Sondra Reid
CWC Bibliography Number 4, 1994

A Brief Annotated Bibliography:
Collaborative Writing in University Teaching

This bibliography summarizes six articles that promote collaborative approaches to college writing assignments and provide guidance for effecting them. Theoretical justifications for expanding our approaches to student writing toward collaboration are broadly based. They include discussions about collaborative practices among professionals in business, industry, and science; views of collaboration that issue from feminist theory and gender studies; historical overviews that explain changing attitudes toward collaboration in cultural terms; and discussions of computer communication and the implications of technological developments for collaborative work. Lists of books and articles that explore any of these areas of concern are available from the University Writing Program.
The breadth of research on the subject underscores the need to clearly define what we mean by collaboration. The term has been applied to many variants of "group work," including group discussion, cooperative research, peer editing, and coauthorship. The articles summarized here work within a definition that limits "collaborative writing" to writing involving two or more writers working together to produce a joint product. Margaret Fleming's article encourages teachers to extend collaborative practices across several stages of the writing process and provides specific guidelines about how we might do so. The articles by Morgan et al. and by Goldstein and Malone, taken from the Bulletin of the Association for Business Communication, also include sound practical advice and indicate the degree to which studies about collaborative writing rely upon evidence from extramural settings. In the articles by Reither and Vipond and by Hillebrand, the authors' experiences--personal and pedagogical--form the basis of their advice to anyone interested in collaborative writing activities, while Lad Tobin describes interactive student writing that takes place by means of a computer network that permits between-the-lines commentaries among student coauthors.

We at the University Writing Program will be happy to photocopy any of these articles that interest you. We also maintain a large collection of articles and books on writing assignments that you are welcome to consult.

Fleming, Margaret B. "Getting Out of the Writing Vacuum." NCTE Committee on Classroom Practices in Teaching English, Focus on Collaborative Learning: Classroom Practices in Teaching English. Urbana: NCTE, 1988. 77-104.

Margaret Fleming refers at the outset to a familiar justification for including collaborative writing assignments in our classes: Writers often collaborate in the "real world," she observes, citing the frequency of coauthorship among journalists, television writers, business people, academics, and scientists. Fleming finds, however, that collaboration rarely involves more than the editing stages of the writing process. Despite research that has focused increasingly on collaborative strategies in writing instruction (and teachers being "urged to turn their classrooms into communities of writers"), we still emphasize "the individual theme, individual correction by a teacher, and individual conferences" (78). Fleming recommends instead that we create collaborative assignments that range across the entire writing process, organizing her suggestions for doing so according to the invention, drafting, and revision sequence.

The Invention Stage

Students can avoid "the writing vacuum" by engaging in preliminary discussions of ideas, approaches, and data (as do the great number of authors who acknowledge the contributions of spouses, colleagues, and friends in the dedications of their books), together with such other cooperative invention strategies as:

Note sharing. Students can pool notes, just as colleagues in academic departments share articles and references about each other's areas of interest. One assignment based on note sharing as an aid to invention asks two or more students to attend the same event (lecture, meeting) and take notes with a view to reporting what happened. They then trade notes and write from the other's material.
Preliminary debating. Students prepare a debate on a controversial topic as preparation for persuasive papers. "Teams" gather support for their positions, usually in ample quantity, which then becomes shared material for papers.

The Drafting Stage

Collaborative drafting can take various forms, which Fleming outlines as follows:
The "chunk" model. Easily adapted to classroom use across the curriculum, this approach merely involves dividing the writing of a project into sections, each student writing one part. (Professional corollaries would be the multiple authorship of textbooks, research articles, or news reports.) A composite paper about a literary work is a case in point: "one student can be assigned to discuss characterization, one setting, one plot, and so on." Fleming concedes the danger of a disunified result, with content-based sections "related only by their proximity to each other in the same folder" (81). Attention to an introduction, a conclusion, and transitions is recommended.
"Blended" writing. This approach works only if students have enough time in or out of class for working together, as it requires coauthors to be "physically present in the same room" and to "discuss and agree on every sentence before it is committed to paper" (81). (She does not mention the compensations for physical distance made possible by computer communication.) When collaborators do invest the time to draft and review and polish their work together, they can develop significantly in both "collegiality" and "craftsmanship."
The "compiler" model. A class can create a composite essay (or other document) from a compilation of everyone's work, using the strongest writers to select and shape the material.

