collaborative learning and writing

Collaborative Learningand Writing

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Collaborative Learningand WritingEssays on Using

Small Groups in TeachingEnglish and Composition

Edited byKathleen M. Hunzer

McFarland & Company, Inc., PublishersJefferson, North Carolina, and London

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Collaborative learning and writing : essays on using small groups in teaching English and composition / edited by Kathleen M. Hunzer.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7864-6029-8softcover : acid free paper

¡. English language—Rhetoric—Study and teaching (Higher)2. Academic writing—Study and teaching (Higher)

3. Peer review. I. Hunzer, Kathleen M., 1969–PE1404.C6135 2012 808'.042071—dc23 2012010906

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© 2012 Kathleen M. Hunzer. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopyingor recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publisher.

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McFarland & Company, Inc., PublishersBox 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I am very grateful to my family and friends who havealways supported me in my endeavors, my mentors who have helped mebecome the professional I am today, and all of the contributors to this

collection who worked tirelessly in order to create this practical assemblage.Thanks for all of your hard work.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments iv

Preface KATHLEEN M. HUNZER 1

Part I: Why are collaborative learningand peer review important?

Writing Courses Live and Die by the Quality of Peer Review JASON WIRTZ 5

Bringing New Perspectives to a Common Practice: A Plan for Peer Review ANTHONY EDGINGTON 17

Reinventing Peer Review Using Writing Center Techniques: TeachingStudents to Use Peer-Tutorial Methodology CATHERINE SIMPSON KALISH,JENNIFER L. J. HEINERT, and VALERIE MURRENUS PILMAIER 30

“It’s just too nicey-nicey around here”: Teaching Dissensus in Researchand Collaborative Groups JACOB STRATMAN 43

Part II: How do I best select groups in my classes?

Increasing Student Participation and Accountability in Group Productionof Text through Speed Interviews MIALISA A. MOLINE 55

Connecting Writing Process with Personality: Creating Long-Lasting TrustCircles in Writing Classes KATHLEEN M. HUNZER 66

Forming Peer Critique Groups Through Personality PreferencesMIALISA A. MOLINE 75

Part III: How do I integrate collaborative learningtechniques into electronic environments?

Collaborative Learning and Writing in Digital EnvironmentsCINDY TEKOBBE, YAZMIN LAZCANO-PRY, and DUANE ROEN 87

Keeping Up with the Future: Using Technology to Facilitate Small-GroupCollaboration in the Writing Classroom KELLY A. SHEA 99

v

Cooperative and Collaborative Writing with Google DocsDONNA J. EVANS and BEN S. BUNTING, JR. 109

Working with Groups Online: Collaborating with Web ConferencingCHERYL HAWKINSON MELKUN 130

Part IV: Can collaborative learning andwriting work in all writing classes?

Blending Collaboration and Competition: A Model for Small GroupLearning in Business Writing Classes RANDI BROWNING 143

Revisiting Collaborative Writing and Electronic Dialogues in BusinessCommunication FLORENCE ELIZABETH BACABAC 166

Collaborative Composing: Practices and Strategies for ImplementingTeam Projects into Writing Classrooms KARA POE ALEXANDER 181

Part V: Can special populations benefitfrom collaborative activities?

Working Together Towards Greatness: The Cumulative Writing Modeland English Language Learners ROBB MARK MCCOLLUM 201

Anxiety Disorders and the Collaborative Classroom KATHLEEN M. HUNZER 217

About the Contributors 225

Index 229

vi Table of Contents

Preface

I have a confession to make that may surprise you since I am here writing an introductionto a book about collaborative learning. When I was a student, I lived in fear of being assigneda collaborative project or being required to work in small groups. As soon as a teacher or pro-fessor mentioned the words “group project” or “collaboration,” my heart sank. Historically, Iwas put in a group of students who procrastinated on the project or who did not seem to careabout their GPAs as much as I did; therefore, for me, collaborative and group assignmentsmeant that I did the work while everyone got the credit.

Having had many of these experiences from K-16, consequently, I was a bit skepticalwhen I entered my English M.A. program in 1992 and came face to face with my old neme-sis—collaborative learning—again. We did not meet at first. First I learned many otherfeatures of the “process” classroom. I learned to view writing as a recursive process that involvesprewriting, drafting, and revising; to embrace the social-epistemic nature of the compositionclassroom; to decenter myself as a teacher so that I was more of a guide and a coach ratherthan the sole authority in the classroom; to recognize the value of one-on-one conferencing;to view the composition classroom a discourse community where students grow as learnersand thinkers; and far too many other traits and articles to name here. All of these I embracedwith open arms because they were the exact opposite of many classes I had taken and had notenjoyed.

But then I met Kenneth Bruffee and others whose research demonstrated that collaborativelearning in writing classes was one of the best ways to create this “process” environment, andas I read these works about the benefits of collaborative learning, all I could write in themargins was “won’t work” or “yeah, right!” because of my past experiences. While the researchspoke of the powerful benefits of group work and the potential for growth in collaborativeenvironments, because of my personal experience with small group projects, I was convincedthat collaborative learning and small group projects were wonderful in theory but that, inpractice, they would never work.

Time and time again, the research told me that collaborative learning, when done well,is highly beneficial for everyone, both students and instructor. I read and reread that collab-orative learning helps students become accustomed to their academic environment and helpsthem improve their communication skills, thus enabling students to more successfully negotiatediscourse communities both in and out of class. I also learned that collaborative learning canhelp students better understand the rhetorical situation and consider the ethical effects ofwriting on an audience. In short, collaborative learning was necessary in the “process” writingclass since the power is dispersed between the members of the group, thus demonstrating tostudents the benefits of helping each other in times of confusion, success, and uncertainty—of seeing writing as a process of discovery and learning. These benefits and others were why

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I was supposed to promote a collaborative environment in my classes, especially in writingclasses, but I was still hesitant.

My skepticism remained until I became a TA for the late Alan W. France at West ChesterUniversity in Pennsylvania, a man who convinced me that knowledge can be and should besocially constructed and that, when done well, collaborative learning could and would succeed.He coached me through my early classroom experiences with peer reviews as well as othersmall group tasks throughout the semester. He spent time with me discussing not only thebenefits of collaborative learning but also the “how to do it” questions I had. How do I choosegroups? What tasks do I assign? How do I grade collaborative learning? Should I? What ifpeople think I’m trying to get out of work by assigning group tasks? And many others. All ofthese questions were answered with great patience and respect. Near the end of the semester,after he had observed my class twice, Alan France paid me an amazing compliment: he toldme that my use of collaborative learning and peer review was impressive because I had gottenall of my students involved, had held them all accountable, and had conquered my fear of thepractice by appearing to be an “expert” in the technique. Me, an “expert” in the practice Ihad doubted and resisted for so long? Perhaps, I thought, collaborative learning was not sobad after all.

With this newfound confidence in my abilities to use collaborative learning successfully,I embarked on my career as a writing instructor. I spent two years teaching six writing classesper semester at four different schools before moving on for my Ph.D., and no matter whereI taught, I relied heavily on groups for peer review, group analyses of non-fiction texts, col-laborative evaluations of speeches, and many other tasks. My frequent use of collaborativelearning continued as I completed my Ph.D. in composition and rhetoric and taught at acommunity college. After nine years of practice, I felt more prepared to speak intelligentlyand from experience about the benefits of collaborative learning. My nemesis and I had claspedhands and become friends.

In 2003 when I accepted my current job, which was my first tenure-track job, I faced adaunting task my first semester: a three-hour night class titled “Human Issues in Literature.”Now, as a writing specialist, I had taught some literature, but this was not my forte, and threehours? What was I to do? And that’s when my former nemesis spoke loudly—use collaborationand small groups to explore the works—and so I did, every night in every class period. Theresults were amazing. Every night students were involved in analyses of some deep and chal-lenging pieces, and at the end of the class, these reluctant students from a variety of disciplineswho were “forced” to take the course as a General Education requirement told me that theyhad never learned so much about or had so much fun with literature.

As word spread of my successful use of collaborative learning in this class and manyothers, I seemed to become the “go to” person when people had questions about using groupsin their own classes. Many instructors knew of the benefits of collaborative learning and wereseeing me integrating the practice quite successfully into my own classes, but they also hadmany questions—many of the same questions I had worked through over the years: how doI choose groups? How do I manage my time with group work? How do I handle personalityconflicts? What kinds of tasks should I assign? What if one or two students in a group doesall the work? How do I handle a student who tells me that group work is problematic becausethe student has an anxiety disorder? Can I rely on collaborative learning too much? And othersuch practical questions that involve the actual implementation of collaborative learning.

As I answered these questions for my departmental colleagues who struggle with groupwork (especially new(er) instructors), for our students training to be secondary school teachers,and for instructors outside of my home department who have heard of my success with

2 Preface

collaborative learning, I realized that our field needed a practical sourcebook that answersthese questions, and that is what you will find in this volume. The essays in this book are hereto help you actually do collaborative learning in your own classes. We all know that we shoulddo it; this book helps you learn how to do it.

Because I have been asked so many questions about small groups and collaborative learn-ing in the past, I have arranged this book around some common questions that I have alwaystried to address with both theory and pedagogy. In Part I, a variety of voices answer the ques-tion “Why are collaborative learning and peer review important?” Jason Wirtz in his essay“Writing Courses Live and Die by the Quality of Peer Review” provides a thorough analysisof the benefits of peer review as a type of collaborative activity. “Bringing New Perspectivesto a Common Practice: A Plan for Peer Review” by Anthony Edgington supplements thisanalysis by providing you with strong foundational information on how to promote successfulpeer review sessions. The third essay in Part I, “Reinventing Peer Review Using Writing CenterTechniques: Teaching Students to Use Peer-Tutorial Methodology,” expounds on the benefitsof re-visioning the performance of peer review in writing classes. Inspired by the format ofthe one-on-one peer tutorial structure of a writing center session, Catherine Simpson Kalish,Jennifer L. J. Heinert, and Valerie Murrenus Pilmaier provide helpful pedagogical suggestionsfor how to help your students embrace this new format for peer review. Finally, wrapping upPart One is Jacob Stratman’s essay “’It’s just too nicey-nicey around here’: Teaching Dissensusin Research and Collaborative Groups,” an essay demonstrating how we can combine consensusand dissensus productively in collaborative environments.

In Part II, three essays provide new answers to the age-old question “How do I best selectgroups in my classes?” Drawing on her background in professional writing classes, Mialisa A.Moline invites us to try “speed interviews” when forming groups, in her essay “IncreasingStudent Participation and Accountability in Group Production of Text Through Speed Inter-views.” In my essay, the second in this section, I relate my successes using a very simplequestion as a first-day writing prompt to form groups. My essay “Connecting Writing Processwith Personality: Creating Long-Lasting Trust Circles in Writing Classes” not only providesyou with some techniques I use to select groups but also provides a few in-class practices thatcan foster trust between group members. In order to demonstrate how successful this groupselection technique is, I include at the end of the essay actual student comments that I garneredfrom a short survey. Supplementing my essay is another piece by Moline, “Forming Peer Cri-tique Groups Through Personality Preferences,” that demonstrates how the widely-acclaimedMyers-Briggs personality indicator can be used to promote successful collaboration.

The next section, Part III, addresses the pressing question, “How do I integrate collaborative learning techniques into electronic environments?” Cindy Tekobbe, Yazmin Laz-cano-Pry, and Duane Roen’s essay “Collaborative Learning and Writing in Digital Environ-ments” introduces many ways that collaboration can be integrated into digital classes.Supplementing this overview are other pieces that address specific practices in electronic envi-ronments. “Keeping Up with the Future: Using Technology to Facilitate Small-Group Col-laboration in the Writing Classroom” by Kelly A. Shea specifically addresses small groupcollaboration in electronic environments. How to address collaborative writing needs whenusing a platform such as Google Docs is the topic of Donna J. Evans and Ben S. Bunting,Jr.’s piece titled “Cooperative and Collaborative Writing with Google Docs.” Finally, CherylHawkinson Melkun in her essay “Working with Groups Online: Collaborating with WebConferencing” demonstrates not only how to use web conferencing with collaborative learningbut also how to select a proper web conferencing platform.

Many people question if collaborative learning can work beyond the first-year composition

Preface 3

classroom. In Part IV, authors address the question “Can collaborative learning and writingwork in all writing classes?” Randi Browning, in her essay “Blending Collaboration and Com-petition: A Model for Small Group Learning in Business Writing Classes,” shares suggestionson how to merge collaboration and competition in business writing class, while Florence Eliz-abeth Bacabac, in her essay “Revisiting Collaborative Writing and Electronic Dialogues inBusiness Communication,” focuses on the connections between the electronic environment,business writing, and collaboration. Finally, Kara Poe Alexander demonstrates how studentscan work as teams in technical writing classes. Her essay “Collaborative Composing: Practicesand Strategies for Implementing Team Projects into Writing Classrooms” provides detailedadvice on how to integrate a collaborative “team work” project into the Technical writingclass. Although the essays in this section target very specific writing situations, I believe thatone can learn valuable lessons for all writing classes by reading them.

In Part V of the collection, the question “Can special populations benefit from collabo-rative activities?” is addressed by two essays. Robb Mark McCollum presents his findings inthe essay “Working Together Towards Greatness: The Cumulative Writing Model and EnglishLanguage Learners,” an essay that provides an excellent research model for ELL students. Myessay “Anxiety Disorders and the Collaborative Classroom” is the last in the collection andprovides background on anxiety disorders that frequently appear in our collaborative classes.The essay provides information about the most common anxiety disorders and then offerssuggestions as to how to address these issues in the collaborative class.

Let’s face it : “doing group work” is not as easy as it sounds and as easy as some peopleseem to believe. Because collaborative learning can be challenging and intimidating at times,this collection provides helpful advice, answers to your questions, and reassures you that youare not the first instructor to ask these questions. We are all in the collaborative learning boattogether, so it’s time for us to share our ideas and work together to make this amazingly pro-ductive pedagogy work smoothly and effectively. Enjoy!

4 Preface

Part I. Why are collaborative learningand peer review important?

Writing Courses Live and Die bythe Quality of Peer Review

JASON WIRTZ

Peer review is small group, collaborative work that is central to the writing classroombecause of its emphasis on teaching writing as a process. The “process” approach was firstcoined by Don Murray in his groundbreaking article “Teach Writing as a Process not Product”and has since become a type of rallying cry for the writing classroom. What does teach writingas a process, as opposed to product, entail? To my thinking, it means that we structure ourwriting classrooms around the ways that writers work. Writers participate in communities toaid their writing; writers read with the purpose of impacting their writing; writers use con-ceptions of audience to help shape their writing; writers recognize that writing is more aboutalternatives than “correct” responses; and writers realize that they must be the main investorsof their work. Let’s take a look at how peer review meets each of these writing needs.

Why Should You Use Peer Reviewin Your Writing Classroom?

Peer review is the structure through which classroom community is created in the writingclass. The image of the writer working alone, typing out words and sentences in a quietmahogany study is not a useful vision of the writing process. While writing certainly has itssolitary, grindstone moments, these moments receive their impetus and direction from peerand mentor support. To illustrate this point I have my students contrast the cover of any givenbook with the acknowledgments page. For example, if I pull a book from my shelf, say, MikeRose’s Lives on the Boundary, I see an artistically rendered cover with one name in bold: MikeRose. The acknowledgements page, however, tells a much different story. Rose provides atypical opening to an acknowledgment page: “The stories in this book would never have beenwoven together without the help of....” The next two pages read like a list of descendentsfrom the Old Testament.

Peer review is this community for your student writers. And not only that, but all thewonderful things associated with creating a classroom community are invited into your class-room along with peer review such as students interacting with one another in a positivemanner, allowing course materials to be examined and penetrate with influence, and studentsfeeling that they are a part of the larger academy of learning. Lisa Delpit writes, “...discoursesare not static, but are shaped, however reluctantly, by those who participate within them and

5

by the form of their participation” (499). David Bartholomae makes the same point in hisessay “Inventing the University”—that as students participate as a group within the academy,within a particular discourse community, they not only appropriate but are appropriated bysuch discourses. Peer review takes these claims seriously by opening up the space—significantspace in terms of both intellectual focus and time—within the academic institution via thewriting classroom for students to formulate their own conceptions and construct their owndiscourse communities as they simultaneously enter and construct, affect and are effected by,their academic institution.

