Editor, Comments-Notes– Read recent research in collaborative writing and software

(see Bibliography)