The Revision Stage

One member of a group that has drafted according to the "chunking" model can--possibly instead of writing a chunk--assume the task of putting together the sections written by the drafting group. (Fleming cites Thomas Jefferson's role in framing the Constitution as an example of this function.)
Assignments that are essentially revisions in themselves place the student in a collaborative relationship with another writer. Revising something for a different audience, updating an outdated advice manual, or "revising text materials for classmates who are ESL students" (82) figure among Fleming's suggestions for assignments of this kind.
To attenuate the "romantic individualism" implicit in leaving changes up to the original writer following group editing, one student can revise another's draft (as do many journal editors with contributors' manuscripts). Fleming further suggests finding revision assignments in materials that are "ripe for rewriting"--fourth-class mail, for example, or letters to the editor.

Fleming believes that by more thoroughly imitating the collaborative practices of professional writers in these ways, we can do more to reduce student anxiety about writing, enhance their understanding of the writing process, and generate a salubrious group spirit.

Morgan, Meg, Nancy Allen, Teresa Moore, Dianne Atkinson, and Craig Snow. "Collaborative Writing in the Classroom." Bull. of the Assoc. for Business Communication 50.3 (1987): 20-26.

The authors, all of whom have incorporated collaborative report projects in their classes at Purdue, describe how they have structured those projects and suggest solutions to characteristic problems "so that others can share this successful experience" (20). This article discusses their assignments, the formation and performance of writing groups, and the evaluation of student performance.

The Assignments

According to Morgan et al., a collaborative report project needs to be complicated enough to exceed an individual's capacity to complete it within the required time limit. Their assignment requires that groups of students (three or four per group) "investigate some problem existing within an organization and then produce a document which that organization can use to help solve the problem" (21). Groups must first define the problem and devise a research plan. Second, they must complete five writing assignments--some individual, some collaborative--over a seven-week period. These five assignments (which the article describes in detail) include a preproposal memo; a proposal (written collaboratively) that defines the group's project; two progress reports (one of them collaborative); and the collaboratively written final report. The authors assert that the combination of individual and group writing experiences helps students learn to subdivide large tasks, synthesize different perspectives, and improve individual writing skills.

The Groups

Groups in these authors' classes are formed based on scheduling constraints; "common blocks of free time" become the principal determinant of group makeup. A "team spirit" generally evolves as groups begin working toward a common goal, but "to avoid a complete breakdown in group function" (23), instructors monitor each group, primarily by means of logs--private communications between student and instructor that students turn in with each assignment. Morgan et al. argue, however, that conflicts within groups are not necessarily bad; they can enhance the quality of both thinking and writing.

Evaluation

The authors believe that the scheme they have devised for evaluating group writing projects ameliorates the potential unfairness of grading collaborative work. Their "combination of techniques" includes the fact that both individual and collaborative assignments are part of the report project. Further, they grade a collaboratively written document based on (1) the quality of the document, (2) each student's log--both quantity and quality, and (3) student assessments of the contributions of other group members. Morgan et al. conclude that "the combined use of analytical scores, logs, and students' assessments . . . eliminates the necessity of giving identical grades to each group member." Moreover, it "helps students realize that they share accountability for their own performance and for the performance of their group members" (25). The authors explain how they evaluate the final document and how student logs contribute to individual grades. The article includes a copy of the memo that explains the log requirement, as well as a copy of the form on which each student submits an "assessment of group members."

James A. Reither and Douglas Vipond. "Writing as Collaboration." College English 51 (1989): 855-67.