If you want to teach your students to read like writers, you must utilize peer review. I willmake you a bet. I bet you that the students in any writing class you teach are better at inter-preting than creating. The educational engine that has dropped these students into the desksof your classroom has invested more time and energy into teaching these students how tointerpret a text (i.e., how to recognize symbols, themes, imagery, etc.) and less time teachingthese students how to create a text. As Guy Allen notes, “We ask our students to study andunderstand meaning at the same time that we offer little opportunity for them to make originalmeaning” (95).

In (Re)Writing Craft Tim Mayers brings clarity to this argument, and his response to this off-kilter educational pendulum is that composition teachers, taking their cue fromcreative writers, must begin teaching craft criticism. Craft criticism does not concern itself,for example, with why Toni Morrison wrote her essay “Strangers,” or what the theme of theessay is. Craft criticism is wholly concerned with how Toni Morrison wrote her essay. Andbecause writing classes are about the how-tos of writing, I argue that Toni Morrison’s essayis going to be practically useless. I could reasonably expect my student writers to read theessay and have something to say about what she does well within the essay. Students mightreference her use of elevated language, her voice as being confident yet accessible, or her abilityto wring a great deal of information out of a sentence. I could not, however, expect them to speak intelligently about where Toni Morrison fails or is ineffective in her essay. Studentsstruggle to see the “seams” in writing that is finished because finished, published writing is meant to hide such seams, and it is the seams that provide entryway into the process ofwriting.

Picture a dartboard in your mind. The bull’s eye represents your students’ current levelof writing ability and the rings extending outward from the center represent continuouslydeveloping writerly sophistication. Where is Toni Morrison going to fall within this set ofrings? Twenty to thirty rings outward from where your students currently are? Where is anexample student essay—the best essay from last-semester’s course—going to fall? Where isone of their peers’ essays—someone sitting right next to them in class—going to fall? StephenKing speaks with his usual verve to the point I’m trying to make here, the fact that studentwriters—all writers for that matter—improve by increments which means the best materialto push us forward is that material closest to our current ability level: “Almost everyone canremember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/sheput down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! (146, italics orig-inal). Peer review sets students up to read like writers, to deploy craft criticism in which theyidentify the specific techniques that their peers are using to effectively or ineffectively producean argument or story. Peer review does not ask students to interpret the meaning behindwriting but asks students to figure out how a piece of writing is constructed, how it is workingor not working and to provide feedback to that effect. I’ve constructed an abbreviated tableto help illustrate the type of questions that the writing classroom concerns itself with asopposed to the English literature classroom:

6 I: Why are collaborative learning and peer review important?

Peer review is as important to the English literature classroom as it is for the writingclassroom, that is, if the given literature classroom is equally concerned with writing as it is with reading. Literature courses most often place heavier emphasis on reading and inter-pretation, however, in which case they deploy different types of peer review systems that focus on reading such as literature circles or reader’s workshops. It took me a long time torealize that my own English literature background had favored reading over writing. As aproduct of this system I didn’t realize this favoritism toward reading until one of my writingteachers, Stuart Dybek, pointed this out to me when I interviewed him as part of my disser-tation:

I think that most of the classes are about reading. One of the things I’ve noticed inmy writing classes is that people come in there as very good readers and they want totalk about a piece of writing as readers and what I keep trying to get them to do istalk about it as a piece of writing, how it was made rather than what it means. Youcan’t talk about something totally disregarding what it means but you can have yourpriorities.

This last line has always resonated with me—“You can’t talk about something totally disre-garding what it means but you can have your priorities.” This sentiment highlights the factthat writing and reading are not discursive practices, rather, they are complementary andinterdependent practices which exist along a type of continuum. You can have your priorities,however, and the writing classroom is one of the few places (if not the only place) where theinstructional priority will be writing rather than reading, where the content of the course willcenter around the development of students’ writing skills rather than centering around thecourse content—content that has been selected and organized long before the students walkinto the classroom.

Peer review teaches students to be aware of an audience through the best means available—an audience. I ask my students who their audience is when they write and they inevitablyrespond, “You.” Then I get to ask, “Who else?” Eventually they answer, somewhat bemused,“Each other.” “Yes,” I tell them, “You are also writing to each other, to your peers” and weget to talk about what that means for their writing. Writers envision an audience when theywrite and students write much better papers when they envision their peers as this audiencebecause instead of approximating toward what it is they think I want as the instructor, theyare much better, and more articulate, when they write to inform, amuse, and surprise oneanother.

This may be an unusual turn, but I would like to invoke Peter Elbow’s essay, “Closing

Writing Courses Live and Die by the Quality of Peer Review (Wirtz) 7

• Where can the text benefit from further detail orexplanation?

• What does this author do particularly well thatyou would like to add to your own writingrepertoire?

• Where in the text do you, as a reader, get con-fused? Point these out to the writer with sugges-tions for revision.

• Pick out a line in the text that you think isworking particularly well and share this linewith the author so that they may continue towrite at this level.

• How well does the text match the conditionscalled for in the writing prompt?

• Identify the theme(s) of the text.• What do you know about the author’s personal

history that informs your interpretation of thetext?

• What literary devices does this author employ?• Pick out three symbols from the text and

explain what they are symbolizing.• Compare this text with another text we have

read in terms of its overall tone, theme, and useof symbolism.

• Provide a feminist, Marxist, and new-historicistinterpretation of the text.

Writing Classroom Concerns English Literature Classroom Concerns

My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience” to support my ideas about theimportant overlap between peer review and audience. Elbow makes the argument in thisheavily anthologized essay that an over-attentiveness to audience can actually inhibit one’swriting. His argument against audience hinges on a very important point—that the natureof one’s audience can either be enabling or inhibiting. In my experience, the audience of one’speers is an enabling audience for students whereas the imagined, dislocated audience of whatthey consider to be good academic writing (aka, what they believe the teacher wants) is often-times an inhibitor. When students write to their peers they tend toward using language wellwithin their capabilities and to privilege clarity of communication. When students write toan imagined, disembodied audience of the teacher or, worse yet, the academy at large, eventhe most simple of thoughts are complicated through a process of linguistic juggling in whichthey struggle to signify that they belong in what is oftentimes a new and unfamiliar academicsetting.

Peer review teaches that there are no “right” answers. Writing does not operate on the sameplane as mathematical equations, historical dates, or biological identifications. Oftentimesthis is confusing for students because of the way other disciplines—and the grading systemin general—contextualizes writing to make it seem to have an end-goal. As Ann Berthoffillustrates in The Making of Meaning, writing is a process of classification arriving out of chaos.Classification systems, while useful and communicable to wide audiences, are still, at theircore, personal and idiosyncratic. Writing is the deployment of personal systems of classification.Peer review reinforces this notion of the writing process because students are consistently read-ing the way that their peers respond to an identical writing prompt with limitless variety andnuance. Peer review also reinforces the notion that writing is an ongoing process of develop-ment as it supports the idea that the writing classroom is more concerned with the student’sdevelopment as a writer over time than it is about any single particular writing assignment.

Peer review teaches students to take ownership over their writing. “Ownership” is one ofthose pedagogical terms that has gotten tossed about to such an extent that it has become avague, catch-all term. When I refer to “ownership” I am referring to a stance that writers takein relation to their work wherein they are both thankful and cautious about the feedback theyreceive. In my writing class this semester I have a student who can serve as the ideal exampleof taking ownership. He gets excited about peer review—especially when the criticism chal-lenges him—because the comments get him excited to go home and “work on what needsfixing.” In this case, his sense of ownership provides him with a sense of confidence, a confi-dence that allows him to take criticism in a manner that feeds his revision process. Ownershipalso refers to students listening to all of the feedback they receive and then taking the importantnext step of sifting through that feedback with a critical eye, discarding some comments whileimplementing others.

Notice how this type of ownership rarely has a chance without peer review. The commentsthat students receive from their teacher, like it or not, have hierarchical, power-structure bag-gage that most often results in students viewing teacher comments as directives rather thanpossibilities to explore. Peer comments, however, have the opposite effect as these commentsare much more likely to be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism which, to my thinking,is illustrative of students enacting ownership over their writing.

Peer review maximizes student involvement while minimizing—in a smart way—teachinginvolvement. Several years ago I came across a quotation, an aphorism really, that has alwaysstuck with me. “The best teachers make themselves progressively unnecessary.” The pointhere is certainly not to minimize teacher involvement for the sake of making our lives easier,but that too often beginning teachers take too much of the onus on themselves for student


learning. I have observed many beginning teachers and I’ve consistently noted that by the endof the classroom observation it is they, and not the students, who are exhausted. I rememberthis being the case for myself as well when I first began teaching. Why is this? In my estimation,it is because beginning teachers are still working through a filter where they see themselves asbeing at the center of the activities, at the center of the learning, at the center of the explaining,talking, and doing. An invaluable heuristic for beginning teachers is to stop thinking aboutwhat they will be doing during the course of a classroom period and start thinking about whatthe students will be doing. Peer review is student-centered. Peer review places the onus oflearning on the students. During peer review the utterances of the students vastly outnumbersthe utterances of the teacher. When working as intended, peer review positions the teacheras being progressively unnecessary because the students are appropriately taking on the burdenof learning.

Why Does Peer Review Want to Fail?

If you want quality peer review in your writing classroom then you must face, head-on,the fact that peer review has a natural tendency towards failure—it wants to fail. Yes, peerreview wants to fail. The important question to answer becomes, why does peer review wantto fail?

Peer review wants to fail because students don’t want to be uncomfortable and they certainlydon’t want to make others uncomfortable. Imagine that you are a freshman student in a writingcourse. You are asked to read and respond to another student’s essay. Think about the largercontext of your situation. You are in a new place, trying to find your own way. One of therules you rely on is “be nice to people, that’s the way you make friends.” Now you’ve got thiswriting instructor telling you to provide critical feedback. What are you going to do? You aregoing to rely on positive feedback and when your feedback approaches anything resemblingcritical, it’s going to take the form of quantifiable critical feedback—objective feedback thatcarries little to no emotional currency—and that means pointing out grammatical mistakes.Grammar check is not the sign of successful peer review.

Peer review wants to fail because, like writing, it is a disruptive process. The poet WilliamOlsen helped me to see how peer review and writing are processes that can be frightening forstudents because they require students to reflect and subsequently change the way they arecurrently working and thinking. Olsen puts it this way: “If you’ve learned something, if it’san act of discovery, then that means it’s uprooted prior notions. There’s a disruptive natureto discovery. When somebody writes something good sometimes their first instinct is actuallyto distrust it, to question it, to consider it a fluke because it demands more of them.” Studentswill resist peer review and the focused attention to the writing process it supports because itasks them to uproot prior notions, notions that oftentimes have been the same heuristicsthey’ve relied on for years in order to be successful students. In other words, the writing processand accompanying peer review process are not challenge-free zones. In fact, writing andresponding to writing necessitates candid self-reflection that students naturally want to shyfrom, especially students who are simultaneously struggling to adapt in an unfamiliar socialenvironment. A defense mechanism that I’ve consistently seen enacted by students new to thecollege experience is to hold on tighter to the familiar. This shows up in students who travelhome every weekend or students who rely solely on well-established friendships. This tendencyto make their suddenly enlarged world a much smaller, manageable, and familiar place unfor-tunately falls into direct opposition with the type of intellectual space we want students toinhabit in our writing classrooms.


Peer review wants to fail because students have been consistently taught not to value oneanother. The most common complaint that students leverage against peer review is generallysome combination of the following statements: “Why do I want to know what my peers think?They don’t know any more than I do. They don’t grade me. I thought it was the teacher’s jobto give me feedback, aren’t they supposed to be the experts? I’m paying to receive my educationfrom the instructor, not the student next to me.” To my thinking this type of attitude alludesto the underlying problem that for the majority of their lives students have been immersedin a schooling system that does not encourage them to view one another as a community oflearners working together. Most of the feedback and all of their grades have been assessed byteachers, parents, and administrators. This entrenched mindset can be a difficult habit to dis-abuse students of when they are asked, through the peer review process, to encourage, critique,and offer suggestions to one another.

Peer review wants to fail because students want to be efficient. Picture the stereotypicalgrade-savvy student—the one who gets good grades because he or she has learned how tonavigate the system with purpose and efficiency. This is the student that argues for an A afterreceiving and A- and is the first to ask the questions (usually in this order), “Will this be col-lected?” and “How long does it have to be?” These grade-savvy students are not bad peoplebut instead have been in education systems long enough to realize the importance of gettingthe best possible grade in the most efficient manner. They have learned not to get overlyinvested in any one given area because they have umpteen other areas to cover. The problemis that peer review—quality peer review—requires an intellectual investment beyond “goingthrough the motions.” If the majority of students within any given peer review group decideto set the bar of achievement too low, they can effectively nullify any positive effects of peerreview.

Peer review wants to fall off track. I have an anecdote that has stayed with me for severalyears: I was getting coffee at the campus café and struck up a conversation with a colleaguewho was teaching a writing course similar to my own. At the end of our brief conversationshe told me she had to run, she was actually in the middle of teaching her course as we spoke.“This peer review stuff is great,” she said, “I just get them into groups, get them going, andthen I can run down here to grab some coffee.” She was off in a blur to get back to herstudents. I’ve noticed this more than once, this misconception that somehow peer review willmaintain itself by virtue of its own inertia. It doesn’t work that way. Peer review wants to fallof track because students will try to divide and conquer the work as opposed to putting theircollective intellects together to provide optimal feedback for each writer; peer review wantsto fall off track because some groups end earlier than others which signals to the remaininggroups that their goal should shift from being comprehensive to being finished; peer reviewwants to fall off track because, in all sincerity, students have built-in, highly sensitive radarsthat accurately detect teacher investment levels and as soon as the teacher investment leveldips below their own, the result is a sudden, collective, and absolute retraction of investmenton their part.

How Can You Elevate the Quality of Peer Review?

I’ve considered the various ways that peer review can potentially fail in order to set thestage for arguing the importance of the following “how-tos.” I want to describe how I structurepeer review in order to counter these potential pitfalls.

Peer review is often structured in one of three ways—author in the group, author outsidethe group, and individual exchange. Each of these has its advantages and, generally, I work


through each in a sequential manner because of how they situate the writer and the type ofresponse he or she receives. Here is a quick explanation of each type of peer review:

1. Author in the group. The author reads aloud his or her paper or the students can rotatethe papers. If the author is going to read his or her paper out loud, it’s best if theybring 3–4 copies so that group members can see as well as hear the paper.

2. Author outside the group. Groups gather their papers and exchange with another group.Generally, the level of critique raises when the author is not in the group because stu-dents have an easier time being critical when the author is not sitting across fromthem.

3. Individual exchange. This is a very focused peer review in which students individuallyexchange papers with one another for commentary. The students work independentlyand then meet to discuss the feedback. This places a great deal of onus on each studentto provide in-depth commentary because they do not have the benefit of workingwithin a collective group.

Ways to facilitate the process across all 3 types of peer review:Students identify their concerns. This is a first and necessary step for all peer review sessions.

I give my students time to write out 3 to 5 concerns they have with their paper. I then askstudents to share these concerns and I keep a running list of these concerns on the chalk/white-board. This list of concerns helps reviewers focus their comments. This list of concerns alsohelps the reviewers be more critical since this is feedback that the author has asked for. Themaster list of concerns on the chalk/whiteboard also helps me, as the instructor, to informallyassess what students are having difficulty with in relation to the assignment. The master listalso becomes a place for me to clarify concepts. For example, if a student mentions “flow” asa concern, I can press them to explain what they mean by flow. Eventually, this process ofdefining terms helps to create a shared discourse which becomes the backbone of clear com-munication during peer review. Finally, this master list becomes a generative place for peerreview groups to look when they feel they have exhausted their critiques.

Students articulate the changes they made based on peer review feedback and the feedbackthey provided to their peers. My students have to write two paragraphs about these changes atthe end of every major essay that they turn in for teacher commentary. The first paragraphasks the author to speak to the peer review process in terms of the feedback they received.What were the peer suggestions given to them? How did they incorporate these suggestionsinto their revision process? What feedback did they decide not to incorporate? The secondparagraph asks the author to reflect on the feedback they provided for their peers—the moreconcrete and specific the better. I generally ask for at least three specific examples. These twoparagraphs not only help me to assess the quality of the peer review sessions but they helpme facilitate the peer review sessions. For example, I can read over these comments and geta good sense as to how the peer review sessions are working, or not working, for students. Ican make a list of comments that I want to talk over with the whole class, comments that arevalued because they are straight from the students themselves. These two paragraphs also facil-itate the peer review process because I am armed with the language of, “Remember, you needto write a paragraph based on the changes you’ve made to your essay as a result of peer review.That means that you have to offer your peers critical feedback that will help them improvetheir essay and write this paragraph.” These two paragraphs oftentimes become the much-needed excuse students need to be more critical with one another.

Exit slips. I have students complete exit slips on most peer review days. Here are a few


examples from my class this week: “Based on peer review I will add more citations. I find thisprocess useful and hope to do it in the future.” This tells me a great deal about this studentsince this student had to be told to put away her German homework and a few times I thoughtshe was going to fall asleep. I’ve had lively emails from her in the past that demonstrate herengagement in the class but her classroom affect is the opposite—she looks withdrawn. Thiscomment helps me to theorize/understand that perhaps this student is engaged even thoughshe doesn’t show it. Another example: “Peer Review: I should focus on other resources andwrite down my own ideas rather than quote from the resources.” This is an ESL student whois having difficulty keeping up with her native speaking counterparts. This exit slip was heart-ening for me because I fear that her research paper will contain an overreliance on the sources.I’m glad that she’s getting this information from her peers. Another example: “Peer reviewwas a great opportunity to receive criticism that I wouldn’t have seen. The review helps refineour papers.” This is a positive response with, really, no depth. This is most likely a stockanswer—what this student thinks I want to hear. Contrast this exit slip with another: “Peerreview was helpful. It helped me to see what other literary techniques/styles are effective. Alsohelped me to identify strengths, and what should be left alone. My issue of sticking to mythesis was resolved.” Much more content here—specific, identifiable results from the peerreview session which demonstrates in a concrete manner the progress that this student wasable to make.

Another advantage to the use of exit slips is that they support my idea of “maximizingstudent output while minimizing teacher output.” I read these exit slips at the end of classafter all the students have shuffled out of the classroom. Reading these exit slips takes me threeminutes and they are quite enjoyable. They require no response and what they provide interms of informally assessing peer review—as well as a check against students not staying ontask during the peer review session—vastly outweighs the time and effort I have to invest.This is teacher efficiency in one of its finest forms.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Be available to answer any questions that arise duringpeer review but when a student hand goes up, you want to get in and out as quickly as possible.A raised hand is not the call for an elaborate lecture or even discussion. Peer review is theirtime to work as a group and a raised hand is a call to put some wind into the sails, not grabthe steering wheel. Another tactic that I like to use is watch one group while listening to another.Circulating throughout the classroom is a good strategy to see if students are on task but I’vefound that whichever group I happen to stop and observe is a group that will quickly be ontask given the fact that I’m watching—a type of Heisenberg uncertainty principle of thewriting classroom. I have found it much more informative to watch one group while listeningin on another group. I get a more realistic picture of how groups are operating when theydon’t think I’m observing.

Your secret weapon: Quality peer review doesn’t ever end. One of the difficulties inherentnot only in peer review group work but within group work writ large is that some groups willfinish earlier than others. This creates a problem because the group that is finished is, by defi-nition, off task and on to talking about their weekends or the math test they have coming up.The other problem is that the groups surrounding them that are not yet finished will feel theneed to hasten the process which undoubtedly detracts from the endeavor. This is when youhave to put yourself to the test. While floating like a butterfly, you should be able to determinewhere each group is within the process. When a group finishes, you want to be there, talkingto them about the process and looking over what they’ve recommended to their writers. Whenyou read at the end of an essay that the group wrote the comment, “Good work here but morespecific examples would help to support your arguments” you get to push this group to be


more specific about where these additional examples should be within the essay and thinkabout what the examples should be. This is where the master-list of concerns on thechalk/whiteboard can be your ally as well. Your secret weapon against group-interaction-failure is the simple fact that peer review can always be qualified further. You, as the bee, needto quickly determine how to push these early-finishing groups to articulate their ideas in amore sophisticated and developed manner.

Continually alter group dynamics. I prefer to look at the class holistically and my loftygoal is that each of my students will feel comfortable relatively early on in the semester withevery one of their peers. I also prefer to continually alter group dynamics rather than keepinggroup formations static because I don’t want one or two groups consistently working wellwhile others struggle. I encourage my students to be flexible with one another and to worksuccessfully with a variety of people. This type of social intelligence and social flexibility isone of the hallmark outgrowths of quality peer review.

Good peer review comes from good writing assignments and good writing assignments are stu-dent-centered. Student-centered writing assignments are writing assignments that are open-ended so that students can identify a topic of interest within the structures provided throughthe writing prompt. Providing choice fosters investment in the writing process and is true tothe way writing evolves out of a desire to communicate an issue, argument, story, or idea feltstrongly by the writer. I noted earlier that one of the inherent problems with peer review isthat, like writing, it is a disruptive process that uproots prior notions of self. On the otherside of the coin, however, lies the generative perspective that “People want to make meaningeven though it involves risk and makes intense demands of the maker” (Allen 98). If thewriting assignment is student-centered, if the students are allowed choice and the freedom toself-select the topics they want to spend their time with, then I believe student writers arebetter positioned to enjoy the struggle and personal changes associated with writing and peerreview.

Peer review days are NOT first draft days. I’ve had more than one peer review session goawry because too many students showed up with incomplete drafts. In order for peer reviewto work effectively students need to have completed full drafts. How does one know whenthey have a complete full draft? The author must have arrived at a stopping point—a pointwhere they feel they have either finished writing or where they don’t know how to proceed.These stopping points are important, fertile ground for productive peer review. The problemwith students peer reviewing drafts that have not reached such stopping points is that feedbackreceived will be met with resistance in the form of, “Yes, that’s what I was planning to do” or“Well, I’m not finished yet so the feedback I have received isn’t relevant to what I haven’t writ-ten.” Worse yet, student writers will feel the need to speak at length as to what they “plan”to do, leaving their peers in an awkward place to review what is written. Without being ableto focus on the paper in hand, student reviewers are left with little traction to offer any sortof specific, substantive critique.

Teacher comments invigorate peer review. Teacher comments set the bar for student-to-student comments. If we want our students to offer one another critical feedback that pushestoward rewriting and revising on a global rather than local scale, then the writing instructormust model such feedback. (See Nancy Sommers’ “Revision Strategies of Student Writers andExperienced Adult Writers” to visit the differences between local, grammatical revision practicesand global, re-writing, re-visioning practices). In order to push students toward rewriting andrevising, the writing instructor must provide evaluative rather than ranked feedback. PeterElbow makes the point in his essay, “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out ThreeForms of Judgment.” Evaluating takes the form of identifying places for improvement and


noticing places of fluency within a student essay whereas ranking (i.e., assigning a grade) nar-rows both the teacher’s and students’ gaze onto the grade itself (390). I spent too many yearsas a writing teacher constructing my comments to justify a grade as opposed to coaching stu-dents along the revision process. To aid my position of coach rather than “justifier of thegrade,” there are three practices that I’ve come to rely on:

1. Before students hand in their essays to me for commentary, I ask them to re-read thefirst page of their essay, looking closely for any grammatical mistakes. If they find any,they should correct them. The result : I only have to review the first page for gram-matical mistakes. If I find any on the first page, I know that the student does not knowthe grammatical rule that should be applied. If I find grammatical mistakes on theremaining pages, I can still note them but I can consider these oversights rather than alack of understanding the grammatical rule. This practice helps me to read student essaysfor their ideas as opposed to reading student essays with one eye on their grammar.

2. Before students hand in their essays to me for commentary, I ask them to write a briefparagraph explaining what they believe to be their essay’s greatest strength and greatestweakness. Quite honestly, I can’t remember how I responded to student essays withouthaving this paragraph. What students write as to their strength and weakness opensthe conversation that I continue when I respond to the student essays. Most often, Ifind myself agreeing with their comments, which places me in the position of offeringand coaching strategies to help build on their perceived strengths and manage theirperceived weaknesses.

3. The two previous practices are more immediate to the given writing event at hand.This third practice is more global and helps shape the entire writing classroom: theuse of a portfolio system (see Doug Hess’ essay, “Portfolio Standards for English 101”for further discussion on using portfolios in your writing classroom). Nancy Welchmakes the argument that:

Composition teachers by and large haven’t been asking questions like “Somethingmissing, something else?’” that promote revision as getting restless with familiar andconstrictive ways of writing and being, as creating. We respond instead (so a lookthrough recent classroom texts suggests) in ways that restrict revision to a “narrow-ing” of focus, the correction of an “inappropriate tone” or “awkward repetition,” thechanging of any passage that might “confuse, mislead, or irritate” readers [207].

The portfolio system helps to create the space for our comments to take the shape of pushingtoward rewriting and revising because the portfolio system extends the date of final publicationto the end of the semester when students get to hand in a collection of their refined, best work.As a writing teacher then, I get to comment on student essays with the final portfolio in mind,writing comments that begin with “When revising for the final portfolio I suggest....”

Peer review is a routine that takes place over the entire semester. I observed a beginningteacher recently who was having her students work with tableaus. I have to admit, I had neverseen this done before but I did think it was a novel idea. The teacher had four volunteer stu-dents go up to the front of the class to be the actors. The rest of the class took turns readingparagraphs aloud from a short story that she had handed out. The job of the audience was totell the students what scene to depict after every few paragraphs. The audience of studentshad to decide, first, what scene was the most significant and, second, how to depict this scenegiven the four actors in the front of the room. This is a visualization exercise that related togood reading and writing habits—that of visualizing and subsequently describing characters’actions. The problem with this tableau activity, however, became immediately apparent: the


students had never done anything like this before. The students hadn’t grasped the rules ofthe activity before the teacher was trying to push them toward using the activity to developand depict their understanding. In our post-observation conference I asked the beginningteacher what she had thought of the lesson and she responded, “Well I now know not to dothat activity again.” Her exasperation was the exact opposite of my feelings. The class showedme that this activity needed to be done again, and again, and again because I understood thatthe failure of today was the fact that the students didn’t know how to do this new activityyet. There’s an amusing joke that illustrates the same concept from the opposite viewpoint.A beginning elementary school teacher takes the time to observe one of his more experiencedpeers. What he sees astounds him. The veteran teacher begins his class by playing a song andas soon at the students hear this song they quickly and quietly take out their workbooks andsit at their desks, pencils ready. Later in the lesson the veteran teacher plays a different songand the students put away their materials and all sit on the floor in a circle for reading time.Finally, another song gets played and all the students line up at the door in single file, readyto walk down the hall together toward the cafeteria. The veteran teacher marches them to thecafeteria and comes back to the classroom, asking the beginning teacher what he learned: “Ilearned that I need to get a copy of those songs!”

How are these anecdotes related to peer review? In the first anecdote we have a beginningteacher trying out a new strategy. She thinks of abandoning this new strategy because it doesn’twork the first time out. Peer review will most often not work the first time out. Complexsmall group organizational systems need to be revisited and refined again and again beforethey will work successfully. In the second anecdote the complexity of the classroom strat-egy—it’s history of revisions and refinements—was lost on the beginning teacher. It is impor-tant that peer review be conceived as developing over time just as these anecdotes reveal theimportance of viewing any complex classroom strategy as developing over time. As an example,peer review is different depending on when in the semester it is taking place. At the very least,try dividing peer review mentally into thirds over the course of the semester. The very firstpeer review should be markedly different from the last peer review of the semester. If youadopt the position that you can tweak and work on different aspects of peer review over time,this frees you from worrying about peer review falling flat on any particular day. In the thickof a peer review session, think about the process happening both immediately and incremen-tally over the course of the semester.

Throw out the rules. This is my final point: Please don’t be afraid to throw out the ruleswhen students inevitably find ways to adapt small group work to fit their needs as writers.For example, students will eventually find ways to augment peer review such as having theauthor take part in the conversation earlier than they are supposed to, or they will decide todivide up the papers and read individually before convening as a group, or they will (in a bestcase scenario) decide to peer review on their own time outside of the classroom via face-to-face or electronic communication which, in turn, alters the in-class peer review dynamic. Ihave found that as long as a group can articulate a justification of their actions, I let them be.These types of modifications usually take place in the latter half to final third of the semesterafter students have thoroughly acclimated to the strategies for peer review that I initiallymodel.

What’s Next?

Essays often end by answering this question: what’s next? Ironically I find this questionbest answered by a return, a return to why I decided to teach writing in the first place. I teach


writing because I enjoy working with and learning from students and because I believe in thetransformative effects of writing—effects that can be accelerated in a well designed, differen-tiated, student-centered classroom. I am also hooked on scholarship associated with the writingprocess. Whether in the thicket or on the eve of a semester, reminding myself of these in-the-marrow beliefs helps me to answer: what’s next? And so I leave off by asking you to thinkthrough what’s next. I have sought to articulate my current ways of structuring peer reviewbut as with any complex small-group process these structures are not meant to be compre-hensive or static. I offer my conception of peer review as a type of trope that you may pickup and extent according to the needs of your students and your own evolving in-the-marrowbeliefs about the teaching of writing.

Works CitedAllen, Guy. “Language, Power, and Consciousness: A Writing Experiment at the University of Toronto.” In

Johnson, 65–98. Print.Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” In Johnson, 2–31. Print.Berthoff, Ann. The Making of Meaning: Metaphors, Models and Maxims for Writing Teachers. Portsmouth,

NH: Heinemann, 1981. Print.Delpit, Lisa. “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse.” In Johnson 491–502. Print.Dybek, Stuart. Personal interview. 28 April 2008.Elbow, Peter. “Closing My Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience.” In Johnson, 172–194.

Print.Hess, Douglas. “Portfolio Standards for English 101.” In Johnson, 407–415. Print.Johnson, T.R., ed. Teaching Composition: Background Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. Print.King, Stephen. On Writing. New York: Scribner, 2000. Print.Morrison, Toni. “Strangers.” Back to the Lake. Ed. Thomas Cooley. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009. 95–97.

Print.Murray, Don. “Teach Writing as a Process not Product.” Villanueva, 3–6. Print.Olsen, William. Personal Interview. 11 April 2008.Rose, Mike. Lives on the Boundary. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. Print.Mayers, Tim. (Re)Writing Craft. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Print.Sommers, Nancy. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.” Villanueva, 43–

54. Print.Villanueva, Victor ed. Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997. Print.Welch, Nancy. “Toward and Excess-ive Theory of Revision.” In Johnson, 207–246. Print.


Bringing New Perspectivesto a Common Practice:A Plan for Peer Review

ANTHONY EDGINGTON

“My group didn’t offer much feedback on my paper. I really wanted to hear more aboutmy argument, but they really didn’t say anything about it.”

“I know my introduction is weak, but my group didn’t write any comments about it.So, I didn’t revise it before turning in the final draft.”

“Some of my group members said the paper was good. I don’t know what that means!Why is it good? What did they like about it? I wanted to know more about their reactions tomy paper.”