James Reither and Douglas Vipond argue that both writing and knowing are unavoidably collaborative, that "all of us who make meaning through writing and reading--scholars, teachers, students--do so in community with others who share our interest in the knowing and the knowledge making processes that constitute our fields of inquiry" (866). Before offering suggestions about teaching writing as collaboration, Reither and Vipond explore the collaborative procedures that took place in a case where Vipond and another author, Russell Hunt, coauthored an academic article. That experience in coauthorship involved other collaborations, too, including extensive consultation with colleagues and the eventual "tossing" of their thinking "into a pool of knowing" (860) that itself represents a history of collaboration. Thus the Vipond-Hunt experience becomes the ground on which Reither and Vipond base their teaching practice and their suggestions for others.

The authors organize a course "by setting a question which we ask the students to answer by functioning as a research team whose task it is to divide the labor and carry out the research necessary to answer the question" (862). Information-gathering in a larger "writing-knowing community" is crucial to this project. As many as possible of the procedures for carrying out an assignment are collaborative; the authors recommend that students "work together as coauthors, workshoppers, and knowledge makers" (864). As coauthors, students work in teams as they read, write, and report, which enhances both efficiency and the quality of work. The classroom becomes a workshop as students who report to one another about what they are discovering become a community of "knowledgeable peers" who provide feedback about "what is understandable and what isn't, what fits and what doesn't, which questions are answered and which ones are raised" (865).

Through these experiences, students learn to participate in "honest scholarly inquiry." Reither and Vipond conclude that "by reading the literature of a given field of study, students learn the values, conventions, forms of argument and evidence of that field. They learn that writing and knowing consist in using and building on others' writing and knowing. In short, they learn to write by reading" (866), with collaboration as a principal mode of activity throughout the process.

In determining student grades, the authors give equal weight to quantitative and qualitative criteria. The former refer to attendance and "consistency of effort," including "the number of times each student participates on a research team, drafts or rewrites a report" (864). Students themselves apply the qualitative criteria, evaluating (in confidential assessments) how much they have been helped by the students they have worked with.

Romana P. Hillebrand. "Control and Cohesion: Collaborative Learning and Writing," English Journal 83 (1994): 71-74.

Like many articles about collaborative writing in the classroom, this one bases its advice on experiential data. Unlike most other writers on the subject, however, Hillebrand's guidelines originate in negative experience. She had grouped students in threes and asked them to research, analyze, and prepare essays about magazine advertisements, but the project met with mixed success. Though the final essays were thoughtful and well developed, most students in the class reported that the collaborative experience itself had been less than satisfying. Hillebrand concluded that becoming "the omnipresent but seldom obvious force" required in the collaborative classroom--where a teacher's responsibilities "resemble those of a play's director" as against instructing "from the front" (72)--required a background knowledge that she then set out to strengthen.

Hillebrand refers to some of the "classic" writers in the field in describing her reading, among them Andrea Lunsford and Lisa Ede, Kenneth Bruffee, Karen Burke LeFevre, Ira Shor, and John Trimbur. Armed with fuller insight, she reconsiders what the teacher's role in "the new pedagogy" means when we divide students into groups, asking "How can the teacher not only help the different groups function but also help the individuals function within those groups?" (73). Hillebrand's answers to the question are directed to the disquieting situation with which her article begins, though broadly useful advice can be inferred from them:

Do not form the groups yourself. (Doing so destroys students' autonomy and invites passive resistance.)
Provide self-governing strategies by which groups can monitor their efficiency and collective growth.
Recognize and discuss conflict openly.
Do not provide a collaborative assignment with an "escape clause"; that is, don't give students the option of being part of a group or working individually. (Doing so "suggests that individuals need not be responsible for group work and that the group need not be responsible for its individual members." In any case, the assignment "should create a need which can best be served only through the group process" [74].)
Provide opportunities for practice in collaborative activities before asking students to work with others on a major assignment. (After smaller-scale interactive experience, students are prepared to make better choices when they form their own groups, and they are more likely to function effectively within them.)