Today, it would strike an observer as odd to find a writing classroom that did not involvesome level of peer response or peer review. Pedagogically, most teachers promote the value ofhaving students read and respond to each other’s texts. Various teacher narratives and researchstudies argue that peer review allows writers to obtain a greater sense of audience (Lamberg;Newkirk), enhances student attitudes toward writing (Fox; Chaudron), and opens up teacherresponse to more global issues in student papers while also saving the teacher valuable instruc-tion time—presumably since students will often “catch” early draft errors, allowing the teacherto respond to more specific issues in a student paper (Beaven; Moore). Significant theoreticalsupport for the practice has been outlined in various studies; for example, Jette G. Hansonand Jun Liu argue that, “peer response is supported by several theoretical frameworks, includingprocess writing, collaborative learning theory, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development,and interaction and second language acquisition (SLA)” (31). So ubiquitous is the activitythat we now find research in such disciplines as mathematics, business, chemistry, and nursingthat supports the use of peer response for writing assignments in those classes.

Yet, for instructors in composition, the quotations offered earlier are still common whenspeaking with students about their reflections on peer review in the classroom. For manyinstructors and students, peer review can be seen as a limited and limiting activity. CharlotteBrammer and Mary Rees find that “we [the authors] frequently hear students complain bitterlythat peer review is a waste of time or blame their peers for not ‘catching all the mistakes” (71).Ronald Barron, in offering advice on the qualities that will lead to successful peer responsesessions, argues that writers need to keep track of the questions and concerns they have abouttheir paper; “otherwise, students may get ‘shotgun’ responses, random responses which might

17

help them revise, but which more often than not seem to miss the very areas where the writersneed help” (30). In his comprehensive article on response, Richard Haswell hypothesizes that“even with peer-response methods, disillusionment has been setting in, though perhaps lesswith teachers than with students who are sick of so much of it” (2006). And, Mary Holt, indiscussions with graduate students and fellow faculty members, argues that she more oftenhears about the problems associated with students’ use of peer response—such as hastilywritten comments, a limited focus on style and grammatical issues, and the “subjective nature”of the student responder—than on the benefits of the activity (384).

Given this abundance of research, and after ten years of teaching introductory andadvanced writing classes, I can honestly say that peer review has been both the most rewardingand the most frustrating activity that occurs in my classrooms. Rewarding because it offersstudents a chance to receive multiple perspectives on their texts and emphasizes the need forboth critical reading and revision in the writing classroom. And, it has changed the way thatI read student texts, allowing me to focus more on paper content and student revision than Idid in the past. However, it is the frustrations associated with peer review that often continueto affect many instructors’ (including my) views on the practice. Speaking with fellow teachersand reflecting on my own experiences, a range of problems emerge associated with the activity.Students often do not come prepared for the sessions or bring a text that is not ready to bereviewed by peers. While teachers usually see the value in peer review and speak enthusiasticallyabout it, students do not always bring the same enthusiasm to these sessions; I often findmyself shaking my head as I watch a group of four to five students stand up and leave twentyto twenty-five minutes after starting the review, announcing that they have finished for theday. Students may exhibit different behaviors during peer review sessions: some dominatepeer review sessions, either taking up a majority of the time with questions about their paperor offering wave after wave of criticism about peers’ papers; some refuse to offer criticismbecause they do not feel confident enough in their ability to do so; and some listen intentlyto what their peers’ have to say and then simply disregard the advice when they begin theprocess of revising the paper, relying only on what the teacher has offered as feedback. In herresearch study, Sarah W. Freedman found that teachers and students lamented the use of peerresponse because of the over-use of vague and uninformative student comments when respond-ing to peers’ papers. Speaking of his experiences in English as Second Language classrooms,Paul Rollinson further argues that

Teachers may question its [peer review’s] value within their particular context, orwonder how such a time consuming activity can be reconciled with course or exami-nation constraints. Students may have even more doubts: they are uncertain about itspurpose and advantages, they may feel instinctively that only a better writer ... isqualified to judge or comment on their written work. They may feel that feedbackreceived from classmates whose English level is more or less the same as theirs is apoor alternative to the “real thing”—that is, the teacher’s periodic red-penned nota-tions [23].

Most illuminating for me has been the discussions I have had with students about peerreview during our student-teacher conferences. Not all students spoke of frustrations withpeer review, voicing instead their satisfaction with peer feedback. These students spoke ofproductive discussions about their papers and pointed to areas where they had revised theirwork based on this feedback. These students often mentioned that they were active duringthe review of their papers, asking questions and pushing reviewers for more suggestions. Theseconversations reminded me of times when I watched peer groups enjoying the process; attimes, these groups would require a small nudge from me to get them to wrap up the session


at the end of the class period. However, I also watched and listened during conferences asstudents spoke about the lack of communication they received from their peers, noting that“others” did not take the activity seriously or offered only vague comments of praise abouttheir texts. These students would plead with me to be placed in other groups and, sometimes,to reconsider if future peer review sessions should be held. When asked whether they askedfor additional feedback or offered peers questions to consider, most argued that it would nothave mattered since the peers would not have offered any assistance anyway. Thus, what beganto stand out the most for me, both in the enthusiastic as well as in the frustrated comments,was that sessions worked best when the writer became involved, asking questions and pushingpeer reviewers to look deeper or in different ways at their texts. When peer review did notwork, it often was because writers were not active members, instead choosing to either outlinetheir concerns with peer review to me during our conferences or to resist revising the paperbased on peer feedback.

For this essay, I discuss three pedagogical changes in my classroom that have led to moreproductive peer review sessions. First, significant time is spent preparing students for peerreview; instead of simply putting students in groups and waiting for review to happen, studentsin my course go through a one to two day class sequence that discusses past peer review expe-riences, models successful peer review strategies, and offers the opportunity for practice withsample student texts. Second, noting the importance of the writer, the Writer’s Worksheetwas constructed as a way of creating a more active writer during peer review sessions. Theworksheet offers the writer the chance to address her questions during the review and, perhapsmore importantly, puts control of the review in the writer’s hand. Finally, when respondingto student texts after the peer review, my comments include a focus on peer reviewers’ com-ments, highlighting the many places where I often agree with the peers on their assessmentof the paper. By focusing on peer comments, my goal is to increase the authority of thesecomments in the future. These three small changes have led to more successful peer reviewsessions in my classes.

Peer Review PreparationBarron, while emphasizing the importance of peer review, acknowledges the early prob-

lems he had in his classrooms when using it :

But response groups have not always worked well for me. When I first used them,they were failures because I merely assigned students to groups and expected them toknow what to do. I did not teach them how to use response groups effectively. Thecritical factor in determining the success or failure of the method is what happensbefore students get into their groups to read each other’s papers. The groups bythemselves are not a panacea [24].

Pamela Flash echoes Barron’s experience, arguing that “inadequate structure and an absenceof modeling can cause [peer] groups to flounder, wasting valuable class time” (“Teaching withWriting”). Looking back at problems experienced in my past courses with peer review, I rec-ognize that my approach was similarly flawed. My belief was that most students probably hadexperience reviewing another’s paper and would enthusiastically embrace the idea of havingfeedback on their own texts; so instead of devoting time to explaining the procedure andpreparing students for the work, I instead spent a few minutes before the review explainingthe process and then placed students into groups for the review sessions. Any problems wouldbe explained away as anomalies while I continued to blindly believe that peer review wasworking in my courses.

Bringing New Perspectives to a Common Practice (Edgington) 19

After a few courses and several of the aforementioned student-teacher conferences, Ibegan to recognize the students’ lack of experience with and knowledge about peer review inmy classes. I found that most students had not participated in the practice in previous highschool or college courses and felt that they had no “direction” in how to approach the task.Instead, they relied on vague and non-critical feedback when reviewing peers’ texts; withoutguidance on how to approach reading and responding, students fell back on practices that,in their opinions, would do less harm. Brammer and Rees study of peer review at one universityfound that preparation for peer review there was also lacking; teachers reported that, on aver-age, they spent less than half of one period preparing students for peer review. And, the prepa-ration was often limited to lecture or handouts, with an occasional group reading session ona sample student paper, methods that the authors see as “insufficient ... for demonstrating thecollaborative value of peer review” (81). Not surprisingly, students at that university respondedthat peer review was not “very helpful” to them as writers. Brammer and Rees conclude that“professors must invest a great deal of class time to ensure a productive peer review” (81).

Thus, in order to create a more productive environment, I designed a series of activitiesthat transformed the way students learned about and experienced peer review in my classroom.In designing these activities, I was influenced by three pre-training areas introduced byRollinson: awareness raising (which is informing students about the “principles and objectivesof peer response”); productive group interaction (creating a comfortable, supportive atmospherefor peer review); and productive response and revision (walking students through basic prin-ciples of critical reading, response to writing, group dialogue and dynamics, and revision)(27). The focus of my peer review preparation classes shifted to developing a stronger, moreproductive way of introducing students to useful strategies for the reviewing they would beasked to do. Depending upon the class, this preparation could take one or two class periods.For many instructors, incorporating one or two days to preparing for peer review in theircourse syllabi can be difficult. However, as the research points out, creating a stronger peerreview environment in your classroom can save time later in a course, including the time ittakes you to respond to student papers and the time it takes for you to re-educate studentson peer review procedures. My recent experience validates these arguments and has emphasized,for me, the importance of introducing students to peer review through multiple steps.

The preparation begins with a discussion of past experiences students have had withreceiving commentary on their texts. Hansen and Liu point to the advantages of these dis-cussions, arguing that conversing about prior experiences helps the teacher “understand stu-dents’ concerns or attitudes toward” peer review and “can lead on to a discussion of classroomnorms and interaction patterns expected from the students in the particular class or culturalsetting” (33). I usually start the discussion with two short questions: “What was the best com-ment you have ever received on a past paper you wrote? What was the worst comment youever received on a past paper you wrote?” (I purposely do not ask for these to be commentsreceived from peers; as I previously discovered, many students have not had significant expe-rience with peer review in high school or early college classes). I ask students to explain whythey saw these as strong and weak comments. Past comments that I’ve received include detailedcomments praising significant changes in the student’s writing; questions that ask the studentto probe deeper into his or her research or argument; vague comments that appear to questionmore the student’s ability to complete the task than the success or failure of the paper; andeven no comments (i.e., the instructor hands back the paper with only a grade and no writtencommentary). After placing several of these on the board, we spend time talking about themas a class, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of each and how weaker comments couldbe made stronger. At this point, I begin to move the class into a conversation towards defining


what constitutes critical commentary, especially pointing out that critical commentary does nothave to point out every fault in the paper, nor does it have to be abrasive or demeaning. Usually,the conversation then turns to addressing issues of tying comments directly to the text, offeringmore explanation for some comments, and introducing the value of positive comments as onemoves beyond just writing “this is good.” In my freshman writing classes, significant time isspent on this final point, as many students have difficulty with addressing what is working wellin peers’ papers and understanding how to use these comments in future revisions and/or thecreation of future papers. As Hansen and Liu further suggest, it is vital to prepare students to“ask questions that generate a response from the writer, and that are revision-oriented so thatthere is a meaningful discussion about the content, rhetoric, or grammar of the paper” (36).This first class discussion helps to clarify which comments work and which may not.

After discussing previous peer review comments, my classes usually move into a “fishbowl”activity, usually during a second class period (see Meier; Neubert and McNelis). Prior to theactivity, I choose four students who will be good models to watch during a mock peer review.These are not necessarily the best writers in class, but rather students who will put the timeand effort into reading and responding to a peer’s text. The students and I meet to walkthrough how peer review occurs (including the use of the Writer’s Worksheet, which is dis-cussed in the next section). When time permits, these fours students and I will participate ina mock peer review, stopping at times to discuss different methods, strategies, and techniques.The peer group is then given a short sample text to read over prior to the next class period.When the time for the fishbowl activity arrives, the small group sits in the middle of theroom, with one student serving as the writer of the text and the other three as reviewers. Theclass watches the review and takes notes on what they see and hear. Usually, the review itselftakes fifteen to twenty minutes, after which the class discusses their reactions to the session.As the discussion progresses, I push students to connect the comments they heard during thereview to the strong and weak comments mentioned during the previous class session. Wealso reflect on the silent moments of peer review. What should the writer do while peers readthe paper? How important are listening skills during peer review? What reflection should takeplace after the peer review has ended? Students are asked to consider what role the writer tookduring the review and if the writer needed to be more or less active. Finally, the class focuseson the dynamics of the group. How was turn-taking enacted among the members? Who con-trolled the group agenda? Were there places where the discussion encountered obstacles? Byfocusing on different aspects of peer review, including the role of the writer and how the groupmembers work together during a peer review session, students begin to recognize the impor-tance of the non-writing related aspects of peer review.

Finally, after discussing commentary and group dynamics, the class is ready to try theirhand at peer review. This normally occurs during a second class period (after the fishbowlactivity). I begin by placing students together in groups of three to four (I have found thatmore than four members in a peer group causes too much repetition in comments and forcesthe group to move more quickly through papers in order to fit everyone in during the allottedtime period). All the groups get the same sample student paper, usually one a past studenthas given me permission to use. The paper I use for this session is usually one of averagequality, written well enough to be understood but containing some significant problems inargument, development, organization, and/or grammar. The groups are asked to read thesample and respond back to it silently first, noting strengths, weaknesses, and confusions.After each student has finished his/her reading and response, the group talks about the paperand looks closely at the responses offered, deciding which of their comments are productive,which would need to be rewritten, and which may need to be eliminated. From this discussion,


they develop one overall group response to the paper from their individual responses. Eachgroup, then, discusses their combined response to the paper with the rest of the class, notingalso the process the group went through in developing this response (this discussion oftenfocuses on the discussions the group had while deciding which comments to keep and whichto discard). The activity helps to emphasize much of the work done during the previous twoactivities but also stresses the importance of group response during peer review; while eachmember is responding back to the writer’s text, it is a group response that the writer will even-tually take with him/her for revision. Finally, this time to practice peer review gives studentsa chance to experience the dynamics that occur during a peer review session (including howto handle peers that dominate discussions, peers who resist offering feedback, and the overallrelationships that develop among reviewers) and to ask me questions about the process.

After this mock review, time is spent discussing more practical aspects of peer review,such as

• How much of a draft should be completed before the review (my usually response isthat “the more you have done, the more you can have read and reviewed,” but alsostating that arriving with a draft slightly under the required page limit can be helpfulfor future revision),

• The number of drafts to bring (for my classes, this is always the same number as peergroup members, without forgetting a copy for themselves), and

• Time management issues (to ensure that each student’s paper receives adequate reviewtime, I usually suggest no more than 20 minutes on one paper).

The Writer’s Worksheet is also introduced and explained at this time, as I stress that the writerwill be expected to run the review on his/her paper (more on this in the next section and Appen-dix). Overall, the two classes prior to the first peer review session provide significant structurefor students, introducing important ideas and activities that will guide peer review for theremainder of the semester. As their instructor, it offers me a chance to hear more about theirprevious experiences with review and to anticipate possible problems that may occur later inthe class. But, perhaps more importantly, this preparation leads to a greater understanding ofwriting and revision among the students in my classroom. I have found that the time put intopeer review preparation has led to more experienced and confident writers while allowing meto focus on larger issues in student texts during my own commentary. While time-consuming,these activities have created a more peer review-friendly atmosphere in my college classes.

Writer’s Worksheet

As mentioned earlier, a recurring problem during previous peer review sessions was thatsome writers often felt they did not receive back adequate or appropriate feedback on theirpapers. Meeting with students in conferences or reading over student reflections, I noted howoften students were critical of the feedback their peers offered when reviewing each other’spapers, noting that many of these comments were vague and uninformative (i.e. “this is good”or “you have an A paper here”) or comments the writer saw as abusive or highly critical (i.e.,“you need to learn how to use a dictionary” or “you are completely wrong about your thoughtson this issue”). While at times this criticism about peer feedback was unfounded, since I laterdiscovered that peers had offered effective feedback (more on this issue in the next section),my observations of peer review sessions and analysis of peer comments did confirm that somepeers were resistant or reluctant to offer feedback or focused more on lower order concernsinstead of the overall argument or content of the paper.


However, these observations also highlighted the lack of participation among many ofthe writers during the sessions. When peers offered vague or confusing feedback, writers wouldrarely ask for more information or clarification. When peers focused more on lower orderissues, writers would either accept the revisions without question or offer a statement like“yea, I know I need to fix that stuff before I turn it in.” Thus, it seemed that writers werecontent to take this unproductive feedback “as is” and chalk up the experience to being placedinto a “poor” peer group. Later discussions during student-teacher conferences, when I askedwriters about their participation (or lack thereof ) in the sessions, emphasized this view aswriters argued that asking for more feedback was “pointless” since they did not expect to getanything else from their peers.

My first attempt at changing this environment focused on creating more detailed work-sheets, where peers were asked to focus on and respond to four to five specific areas of the textas they read. The use of worksheets during peer review sessions has been spoken of highly inpast research on the activity (Neubert and McNelis; Barron; Samson and McCrea), and asimple Google search for “peer review” and “worksheet” will bring back dozens of onlineexamples. The worksheets were often tied to the assignment that students were currently writ-ing and focused on mainly content and organizational issues. For example, for a commentaryassignment that asked students to choose a controversial issue and write an editorial about it,the worksheet contained some of the following questions:

ÿ Has the writer considered opposing views on the topic? If not, what are some viewshe/she should consider?

ÿ Has the writer incorporated emotional appeals (pathos) into the text? What are someother emotional appeals that could be included?

ÿ Is the commentary organized in a way that is clear and understandable?

Other assignments may contain different types of questions (for example, a more descriptiveassignment like a memoir would focus more on the inclusion of strong details, background,and/or dialogue).

During the session, peer reviewers were to read the writer’s paper, place some notes andcomments on the worksheet, and then discuss the paper as a group, with the writer takingthe worksheets with him or her after the session ended. While these worksheets increased dis-cussions somewhat, the use of the sheets also led to an increased number of silent conferences,as peers were content to just fill out the sheet and hand it back to the writer with little to nodiscussion (and again with almost no encouragement from the writer for more feedback). Ialso tried a no worksheet approach, with the writer reading the paper out loud as the reviewerslistened, later offering their feedback based on what they heard in the text. While some groupsexcelled in this environment, most students argued that the level of noise in the room, alongwith the difficulty of listening to a paper without a copy in front of them, were problematicand caused me to end this experiment. Thus, I was faced with two problems: writers who feltthey were not receiving enough feedback and were reluctant to ask for more feedback alongwith reviewers who were content to offer vague feedback orally or only slightly more extensivefeedback on a worksheet with almost no oral conversation about the paper.

Reflecting on these past experiences, I came to the conclusion that my revisions may havebeen misguided. In my efforts to focus mainly on changing how peers responded to texts, Ihad failed to consider the silent role of the writer during these peer review sessions. Regardlessof whether peers were responding to open-ended or more directive questions, or whether thepaper was read silently or listened to out loud, the writer’s role during these session neverseemed to change. She was most often a background figure, forced to listen or read peers’


advice while offering few questions about this information. Thus, I decided to approach mynext revision of these sessions from a different perspective. Instead of trying to change thereading and responding practices of the reviewers, I turned my attention to changing howwriters participated during sessions. As Barron points out, writers need to be the focus. Whileadvocating the use of guiding questions (discussed below), he says that placing control of thesession into the writer’s hands makes “clear that the final responsibility for the assignment lieswith the writer, not with the group. Group members advise, but writers have to decide whichadvice to follow ... [helping] writers sometimes see options for revising they did not recognizewhile they were concentrating on the print copy of their paper” (30).

What emerged from these reflections was the Writer’s Worksheet. While the worksheetsI used before this change provided a structure for the peer reviews, the lack of discussionamong the groups and tendency for the writer to disassociate with the process led me to designa new worksheet that would maintain that structure students desired but also require thewriter to become a more active member of the group. The questions on the worksheet areorganized into three sections (Appendix A). First, writers are asked to write down any specificquestions they need answered during the review; I encourage writers to produce questionsabout areas where they struggled most with the text or areas that, as they reread it, just didnot “sound right.” Writers are advised to do this work while their reviewers read over theirtext. Second, three general questions are asked based on the work of Peter Elbow and others;the questions focus on overall strengths, areas of confusion, and suggestions for revision. Thefinal section usually includes two to four questions that are more specific to the criteria forthe given assignment. My hope is that if these criteria are overlooked in the discussion of thegeneral questions, that those areas will be reinforced in this set of questions.

In many ways, the sheet was similar to ones used in previous classes. The major differencewas how the questions were framed, as these placed the direction of the peer review sessioninto the hands of the writer. No longer would writers be allowed to sit quietly, check textmessages, or briefly look over their paper while peers read the draft and wrote responses onpeer review sheets. Now, the writer is the one who asks peers the questions on the sheet. Sheis the one responsible for maintaining the discussion, encouraging peers to elaborate on com-ments and suggestions. And, writers are asked to return to the questions placed in the firstsection of the worksheet, emphasizing the fact that writers need to make sure they receivedanswers to them. If not, then those questions should be asked to the group for additionalfeedback. These writer-focused questions hopefully ensure that the writer leaves the peersession with information on those areas that have caused her the most trouble or frustrationwhile writing the paper. In later revisions to the worksheets, I have made more of an effortto tie the worksheet to the assignment criteria (see Appendix B for an example).

The worksheet also changes the dialogue that occurs during the reviews. To begin with,reviewers no longer write down answers to questions and silently return them to the writer.Instead, questions are written to be asked orally by the writer; instead of simply sitting backand listening to what reviewers had to say, the writer controls when questions are asked andhow much time is spent on those questions. And, what has become most important duringthe session, the writer now records this feedback from reviewers, asking for clarification oradditional information when necessary. I have found that writers resist simply writing down“this is a good paper,” both because they know I will be looking at this worksheet and becausethey want more extensive feedback. While listening in on sessions, I routinely hear writersoffering such questions and statements as “Tell me more about why the introduction is notworking,” “Can you explain why you feel like the organization is confusing?,” and “I’m gladyou like my use of research—is there anywhere else I can add more from my sources?” The


worksheet encourages writers to be more active during the sessions, probing reviewers foradditional information.

The Writer’s Worksheet has not solved all the previous problems of the past; some stu-dents are still silent during the sessions and some writers continue to be reluctant to push theirreviewers for more information. But, it has significantly changed the overall attitude studentshave toward peer review in my classes. Now, instead of students coming to student-teacherconferences with a negative view toward peer review, they arrive ready to talk about commentsthey received from their peers and how they have either used or are considering using thesecomments. Writers routinely (and often enthusiastically) point to areas of the Writer’s Work-sheet that they want to discuss with me. In class, peer review sessions are usually more livelyand groups often spend more time reviewing each other’s papers. Overall, the Writer’s Work-sheet has created a more productive atmosphere for peer review in my classes, which has helpedme in reducing the time I need to spend reintroducing peer review later in the semester whilealso allowing me to be more specific in my comments on student papers.

Responding to Peer Comments

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to co-teach a summer research writing coursewith a colleague. Over the course of six weeks, we met almost daily with the class, each takingthe lead on the activity or discussion for that particular class period. My colleague and I col-laborated on course and assignment design, met weekly to discuss the course and our expe-riences, and negotiated together final grades for students. The experience was eye-opening,as we not only worked together to create an interesting course on language and identity, butwere able to spend time reflecting on the different assignments and activities used in our pre-vious classes. As you might expect, one of the activities we discussed at length was peer review.Like myself, my colleague had experienced similar successes and struggles as mentioned inthis essay, including watching writers and peers sitting silently during the reviews, listeningduring student-teacher conferences to writers bemoan the review comments they had received,and, most importantly, reading student reflective memos and/or peer review worksheets thatcontained strong peer comments, yet were not even considered by the student writer. Thislast point became the one that garnered most of our attention, as we wondered aloud howoften writers overlooked strong comments from peers during reviews. Some research hasemphasized the strength of student-generated comments and suggestions during peer review;for example, Rollinson discusses a past study he conducted that found that “80% of [peer]comments were considered valid, and only 7% were potentially damaging” (24). Ziv foundthat, after some experience with peer response, reviewers began to offer more concrete sug-gestions for revision, validating the comments students often receive from peers. And, OlgaVillamil and Maria C. M. de Guerrero found that L2 writers incorporated a significant amountof peer suggestions into their texts and that, upon teacher reflection, about 95 percent of theserevisions were in line with ones the teachers would also have offered. Thus, we set aboutreflecting on how we could get writers to devote more attention to peer comments.

While discussing our past experiences, we began to wonder what effect responding directlyto the peer comments as part of our response to the paper would have on student writing. Inother words, rather than just looking at the peer worksheets, would writing comments explicitlylinked toward those peer comments influence how writers revised their papers? With thisquestion in mind, we set out with a plan to make peer review a more visible part of the course.First, we each decided to use a modified version of our peer review sheets; my colleague pre-ferred more specific questions tied to the students’ texts while I had recently begun using the


aforementioned Writer’s Worksheet. Our decision was to create peer review worksheets thatcontained both general and specific questions geared toward the assignment, but follow theWriter’s Worksheet approach of having the writer ask her peers the questions and then record-ing down their comments (this experience led to the revised Writer’s Worksheet discussed inthe previous section). Students understood that the worksheets would be turned in with eachassignment; to this end, a significant penalty reduction was included if the worksheet wasmissing.

Both instructors taught one half, roughly three weeks, of the course. As there were fourmajor assignments, we each had the chance to respond and grade two of these papers.1 Ourmethod for response was as follows: after reading the student’s draft, we moved into a focusedreading of the peer review worksheet. Reading over the worksheet, we looked specifically forcomments from peers that echoed comments we would offer to the student. Then we tied ourcomments directly to the peer’s suggestions as a way of highlighting the value of these peercomments. For example, if a peer wrote that the paper needed a more appealing introductionand we agreed with that assessment, our comment would be “I agree with your peers’ ideason the need for a more appealing introduction. In addition to their suggestions, I would alsooffer the following....” After tying our comments to peer comments, we finished by writingan endnote that either reinforced comments from the worksheet or addressed other issues thepeers had not mentioned. Often, these endnotes were shorter than endnotes we had writtenin previous classes and there were even a few times when we did not need to offer an endcomment (since the peers’ suggestions had covered almost all of the comments we would haveoffered).

Looking back on the course and student comments, this method of response changedthe dynamics of the class in different ways. First, after receiving back a few responses from usthat pointed directly to the peers’ suggestions, students spent more time discussing and askingfor additional feedback from peers. As we observed peer sessions, we witnessed writers askingmore questions while pushing reviewers for additional information, especially about questionsthey had about the text. During conferences, students spoke highly about the comments theirpeers offered and frequently connected peer comments to the writer’s ideas for revision. Whilewe did not mention our strategy of responding to the peers’ comments during the course, afew students remarked that it seemed the peers were catching most of their “mistakes” in peerreview and they noticed the similarities between peer and teacher comments. In other words,writers began to value peer feedback at a much higher rate than they had in previous courseswe each had taught, and peer response became a more visible aspect of the class and courseconversations. In addition, we found that writers incorporated far more of their peers’ com-ments into their papers than when the course began. This, in turn, allowed us to focus ourteacher comments on fewer areas, but also offered us the chance to go into more detail withour comments. Finally, we both noted an overall change in attitude toward the activity ofpeer review. While past classes usually consisted of some students who liked the activity, somewho disliked it, and some who were ambivalent, this class contained a much higher numberof students who expressed satisfaction and excitement about peer review. Peer review days were very well attended (a problem area for many instructors at our university) and stu-dents always came well-prepared for discussion. We also found that the sophistication and specificity of student comments on the worksheet improved noticeably after the first session. Overall, the move to include peer comments in our response methods proved highlylucrative and changed many of the dynamics of our classroom. Both instructors have contin-ued to use the method, with equal success, in more recent first-year and advanced writingcourses.


Conclusion“I enjoyed peer review in this class. It was a community atmosphere and the feedback I

got from my peers was valuable.”“I learned to become more open to change and thankful for feedback from our peer

review sessions.”“I’ve hated this process in the past. I’m still not sure about my feelings about review, but

I do feel that I got better comments from others this semester than in past courses.”Peer review can still be frustrating. I still shake my head as a group ends review after

about twenty minutes, and I still get some negative comments directed my way during stu-dent-teacher conferences. But the changes to peer review addressed here have not only increasedstudent appreciation for the process, as shown in the above comments on my recent end-of-year in-class assessments, but it has reinvigorated my belief in keeping peer review as a promi-nent part of my classroom. While I imagine that I will continue to reflect on the process andmy practices will still change in light of these reflections, I know now that, when properlyintroduced and structured, peer review can become a valuable tool in writing classrooms andcan help to produce inquisitive, critical writers who begin to understand the value of peerresponse.

Appendix A

The following is a general outline of the Writer’s Worksheet(with adjusted spacing to fit here)

Writer’s WorksheetWriter’s Name: _____________________________________________

Before we begin the workshop, make note of any questions youhave about your text and write those questions down here:

As your readers talk with you about your text, make notes of important information in the spaces below and on theback of this sheet that will help you during your revision:

General Questions

My readers felt the following were the strongest parts/sectionsof my text (include why they felt these were strong sections).

My readers felt the following were parts/sections of my text thatwere confusing and/or where I needed to add more information.

My readers offered the following suggestions towardsimproving my text (with a focus on content, use of research,

organization, development, purpose, transitions, etc.)

Specific Questions

NOTE: In this section, I often include 2–3 questions that are geared toward specific criterialisted on the assignment sheet. I use these questions to emphasize the main areas I will focusmy evaluation on.

STOP!! Before you wrap up the peer review, make sure that you have received someanswers or information for the questions you listed at the beginning of this sheet.


Appendix BThe following is a sample assignment sheet used in my

first year classes along with the Writer’s Worksheet gearedtoward that assignment (with adjusted spacing).

Commentary Assignment: Toledo Problem

5–6 page paper Due: August 5

General: For this paper, you will have the chance to write a commentary about a problemthat affects the city of Toledo, a significant part of the city of Toledo (such as a school districtor a larger community) or a surrounding area (such as Sylvania, Perrysburg, etc). In addition,you will learn how to use the commentary to structure and advance an argument. Some keywriting tools will include structuring arguments, using tools of persuasion, identifying a callto action, and incorporating research into a commentary.

Specifics: Your goals will be to:

• Summarize the current problem (including background information) and what you feel arethe causes and effects of the problem;

• Recount other perspectives/arguments on the problem (i.e. include perspectives from otherpeople who feel there is a problem AND from people who feel there is not a problem); and

• Advance your argument and a call to action (i.e. solution[s]) in relation to that topic.

Questions: As you write your commentary, keep in mind the following questions:• In your opinion, why is this a problem and what are the causes and effects? Does everyone

agree that this is a problem; if not, what are other perspectives on this issue?• What do readers need to know in order to understand why this is a problem?• What types of evidence, research, emotional appeals, and statements from authority will

you need to strengthen your argument?• What are possible solutions? What is the possible call to action?

Criteria: As I look over your commentaries, I will keep in mind the following criteria:• Definition of the problem and clear explanation of the causes and effects• Inclusion of different (both pro and con) perspectives on the problem• Written so that multiple audiences can understand issues• Inclusion of a call to action for readers• Strong grammar, mechanics, word choice, etc.

Research: For this commentary, writers should include 5–6 sources gathered from research.You must have:• At least one online source (i.e. websites, online articles, etc);• At least one print-based source (a book or an article); and• At least one primary research source (interview, survey, observation).• The other 2–3 sources can be from either of these or from other sources (film, television,

radio, public relations documents, etc).

All sources listed on the works cited page must be used in the text itself (either as a quote,paraphrase, statistic, etc). Commentaries will be deducted one percentage point for each sourcenot included.


Note1. The two instructors met at the end of the semester to decide on the students’ final grades, taking into

consideration the grades on the two essays we each read, along with grades for classroom work and in-classwriting.

Works CitedBarron, Ronald. “What I Wish I Had Known About Peer Response Groups but Didn’t.” English Journal 80.5

(1991): 24–34. Print.Beaven, Mary, H. “Individualized Goal-Setting, Self-Evaluation, and Peer Evaluation.” Evaluating Writing:

Describing, Measuring, Judging. Eds. Charles R. Cooper and Lee Odell. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1977. 135–56. Print.