Goldstein, Jone Rymer, and Elizabeth L. Malone. "Using Journals to Strengthen Collaborative Writing." Bull. of the Assoc. for Business Communication 48.3 (1985): 24-28.

Jone Rymer Goldstein and Elizabeth Malone concede that many instructors see the practical value of including group writing projects in their courses but are discouraged from doing so because they fear encountering such typical group problems as uninvolved, alienated, or frustrated group members or work not getting done. Goldstein and Malone describe their success in managing such difficulties by requiring each group member to write a private journal devoted specifically to group interaction. Such journals encourage students to think and write about how interaction influences their writing and how they can improve their communication skills. Further (and more important for the focus of this article), student journals are an important tool for the instructor, who "can use a journal assignment to facilitate and monitor student groups without directly participating in them" (24). In effect, they allow an instructor to find a balance between over-directing and under-directing group activities and, in the process, to avoid the kinds of problems that can endanger the success of unmonitored writing groups.

The writing project the authors' students were engaged in extended over 6-8 weeks, during which each group "defined a problem, devised a situation which needed information to solve the problem, researched the problem, and group-wrote a final report with an introductory oral presentation by the whole group" (28). For their journal assignment, students were asked to "write an exploratory description and response to your [team] interaction at least three times each week, preferably after each group meeting" (25). Responses to the journal assignment (reproduced in full on page 25) are unedited, ungraded, and private--seen only by the instructor.

Reading journal entries allows the instructor to "foster individual student growth in communication" and "facilitate project groups" at the same time (26). In achieving these goals, Goldstein and Malone respond in writing to journals in some cases, schedule individual conferences in others, or sit in on a group meeting should they spot a group "headed for trouble." In moderating their interventions, the authors describe a progression whereby they deal first with the private problems a student journal might reveal, then with dyadic conflicts, then with more complicated matters involving group dynamics. (Examples of various expressions of distress and the authors' responses to them are included in the article.) Goldstein and Malone conclude that when an instructor "facilitates groups by responding to individual journal entries, students learn experientially how to run groups that succeed, thus solving many of the problems [that can arise] in teaching group projects" (28).

Tobin, Lad. "Collaboration: The Case for Coauthored, Dialogic, Nonlinear Texts." Writing Relationships: What Really Happens in the Composition Class. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1993. 128-40.

By dialogic and nonlinear texts, Lad Tobin means coauthored texts that are produced by means of local computer networks. All student coauthors--and the instructor--have access to a feature permitting between-the-lines annotations that comment upon and contribute to an evolving text. As such, this chapter in Tobin's recent book about writing instruction contributes to the growing body of literature that associates collaborative learning and writing with the possibilities made available by computer technology.

Tobin's approach to coauthored assignments grew out of his disillusioning experiences with peer editing groups. He asserts here that we should move beyond peer review to coauthorship--"to asking students to share responsibility for a text from topic selection through final edit" (132). In the computer-based coauthoring project Tobin describes (though he provides little sense of the assignment itself), each student in a group can embed "hidden text," which appears on the screen where it is inserted--on the page, paragraph, or sentence. The resulting electronic "conversations" among members of a coauthoring group become fruitful commentaries around and through the project students are researching and writing about. (Tobin finds these exchanges to be both more serious and more relaxed than those customarily encountered among peer editing groups.) Creating a "layered, dynamic text" allows students to "reconsider their evolving text as it is constructed"; they "then realize that there is not just one 'correct' way to write a particular paragraph or essay," a realization that can liberate students' writing and their reading (139).

Like other writers who defend coauthorship against charges that it levels individuality and promotes "groupthink," Tobin believes that resolving the problems that arise throughout the shared process encourages individual group members to consider alternative views and to clearly articulate their own "presuppositions, goals, and strategies" (132).