Brammer, Charlotte, and Mary Rees. “Peer Review From the Students’ Perspective: Invaluable or Invalid?”Composition Studies 35.2 (2007): 71–85. Print.

Chaudron, Craig. “The Effects of Feedback on Students’ Composition Revisions.” RELC Journal 15.2(1984):1–14. Print.

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Freedman, Sarah W. The Role of Response in Acquisition of Written Language. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1985. Print.

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Haswell, Richard. “The Complexities of Responding to Student Writing; or, Looking for Shortcuts Via theRoad of Excess.” Across the Disciplines. 9 November 2006. Web. 29 July 2010. N. pg.

Holt, Mary. “The Value of Written Peer Criticism.” College Composition and Communication 43.3 (1992):384–392. Print.

Lamberg, Walter. “Self-Provided and Peer-Provided Feedback.” College Composition and Communication 31.1(1980):63–69. Print.

Meier, Nicholas. “Peer Writing Response Groups in a Language Minority Classroom.” Teaching and Learning16.1 (2001): 7–16. Print.

Moore, L.K. “Teaching Students How to Evaluate Writing.” TESOL Newsletter 20.5 (1986): 23–24. Print.Newkirk, Thomas. “How Students Read Student Papers: An Exploratory Study.” Written Communication.

1.3 (1984): 283–305. Print.Neubert, Gloria A., and Sally J. McNelis. “Peer Response: Teaching Specific Revision Suggestions.” English

Journal 79.5 (1990): 52–56. Print.Rollinson, Paul. “Using Peer Feedback in the ESL Writing Class.” ELT Journal 59.1 (2005): 23–30. Print.Samson, Sue, and Donna E. McCrea. “Using Peer Review to Foster Good Teaching.” Reference Services Review

36.1 (2008): 61–70. Print.Villamil, Olga S., and Maria C. M. de Guerrero. “Assessing the Impact of Peer Revision on L2 Writing”

Applied Linguistics 19.4 (1998): 491–514. Print.Ziv, Nina D. “Peer Groups in the Composition Classroom: A Case Study.” Paper presented at the 34th Annual

Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, 1983. 11 pp. [ED 229 799].Print.


Reinventing Peer Review Using WritingCenter Techniques: Teaching Students

to Use Peer-Tutorial Methodolog y

CATHERINE SIMPSON KALISH, JENNIFER L. J. HEINERT, AND

VALERIE MURRENUS PILMAIER

Peer review can be a frustrating experience for students and instructors alike. Studentsare cast in the positions of surrogate English instructors, while instructors are left with littleto do but supervise. Writing centers, on the other hand, are often a hub of activity that manyof the best students turn to when a paper is due. As Composition instructors and formerwriting center tutors and directors, we created a way to blend peer tutorial techniques within-class peer review. Our peer tutorial method is grounded in writing center theory, which isbuilt on the premise that undergraduate students are capable of working one on one in a pro-ductive, collaborative capacity. In The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring, Paula Gillespieand Neal Lerner explain, “As a tutor, you don’t have to be an expert on the subject matter ofthe paper the writer is working on, and you don’t even have to be an expert in grammar andcorrectness—knowing that something isn’t right is probably enough” (24). With instruction,students can ask thoughtful questions of each other’s work and then take time for the writerto think about his or her paper. Essentially, our method emphasizes students working in pairs,the reviewer taking the role of engaged reader (rather than instructor or expert), the writerthinking critically about his or her work, and both students focusing on having a conversationabout each of their papers. In this process the students are engaged in the revision processwith their papers and see that giving and receiving good feedback is an important element ofthe composition process.

We recognize that Composition instructors and other writing-intensive instructors mayuse differing terminology; therefore, when we discuss the concept of traditional peer review,we use Sonja L. Armstrong and Eric J. Paulson’s definition from their article “Whither “PeerReview”?: Terminology Matters for the Writing Classroom” from the May 2008 issue of Teach-ing English in the Two-Year College where she states that “peer review is often considered anactivity that is more focused on holistic concerns, rhetorical issues, and issues of meaning andaudience appropriateness” and is less inclined to “discussion-driven feedback” (400–401, 402).However, even with the difficulties encountered by both teachers and students trying to forgea successful peer review experience, both groups overwhelmingly understand its importance.

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In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a college English class that does not engage in someversion of peer review. Similarly, this means that students are also familiar with peer review,whether it is a positive or negative experience for them. Charlotte Brammer observed in herarticle “Peer Review from the Students’ Perspective: Invaluable or Invalid?” that “[a]fter sur-veying the Composition students at her school and analyzing the resulting data, the findingsclearly demonstrated that when peer review became an essential component of the class, wasconducted regularly, and those sessions were conducted in the classroom, students were morelikely to consider it a positive experience” (77). Therefore, it may not be the practice itselfbut instructors’ approaches to it that made the experience positive or negative for the students.While our own students often grumble about peer review, an astonishing 89.9 percent ofthem commented that they found peer review to be “somewhat” to “very” beneficial whensurveyed in 2006 (Ahrenhoerster and Phillips). So what to do? How does our method bridgethe gap? In our version of peer review, it is the discussion aspect so often missing from tra-ditional peer review that virtually eliminates the pitfalls of the traditional version by takingthe onus off of the peer reviewer as “fixer” and turning the experience into a conversation thatis mutually beneficial to both writer and reviewer

Our System: The Peer-Tutorial MethodThe following seven steps outline the process of the peer-tutorial method of peer review:

1. Group students into pairs.2. Provide students with instruction about the Peer Tutorial Method. In our case, we

read the instructions as listed in “Preparing the Students for Peer Review” (below).3. As students begin to work, pay attention to how they are working. If students try to

“swap” papers, redirect them, and encourage them to look at one paper at a time.4. Students will begin to talk about their writing. Listen in! Be sure that students are

engaged in conversation. If groups finish early, feel free to jump in. At some points,you may have to model what the process should look like. One way to do this is toread through the introduction together and ask the writer, “now that we’ve read theintroduction, what do you think of it? Does it do what it is supposed to?”

5. Students who are struggling may want to refer to an assignment sheet, rubric, or the“Questions to Ask During Peer Review” (below).

6. Students will no doubt have debates about the appropriate way to handle differentrhetorical situations. The instructor’s job is to be responsive to these students.

7. Enjoy the “buzz” of the classroom! Your students are doing good work!

Preparing the Students for Peer ReviewWe read the following instructions aloud to our students at the beginning of each peer

review. Our instructions give students a structure for how they are to conduct their peerreview, but the instructions do not “micro-manage” them. Rather, it is the students’ respon-sibility to review each paper together and jointly decide whether or not it successfully fulfillsthe assignment.

Peer-Tutorial Review InstructionsToday you will be conducting a peer-tutorial method of peer review. Please listen

carefully to the following directions. If you have any questions, please ask at the endof the instructions.

Reinventing Peer Review (Kalish, Heinert and Pilmaier) 31

• You will work with just one person during this session. If there is a group ofthree, I will discuss with the individual group how you will handle the review.

• Each pair should review one paper at a time; do not simply trade papers. Youshould sit with the paper between you both so that you can each see the text.

• As you review each other’s work, be sure to divide the time equally so that eachof you has time to receive feedback.

Reviewer:Your job is to present your thoughts on the paper. You aren’t an English instructor,

so you are not expected to fix grammatical or spelling errors, necessarily (though ifyou see them, feel free to point them out). Rather, share your thoughts, ideas, andquestions with the writer. If there is a section of text that is confusing to you, tell thewriter. If there is an area that you’d like to know more about, point that out. Yourjob is to tell the writer how you, as a smart reader, react to the paper.

Writer:Your job is to think carefully about your paper. Keep a pen in your hand and jot

down notes when necessary. You are responsible for your paper, so you have the rightto accept or reject any suggestions as you revise your paper, though you should care-fully consider the feedback the reviewer gives you.

Finally, I will give you a hand out that outlines some questions to ask if you needhelp getting jumpstarted. If you have any time left when your review is complete,make a to-do list that outlines what you will need to do in order to revise this paperto an “A” level work.

Then, working in pairs, the students read one another’s papers, and the method they useto do this varies from student group to student group. Some students read the papers together,some students swap papers, read them, and then discuss them one at a time, and some havethe writer or the reviewer read it aloud and then move on.

Next, the pair takes one paper at a time and systematically reviews it sentence by sentence,if need be, and talks through each paper with one another. Most students sit side-by-side andwork paragraph by paragraph until they reach the end of the paper. We mandate that the onlyperson allowed to write on the draft is the writer him/herself. In too many cases, we have seenthe reviewer reduce the writer’s confidence by taking on the role of teacher and “correcting”the draft. This method emphasizes that the point is discussion and process, not editing andcorrecting. In most cases, students are able to maintain a fruitful conversation about the papersthat lasts until the end of the period, but there are some that have difficulty opening a dialogueabout their writing processes. For these students we developed a list of general questions thatcould be used as a springboard for discussion:

Questions Reviewers Can Ask During Peer Review

• How does the title engage the reader?• Why did you choose this topic?• How are you engaging/accounting for the audience/readers in the introduction? Why

(or why not) do you think the readers need (or do not need) background information?Why do you think readers will be interested in this topic and question? How does itexplain why the topic is significant or worthy of further examination?

• If it’s a topic sentence, does it forecast/encapsulate the paragraph? Which topic sentencescould be improved? Which topic sentences work well?

• How are you showing when and where information comes from another source? Howcan you improve this? What information do you think readers should know about the


sources you are using? Is the information from someplace else? If so, is it cited? Wheredo you need to include citations?

• If you have a quotation, how do you explain its logical relationship to the idea clearlyto the reader?

• Where would the writer benefit from attributive tags?• What information is worth including in your attributive tag?• How does the explanation of the quotations (and summaries and paraphrases) support

the points?• How does the paper move logically from one idea to the next? Does the paragraph

seem fully developed? Is there more information that you’d like to know? How doeseach paragraph tie back to and support the thesis? Why are the paragraphs /sentencesin this order? What is this paragraph/sentence supposed to do? Is that what it does?Do you like it?

• Does your sentence/paragraph transition from the previous sentence? Flow to the next?• Is there a logical connection from one idea to the next?• What are you trying to do in the introduction/paragraph/sentence/conclusion? Do you

like it?• What does the conclusion do? What does the writer want it to do? Does it simply sum-

marize, or does it go on to forecast the next step in research or the implications of theauthors’ ideas? Does it do something else? What is the reader’s reaction to the conclu-sion?

• How does the paper fulfill the assignment? Is there anything that is missing? Whichcriteria are done particularly well? Which criteria could the writer work at? How?

• What holes or gaps do there seem to be? What other information or explanation wouldhelp make the paper clearer or stronger? What ideas are clear? Confusing? Exciting?Funny? Thought-provoking? Surprising?

We feel that it is important to note that most of the students did consult this list of questionsduring their peer review sessions, but they knew that these questions were intended to inspirediscussion and were not meant to be answered, in writing, by the reviewer. Indeed, when thestudents realized that they did not have to write answers to the questions and, further, thatthe only person who should be writing anything was the writer (in order to keep track ofplans for revision), students were able to concentrate on the content of the paper rather thanwriting out answers to questions. With each successive peer review, the students jumped intothe discussion stages more rapidly because they realized that talking about their writing helpedthem to understand more intimately what they were trying to communicate, thus ultimatelyimproving their written communication skills.

During our peer reviews, we inform students that if they are peer reviewing correctly,they will not have finished their conversation by the end of class. When students do “finish”before class is over, we ask them to do the following:

1. Review the assignment sheet and consider whether or not the assignment is fulfilledsuccessfully.

2. Examine the “Questions Reviewers Can Ask During Peer Review” (see above). Somestudents just aren’t sure how to get started. While this list looks like a fairly “tradi-tional” heuristic that one might ask students to consider during peer review, studentsare not required to fill out the answers. “Finished” students can benefit from modelingthis process. For example, you point out a quotation, and ask the writer, “Do you


have an attributive tag here? Do you need one? Is this cited appropriately?” Aftergoing through this exercise with the pair, then you can suggest that they review therest of the quotations together.

3. If the groups insist that they have reviewed the assignment and the papers in-depth,you can ask each student to make a “to-do” list. We often remind the students thatthe great ideas that they come up with in class may be easily forgotten during theseven hours it will take before they look at their paper again. After each student makesthe to-do list for his or her own paper, the pair can swap and then suggest additions.

How This Method Varies from Traditional Peer Review

Traditional Peer Review Peer Tutorial Method

Reviewer instructs writer Reviewer asks questions of writerReviewer is responsible for suggesting changes Writer suggests changesBoth students often “swap” papers, comment Time is spent in conversation betweenon them, or fill out a worksheet the reviewer and the writer.

Students work in small groups Students look at each Instructor isn’t engaged with students paper together. Students work in pairs Instructor moves around the room fielding questions

When you use this method of peer review, you will notice that many of the traditional class-room dynamics that you are used to with the traditional method change. One notable differ-ence is that the entire peer review atmosphere and classroom environment under this modelis strikingly different. Rather than a silent room filled with students reading drafts and respond-ing to questions on paper (like many of our former peer review sessions), the classroom nowhas a low buzz of students talking earnestly in pairs. We noted in our observational data1 that“it sounds like a beehive, or like ... a writing center!” For the most part, students follow thedirections, and when students try to avoid the process, the instructor is there to help get themengage more fully in the process.

Another phenomenon that frequently occurs as a result of this method of peer review isstudents reading their writing aloud. Often students will pick a sentence or paragraph to readaloud as a way to initiate discussion. This allows the writer and reviewer to hear it as it isactually written, without getting bogged down in reading an entire draft, thereby yieldingfruitful discussion. For example, one reviewer read a few sentences of a writer’s draft aloudand then asked her, “Can you show this?” Another example of this took place when a reviewerread a section of the paper and then asked the writer, “Do you need this?” The writer answeredby saying, “I want to include this because of background but I don’t know what to do withit.” The reviewer then went on to give the writer a few ideas about how it could be used.These discussions show that students are able to give specific feedback to writers about theirpapers (despite not following a worksheet that directed them to do so).

One of the most exciting differences comes straight from the students’ mouths via thedepth and complexity of their discussions about their own writing. Indeed, we noted thatwriter-reviewer conversations consistently related to all four categories of the Learning Out-comes for our Composition course—Rhetorical Knowledge, Knowledge of Conventions, Crit-ical Thinking, Reading, Writing, and Research, and Processes.

Many writer-reviewer discussions focus on clarification, and in these discussions there isevidence of students demonstrating and understanding of conventions, rhetorical knowledge,and processes. For example, students ask each other things like, “That sounds like you mean


it this way—do you?” “It’s hard for me to read this sentence,” and “You could say this anotherway.” In commentaries like these, the reviewers demonstrate a clear awareness of audience(both the writer they are working with, and the audience of his or her paper). Another reviewermay ask a writer “What is your question? You are discussing two distinct things—are youasking about both or not?” This type of comment demonstrates the reviewer giving valuablefeedback about critical research—the ability to generate and develop a research question andthesis—and the writer needing to clarify how she is going to approach the paper. Our approachto peer review asks students to use skills with which they are already equipped. They are muchmore comfortable with their own identity as students than they are with being a stand-in foran English instructor.

The main focus of the discussions seemed to stay on higher order concerns, but we didnote a few comments about mechanics, grammar, and style: Some writers said things like “I’llcatch the grammar later,” and some reviewers were comfortable telling writers to check withthe source of the authority when they were unclear. Yet, even when focusing on lower-orderconcerns, the groups seemed to be much more collaborative than they were in the traditionalpeer review model.

An additional surprise is that many discussions move beyond the assignment and its con-straints into content knowledge. For example, one reviewer, when discussing a paper aboutpharmaceuticals, questioned a writer about other sources and points of view on the topic byasking, “Does the FDA have any say?” Another reviewer asked a writer to frame her argumentmore specifically: “Is this an education basis, sociology basis, or psychology basis?” By havingreal discussions about their papers, students recognize that ethos, logos, and pathos are notjust terms bandied about in the classroom but important tools that can make their papersmore effective. Our method of peer review helps students better meet the learning outcomesof the course content.1

The role of the instructor in peer review is another thing that changes dramatically inour method of peer review. All writing instructors understand that it is our duty to instructour students in the merits of receiving and providing good feedback, as this is a crucial skill-set to master in order to be successful in college and beyond.2 Further, even if we do not stateit explicitly, the understanding of disciplinary conventions particular to Composition is oneof the inherent goals that all Composition teachers hope our students absorb from this process,and this is a goal that is revered in both writing center and Composition peer review circles.We want our students to think about the larger, higher-order concerns that are emphasizedin a peer tutoring session (audience, genre, purpose, strategies) as well as the assignment-specific concerns targeted in a classroom peer review session (whether they are doing what theassignment specifically asks of them). Typically, an instructor hopes to impart the under-standing of the importance of giving and receiving good feedback and the necessity of stressinghigher-order concerns over lower order concerns via the questions that must be answered onthe sheets handed out during peer review (as mentioned above). Because the students arebusily filling out the questions during the class hour, there is little for the instructor to do,except answer the odd question here and there, which is usually a clarification of one of thequestions on the sheet or a grammar question. One complaint of more traditional peer reviewsis that instructors feel as though they have nothing to do; typically an instructor may bringa stack of papers or a book to read and awkwardly sit in the classroom waiting for the occasionalquestion. One of the surprises of our study was that the instructor plays a very different typeof role in the peer-tutorial classroom. Indeed, in each class visited, the instructor spent themajority of class time moving from group to group, not only helping to direct (or in somecases redirect) student groups, but also answering questions about the assignment in general


or about student-specific essays and questions. These interactions most often range from questionsabout process and content, to rhetoric, and occasionally to style and grammar. In some cases,one student’s concern will be an opportunity for the instructor to point out something to theentire class, but in nearly all cases, the questions arose from a point of discussion. For example,in one class, two students were debating whether or not contextual information to be includedwas too basic. The writer wanted to include a great deal of background information for thereader, while the reader thought that it was more information than necessary. The studentscalled the instructor to come in and help them find the answer to their question. In addition,the instructor is often called upon to help define assignment criteria and field questions aboutformatting and citation.

Because this was a new way of thinking of peer review, we would commonly have studentsbackslide to the traditional method of peer review and that necessitated instructor involvement.Indeed, we found that during every peer review session, a few students would revert to the“old” way of peer review—trade papers, write “good!” and believe that they were finished—and needed the instructor to remind them of the process or jumpstart it by modeling questionsthat would generate a conversation about the writing of the paper. Typically, this nudge wasenough to get the students back on track and into the groove of our version of peer reviewagain. Some groups, however, had a difficult time knowing what to talk about. In this case,it is the instructor’s role to scan the room for struggling students. The instructor can then goand prompt the group by asking the writer what he or she thinks of the paper, suggestingquestions to focus on, or asking if there are any problems. The students have to retrain them-selves to think of peer review as a conversation about the rhetorical and subject matter issuesof their papers instead of as a hoop to jump through (and a list of discussion questions to racethrough) in order to get out of class early.

Potential Drawbacks

One of the drawbacks to this method that we anticipated is that students do not havethe opportunity to read as many student papers as they would if they worked in larger groups.For the purpose of peer review, the benefit of having pairs examine each paper in a com-prehensive way certainly outweighs the drawback of seeing fewer papers. One way to counteractthis problem and eliminate the drawbacks all together is to include a variety of student samplepapers in classroom activities. For example, an instructor may decide to conduct a “samplepeer review” by looking at two sample student papers to see which paper adheres to the assign-ment criteria, and how each paper could be improved. This type of activity will alleviate theone significant criticism of the peer-tutorial method. Moreover, this practice session preparesstudents for peer review and helps them develop the very rhetorical skills they will need to bean effective peer reviewer.

While the students themselves overwhelmingly approved of this method of peer review,the only criticism that they voiced in their reflective responses to this method of peer reviewwas that they still wanted someone to “fix” their papers. At one point in one of the observedclasses, an instructor said to the class, “Don’t worry about grammar; worry about ideas.” Wesuspect that this frustration with not having their grammar fixed by someone else has less to do with the peer review process and more to do with where these students are as develop-ing writers. They are still learning that grammatically correct sentences do little for a paperwithout substance, depth, and critical thinking. Discussion of grammar is not prohibited in anyway, but we do encourage students to start the peer review process with higher-orderconcerns.


Why the Peer-Tutorial Method

The peer tutorial method of peer review focuses students’ attention squarely on thebenefits of the conversation, which is exactly what Composition instructors aim for in peerreview—we want students to engage in collaborative conversations about each others’ workwhile developing their rhetorical skill-set. Our own peer review research shows worksheetsand heuristics just don’t work. As one student aptly put it, “I liked most not having to fill outa long drawn out sheet of paper that most students don’t even take the time to read.” Rather,in our method, students benefit from an in-depth examination of their own work. Unlike tra-ditional peer review where students fill out questionnaires about each others’ papers for theentire hour, in our method, they sit together, side-by-side in pairs, and discuss their writ-ing—the process, the intention, the challenges, the triumphs, and, occasionally, the grammar.Each pair looks at one paper at a time, from the first line to the last, and talks through thepaper. For example, the reviewer might read the first line out loud to the writer (as they areboth looking at the paper) and say “What a great opener! Good energy!” and the writer mightthen say, “Do you think I provided enough context to the reader before I get to my thesis?”and so on until they get to the end of the paper. If students get stuck or are at a loss for whatto ask next, they can either refer to the list of general questions that we supply or ask theteacher for guidance. Bringing peer-tutorial techniques into the Composition classroom allowsuseful collaboration that prompts students to move past the cursory examination of punctu-ation and spelling to a more comprehensive revision of their work.3 This hybrid form of peerreview, which emphasizes conversation and shifts the pen from the reviewer to the writer,yields positive feedback from students, more thoughtful work, a clear focus on writing as aprocess, and the practice and development of rhetorical skills.

Putting conversation first is a long standing tradition in writing centers. Kenneth Bruffee’sseminal article “Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind” revolutionizedpeer review in Composition circles because it emphasized the importance of conversation toauger learning. Indeed, it is in the process of articulating thought, consulting with others,and revising thought that much true learning takes place, and writing center theory has beenquick to pick up on that concept. Gillespie and Lerner place conversation at the heart of apeer tutorial session and demand that tutors become skilled at both listening and responding,while refraining from directive questions that could inhibit the integrity of the writer’s vision.We incorporate this ethos into our peer review methodology because it forces the writer totake responsibility for her writing choices; talking through her ideas helps a writer focus onhigher-order concerns such as thesis, organization, and audience awareness while helping herbecome aware of the ethos problems that surface from lower-level concerns of grammar andclarity.

Although the writing center provides important and valuable feedback to the writer interms of general writing skills, it cannot provide the particulars of the assignment emphasizedby the actual teacher in the Composition classroom, nor should it.4 Indeed, peer review inthe classroom must be an essential component to the writing process so that students can besure to hit the particulars of the given assignment. Moreover, assigning peer review in theComposition classroom is a way to ensure student participation, whereas using the writingcenter is a voluntary process with limited resources that cannot always reach all students,whereas in-class peer review can.

While the general concept of peer review (as focusing on the importance of feedback aspart of the writing process) is the same, the procedure and intention are very different in thewriting center and in the classroom. Both writing center tutorials and classroom peer reviews


start with the reading of a draft — whether aloud or silently — but classroom dynamics can range from one-on-one peer reviews sessions that last fifteen minutes or the entire class,to groups of four or even up to eight switching papers and discussing papers individuallyand/or in groups, to anything in-between. No matter how the instructor customizes peerreview, she or he is more often than not faced with complaints from the students. In “ImprovingStudents’ Responses to Their Peers’ Essays,” Nancy Grimm suggests that much of student(and teacher) difficulty with peer review stems from a lack of understanding of its organicnature:

Even with carefully written guidelines, students’ ability to function well in smallgroups improves slowly. Teachers can hasten improvement by showing as well astelling students about the behavior expected of them.... They [students] recognizewith relief that the typical group session starts awkwardly, gropes for direction, endson uncertainty, but still motivates and guides revision [94].

Students must learn that peer review, like writing itself, is a process that develops over time,and patience is a difficult concept for anyone, teacher and student alike, to master.

In our own research on peer review, we found that, overwhelmingly, students preferredworking in groups of two (as they would in the writing center), and one reason was becausein a group of two that lasted the entire class period, there was simply more time to examineeach paper. One student commented, “This method of peer review was very beneficial forme! I missed a lot of mistakes that my partner caught for me. I think this saved me fromgetting easy mistakes marked wrong. I liked how we sat down and discussed our paperstogether instead of swapping papers and doing them on our own.” Furthermore, by workingin pairs, students can focus on each paper, giving it the time and thoughtful examination itdeserves. One student addressed this in the follow-up survey, “it’s nice to work on each papertogether rather than to simply exchange and improve each other’s papers because when wedid it that way last semester, I felt like I was taken advantage of because the person sloppedsomething together which to me was an F paper, knowing I would basically rewrite it for her,since that was our instructions—to correct all mistakes.”

Similarly, another student identified the shift in attitude toward peer review from some-thing to be blown off, to an important activity when the dynamic was shifted from readingmultiple papers to only reading and discussing one other paper: “What was different was thatI actually got something accomplished. Normally peer review for most classes was goof aroundtime, but this time I feel like I made the time useful and beneficial to me. It was more 1 on 1time which I liked.” Students appreciate the small two or three (at most) person peer reviewgroup as well because it allows the reviewer to dwell on one paper, rather than racing throughseveral papers. “This peer review helped a lot, with just one person reviewing one paper itseemed like they were just focused on my paper. Giving me more advice on my paper. Thereviewer wasn’t reading mine quickly so they could go to the next paper. She took time andactually read the material and gave me great feedback.”

Along the same lines, another student finds that careful shared reading allows for higherquality feedback: “By us both reading the paper we were able to talk about it and get betterideas of explaining it/what we should do to change. I like this peer review because I knowanother person actually reads my paper because sometimes when we just switch papers I donot think the other person always reads it carefully.” Students appreciate the benefits thatcome from the intimacy of the peer-tutorial method of peer review.

By having a conversation with only one other person, both reader and writer are moreaccountable for the content of the discussion. One student identified how this problem is alle-


viated: “I hate handing off my paper to someone else and they write a bunch of garbage onit, this way I am in control of writing also I am more likely being able to read it.” This methodretains authority in the hands of the writer, thus improving the writer’s confidence in regardto making choices about her essay.

Another difference between our method of peer review and the “traditional” classroomversion is the deemphasizing of a set question list that must be answered in the course of thesession. In an effort to assist students with peer review, many teachers hand out a series ofdirective questions that the peer reviewer must fill out, and lack of time can lead to less thanstellar responses: “good” or “ok” becomes the go-to response instead of thoughtful reflections.As Amy Ward Martin laments in her article “Recovering Response: Emphasizing Writing asRelational Practice,”

Peer response, one of the hallmarks of writing-as-process pedagogies, has insteadcome to reinscribe writing-as-product through its evolution into an evaluative meas-ure in writing classrooms. Rather than viewing peer response as a way to help otherswith their writing and to solicit valuable feedback on their own writing, studentshave come to view peer response as yet another obstacle to surmount on the way to afinal grade [116].

While directive questions are helpful, and a safety net for the teacher hoping to ensure thatstudents do not miss essential elements in their review process, they can work to stifle discussioninstead of auger it because of the sheer amount of questions required to be answered in a finiteamount of time.6 The skill-set emphasized in the questionnaires can be difficult for studentsto acquire if they feel that they do not have the time to answer them properly, or, more prob-lematically, they feel that they have nothing important to contribute. Therefore, we do notmandate that students answer a set question list. Instead, we encourage our students to discusswhatever they feel needs to be discussed, both positives and negatives, and challenge them tointegrate the rhetorical concepts that they learn from class into their peer review discussions.

We also understand that a lack of confidence in one’s evaluation skills is one of the largestconcerns voiced by students in Composition classrooms who are called upon to critique theirpeers’ work. Kwangsu Cho aptly sums up the main strains of students’ criticism of peer reviewin “Commenting on Writing: Typology and Perceived Helpfulness of Comments from NovicePeer Reviewers and Subject Matter Experts,” with the observation that “On its face, studentsmight be expected to produce less helpful comments because they know less about the subjectmatter, are less skilled at writing, and have less experience evaluating papers than subject-matter instructors” (264). Traditionally, because of their fear of providing poor feedback,many students give vague feedback so that they can at least get credit for the exercise. However,this method of peer review emphasizes that the students are not acting in the role of an expertor teacher, but only as readers. When students understand that they are the audience part of“audience awareness,” their role in the peer review process becomes more understandable—their job is to explain to the writer how the reader interprets the text at hand and this vantagepoint can often help the writer to see that what is on the page may not be what the writerhad intended. Therefore, the instructor’s role in this part of the peer review process is toimpress upon the students that they need not be experts—on writing, on the subject matter,on anything, for that matter—but they must be willing to provide thoughtful feedback totheir peer review partners. The reviewer is no longer concerned with providing answers, cor-recting work, or even worrying about insulting or hurting the writer. The reviewer is onlyresponsible for asking questions and sharing his or her impressions of the work. Integratingthe principles of peer-tutoring with practical goals of peer review places the responsibility onthe writer, and not the reviewer, to improve his or her work.


The benefits of working with peers who have knowledge of the assignment (which cannotbe duplicated in a writing center environment) were evident in the writer-reviewer discussions.For example, one criteria of a given essay was to use attributive tags effectively. In one dis-cussion, the reviewer asked the writer about this criterion and the writer responded, “I’mpretty sure I did it.” The reviewer replied, “Okay, show me a place you did that isn’t in quo-tation marks.” Another discussion showed that the writer was uncertain whether the argumenthe was making met the assignment: “Is it okay to discuss strengths and weaknesses here?” Onepaper required a rebuttal, and the reviewer asked the writer what hers was. The writer replied,“Um, I’m not sure what a rebuttal is.” The reviewer said, “Okay, so that is when you anticipatethe other side and then your rebuttal would be talking about why that’s not good enough.”They then talked about anticipating possible objections and how she could respond to them.Moreover, the students knew that their instructor would be there to answer questions ifneeded. This environment and approach seemed to open up the possibilities of what studentscould discuss in peer review.

Our experiences with both types of peer review have brought us to the point where wecould see the unique strengths of both types of peer review—tutorial and classroom—andenabled us to integrate concepts of the tutorial method (working in pairs, going through thepaper and discussing it together, mandating that the authority remains with the writer ratherthan the reviewer, looking at higher-order concerns of writing in general) with those of class-room peer review (looking at the specifics of the assignment, ensuring the use of proper dis-course conventions). We believe that this method utilizes the best aspects of each type of peerreview and empowers our students to take an active, rather than passive, role in their learningexperience. Our students realize that they have valuable insights to contribute, and “whenstudents are engaged in the evaluation process, the focus of evaluation discussion invariablyshifts away from ... myopic attention to “correctness” to a more encompassing concentrationon the communication of ideas” (Kuhne 287–88). Students become more effective writersbecause they have learned how to be more effective communicators in general. With each peerreview, the students practice and hone the rhetorical skills that comprise the outcomes of the Composition course by having very directed conversations about their writing processesand drafts, and this growing confidence and ability are then reflected in their finished prod-ucts.

Conclusions

When we started this process, our goal was to create a system of peer review that allowedstudents to engage critically the texts they were writing without asking them to “fix” eachother’s papers or stand in for English instructors. We wanted to treat them as the intelligent,engaged students they are, and meet them where they are, considering their skill-sets as first-year writers. We wanted to demand better feedback from our students than the answers on a worksheet would provide. As we melded the best practices from the writing center peertutorials with the best practices of the classroom peer reviews, we found that those objectiveswere met.

What is perhaps most exciting about this model for peer review, however, is the way thatit models their writing as a process of academic inquiry. When academics write, we do notwrite in a vacuum, and we do not trade drafts with someone else in order to get them “fixed.”We seek out feedback, discussion, and debate, and we work hard to improve and fine-tuneour ideas. Our goals were to have students to be more engaged, to focus on process, to thinkabout their writing beyond grammar and punctuation, and to think about audience, purpose,


conventions, as well as content. We found that our students were just as capable of doing allof these things, if we gave them the right tools to do it.

This hybrid model of peer review need not be exclusive to English Composition class-rooms. We would hypothesize that a version of this process would work in any course wherewriting is required. This process can be something that connects the concepts of discipline-specific Writing across the Curriculum, as well as a way for students to understand the differingexpectations of convention in each discipline.

Notes

1. Because each of us has played the role of both writing center tutor and Composition instructor, we havehad a great deal of experience listening to peer tutorials and peer reviews. All three of us focused on capturingdescriptions of the environment in the classroom, the process that the students and instructors were goingthrough, and the actual commentary and discussion of the writers, reviewers, and instructors.

2. After each peer review, we tracked their feedback to the experience by having them respond to the fol-lowing prompts:

• Was this method of peer review beneficial for you? How so?• What did you like most or least compared with other peer reviews you may have conducted?Of the hundreds of comments that we pooled, over ninety percent of the comments were positive, with

less than five percent of the comments being neutral, and less than five percent being negative. Studentsappreciated the partnership with one other person and the concentrated one-on-one feedback they weregiving and receiving. What one student liked best, in her words, was, “We were both on the same page,literally and figuratively.” Many students mentioned how other peer reviews required them to try to interpretafter the fact (whenever they got around to reading the feedback or revising their papers) what their reviewershad written about their papers. Talking about the paper with someone in real time, and taking notes aboutwhat to do, was something that students commented again and again that they appreciated. Many studentsalso commented on how having an accessible instructor there to answer questions or weigh in on a debatedpoint was helpful as well. Though we anticipated students being worried about only getting feedback fromone person, many students listed this as what they liked the most about the process: “Instead of handing yourpaper to someone, and having to trust them to catch everything, you can work together to make your paperbetter! Two, well, four eyes are better than two. And you can directly ask them questions about your paper.”

3. In his article “Student Evaluation and an Introduction to Academic Discourse: ‘I Didn’t Like It, and IDon’t Know How to Improve It, Because It Works,’” Michael Kuehn states that “Without peer evaluation,students at best mimic what they understand to be academic discourse. With peer evaluation-and the shiftin teacher and student roles-students wrestle with and come to a clearer understanding of academic discourseas dynamic, negotiated, and communal”: this is, essentially, what every Composition instructor aims for heror his students to achieve (285).

4. Our lesson study, funded by the UW System Lesson Study Project and a UW System OPID Under-graduate Teaching and Learning Grant, examined our hybrid method of peer review in several ways. First,we took field notes as we visited each others’ classes during peer review. We paid attention to the types ofcomments students were making, as well as the general activity of the classroom. Second, we conductedsurveys that asked students to report “Was this method of peer review beneficial for you? How so?” and,“What did you like most or least compared with other peer reviews you may have conducted?” Finally, wecompared drafts brought to peer review with final drafts and recorded the types of commentary studentsmade on their work.

5. In her article “Collaboration is Not Collaboration is Not Collaboration: Writing Center Tutorials vs.Peer-Response Groups,” Muriel Harris emphasizes that articles on writing center theory in books and in pub-lications such as the Writing Center Journal and the Writing Lab Newsletter, training manuals for tutors, andthose hundreds of reports writing center directors write every year for administrators all attest to the widely-accepted view that tutoring in writing is a collaborative effort in which the tutor listens, questions, and some-times offers informed advice about all aspects of the student’s writing in order to help the writer become abetter writer, not to fix whatever particular paper the student has brought to the center. Thus, even thougha specific paper may be the subject of discussion, the tutor is always cautioned to work more broadly towardstrengthening the writer’s skills in ways that will carry over to future writing [371].

6. As Muriel Harris explains, “The assumption is that the more the student reads and responds, the moreher critical skills improve. The more the writer hears reader response, the stronger his sense of audience willbe. [Therefore] ... skill building by repetition happen[s] in peer response groups....” (372).


Works CitedAhrenhoerster, Greg, and Cassie Phillips. “Fall 2005 Student Survey Chart.” English Department Assessment

Project. University of Wisconsin Colleges, 2006. Web. 24 October 2009.Armstrong, Sonya L., and Eric J. Paulson. “Whither ‘Peer Review’? Terminology Matters for the Writing

Classroom.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 35.4 (2008): 398–407. Print.Brammer, Charlotte. “Peer Review from the Students’ Perspective: Invaluable or Invalid?” Composition Studies

35.2 (2007): 71–85. Print.Cho, Kwangsu. “Commenting on Writing: Typology and Perceived Helpfulness of Comments from Novice

Peer Reviewers and Subject Matter Experts” Written Communication 23.3 (2006): 260–94. Print.Gillespie, Paula, and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. 2nd ed. New York: Pearson

Longman, 2003. Print.Grimm, Nancy. “Improving Students’ Responses to Their Peers’ Essays” College Composition and Communi-

cation 37.1 (1986): 91–94. Print.Harris, Muriel. “Collaboration Is Not Collaboration Is Not Collaboration: Writing Center Tutorials vs. Peer-

Response Groups.” College Composition and Communication. 43.3 (1992): 369–83. Print.Kuhne, Michael. “Student Evaluation and an Introduction to Academic Discourse: ‘I Didn’t Like It, and I

Don’t Know How to Improve It, Because It Works.’” Teaching English in the Two-Year College. 33.3 (2006):279–94. Print.

Martin, Amy Ward. “Recovering Response: Emphasizing Writing as Relational Practice.” Issues in Writing14.2 (2004): 116–34. Print.


“It’s just too nicey-nicey around here”:Teaching Dissensus in Research

and Collaborative Groups

JACOB STRATMAN

I teach Basic Writing, Freshman Composition, and American Literature at a small inter-denominational Christian University in a small southern town. During a potentially heateddiscussion at one of my first committee meetings, one of the deans leaned over to me and said,“It will be ok. We’re just too nicey-nicey around here.” He was right. The potentially heateddiscussion cooled quickly as consensus was met and the meeting continued. Since then, I’vebeen in many committee meetings where conflict is avoided, and consensus is sought vigorously;yet, unfortunately, potentially good and productive ideas are oppressed for the sake of the“greater good.” As a faculty member, these moments frustrate me. What’s so wrong with dis-agreement, especially in collaborative learning? What is the problem with understanding wheredisagreements originate before we try to seek common ground or even consensus? However,I am most discouraged when I see this type of conflict avoidance happen in the classroom.

In my particular situation, I’m not sure if it’s because of the small-town southern ethos,the Christian ethos, or the fear of sanctions that is to blame for the “nicey-nicey” environment.Many students (and faculty) have the notion (real or perceived) that they will be punishedfor their adverse ideas. They have been taught by mostly well-meaning parents, for a varietyof reasons, not to question authority or undermine group consensus. Beyond these motivationsfor “group think,” I’ve also noticed a more relativistic approach to truth in the classroom(even at my Christian university). Ultimately, students do not want to be held in judgment,nor do they want to be ridiculed or labeled as “judge.” The greatest problem in my compositioncourses is that students simply lack critical and analytical thinking, reading, speaking, andlistening skills. This lack, in turn, keeps students from disagreeing effectively with each other,texts, and even me. In this article, I will first briefly define dissensus in the greater conversationof consensus and collaboration, explore reasons for teaching dissensus in the classroom inconjunction with collaborative projects, and finally suggest practical strategies for teachingdissensus in composition courses, essentially empowering students to engage critically andanalytically with texts, peers, and even professors.1 A great deal of scholarship addresses howdissensus corrupts and problemitizes the classroom. So, my objective here is to present class-room assignments and situations that attempt to teach why critical engagement and studentdisagreement can be useful to the academy and students’ personal growth.

43

Defining Dissensus ... BrieflyBefore I briefly survey the scholarship pertaining to dissensus, I would like to differentiate

the terms “disagreement” and “dissensus” using an example from my own classroom. Teachingand living in Benton County, Arkansas, I find it worthwhile to read several essays attackingand supporting Wal-Mart. Although most of our students are not Benton county residents,one cannot live in Northwest Arkansas long without engaging in the “Wal-Mart debate.” Aswe discuss a series of essays, students converse with each other about the benefits and failuresof this American institution. One student says, “it’s cheap and that helps the poor.” Anotherstudent says, “lack of worker benefits are outrageous and Wal-Mart forces local businesses toclose.” I call this kind of visceral, uncritical response disagreement. In my mind, these typesof disagreements go nowhere (and are quite useless) unless we ask students to analyze andcritically think about their own opinions. And, most times, these responses are merely theproducts of students’ families, churches, and peer groups.

After our initial discussions, I usually ask students to write about how they came up withtheir opinions. Ultimately, this leads them to think about family politics, economics, andeven cultural issues. I always find that disagreements become more fruitful when studentsrhetorically analyze their claims and their classmates’ claims. This is dissensus: the ability tocritically understand the narratives and assumptions that live beneath disagreement in a par-ticular collaborative environment. Sometimes this turns into consensus (or at least establishingsome sort of common ground), but dissensus, even if left as such, in this context always turnsinto better understanding.

John Trimbur and Kenneth Bruffee have been the most influential in my thinking con-cerning academic conversations in small group collaborative environments. In Trimbur’s “Con-sensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning,” he makes it clear that dissensus is notnecessarily antithetical to consensus:

collaborative learning [is] not merely [a] process of consensus-making but moreimportant as a process of identifying differences in relation to each other. The con-sensus that we ask students to reach in the collaborative classroom will be based notso much on collective agreements as on collective explanations of how people differ,where their differences come from, and whether they can live and work together withthese differences [470].

Trimbur’s definition of dissensus is a Marxist response to constructivist theorists like RichardRorty and Kenneth Bruffee. Bruffee argues that

knowledge is an artifact created by a community of knowledgeable peers consti-tuted by the language of that community, and that learning is a social and not anindividual process, then to learn is not to assimilate information and maintainknowledge among a community of knowledgeable peers ... to think well as individu-als we must learn to think well collectively—that is, we must learn to converse well[427/421].

Essentially, learning cannot happen in a vacuum. Students need to converse in order to learn.Where Trimbur critiques Bruffee is that collective/collaborative thinking, in Trimbur’s words,“is an inherently dangerous potentially totalitarian practice that stifles individual voice andcreativity, suppresses differences, and enforces conformity” (461). What Trimbur fears is groupthink and a squelching of the individual.

Both Trimbur and Bruffee are right. Intentionally teaching students that learning doestake shape through collaborative efforts — that learning is a social act — is important forimproving critical and analytical skills. And, intentionally teaching students to understand


difference instead of simply seeking quick consensus is just as crucial to improving criticalthinking skills and perpetuating successful group dynamics. One of the first steps for instructorsteaching small-groups is to discuss whether the objective of the meeting or task is to reachconsensus. Sometimes, the interpretive community will come to the same conclusion aboutfixing a complex sentence structure, analyzing the tone of a particular poem, conducting apeer-review session, or revising a student thesis statement; however, sometimes the consensuswill be that there is not consensus—that reasonable disagreement may unearth presuppositionsthat require deeper analysis. In Bruffee’s words, “We establish knowledge or justify belief col-laboratively by challenging each other’s biases and presuppositions; by negotiating collectivelytoward new paradigms of perception, thought, feeling, and expression” (427). And, in Trim-bur’s words, “Consensus ... can be a powerful instrument for students to generate differences,to identify the systems of authority that organize these differences, and to transform the rela-tions of power that determine who may speak and what counts as a meaningful statement”(462). Both camps argue that conversation about dissensus within a group can be a very usefultool for students to question narratives (composition, literary, social, political, religious, etc.)in order to come to a better understanding of those narratives and how they influence eachof their lives.

If Paulo Freire is correct when he famously suggested that “education is suffering fromnarration sickness,” then I propose that the following assignments and exercises that promotedissensus in collaborative activities replace narration from a single source to a dialectic envi-ronment (Freire 71). As a caution, however, Karen Kuralt and Molly Flaherty Haas pose acommon critique of teaching dissensus in the classroom. They write, “while composition the-orists may favor collaborations that produce conflict and dissensus, students often find conflictupsetting and unproductive and will deliberately circumvent it whenever to preserve groupharmony” (20). I have no doubt that this critique is valid when professors refuse or forget toteach dissensus. For the reasons I mentioned in the introduction, many of our students willgo to great lengths to avoid conflict. Ultimately, it is our job to teach small groups to effectivelynavigate dissensus in order to question presuppositions and particular narratives that keepstudents from either reaching consensus or being able to understand where those disagreementsare born.

Where many practitioners feel slighted by these theories is that they are light on realclassroom practice. Since their publications, there have been many useful articles written tofurther flesh out the practical utility (and lack thereof ) of the theory of dissensus.2 Below, Ihope to add to this conversation by exploring dissensus in individual article response papersas a part of a larger research project and how I utilize dissensus in cooperative discussiongroups and peer-review sessions.

How to Teach Dissensus

Before I offer practical ways to introduce dissensus in the classroom, I must point outthat I define collaboration a bit more broadly than some of my colleagues. Usually, collabo-ration refers to students working together on a project. In the past, students have shared phys-ical space to create these products; however, now collaboration happens quite effectively inthe cyber world as well. In an effort to get students to think about research and writing as aconversation, I also suggest to my students that collaboration occurs anytime they read /research. Students bring to each reading activity, I remind them, a complex set of assumptionsand beliefs that interact in a variety of ways with the set of assumptions and beliefs of the author. Collaboration occurs when students attempt to create meaning from a reading

Teaching Dissensus (Stratman) 45

experience, especially when the student synthesizes a dialectic in the form of an academicessay.

Article Response Papers

My inquiry theme for my first-year composition course is “Writing for Social Change.”In this course, I urge students to create a research question that allows them to make a well-researched, logical, and insightful argument about a current social issue that is important tothem. Each student spends the entire semester writing, researching, reading, speaking, lis-tening, and arguing in an attempt to better understand the conversation regarding one issue.In the last few years, I have received essays on government subsidies, international adoption,sex trafficking, divorce, teen pregnancy, and a variety of other social issues. In an attempt toencourage students to “enter the conversation,” I require an “article response paper” eachweek. This assignment asks students to write about one article they have read during the weekthat pertains to their chosen social issue. Here is the assignment as stated on the syllabus(Appendix A):

You will turn in a 300–400 word, single-spaced response paper each Wednesdayregarding a scholarly/popular article you read that week. Each paper will have twocomponents. First, you will practice reading “with the grain.” Write a brief paragraphsummarizing the thesis and main points of the article. Secondly, you will practicereading “against the grain.” Write another paragraph refuting, challenging, resisting,or questioning particular parts of the article. Be specific and detailed. These exerciseswill be useful as you construct longer essays on that particular issue.

Student feedback reveals that this exercise is the most helpful assignment in fighting procras-tination, better understanding the complexities of a single social issue, learning how to disagreewith published writers, and learning how to analyze the rhetorical situation of a variety ofmedia, namely popular magazines and internet websites. I also believe that students find dis-agreeing with people they don’t know (writers) easier than disagreeing with professors andpeers. And, this exercise can be an effective gateway to teach dissensus before they enter col-laborative cooperative groups.

In this assignment, students learn how to listen to arguments. During my first years ofteaching, I noticed that students struggle with summary.3 Either they miss the point completely,or they summarize what they think they understand about the essay, which, more often thannot, looks more like interpretation than summary. Throughout the semester, I urge studentsto understand that one cannot effectively engage a text or another person in disagreement ifone refuses to listen. Starting with texts also allows students to practice listening before theyenter collaborative groups with peers.

Secondly, students must write a paragraph where they choose a particular passage orclaim to resist or challenge. Without fail, students ask what they should do if they agree witheverything that the writer claims. This is where I play the devil’s advocate and suggest thateither 1) that’s impossible. You have to disagree with something. 2) If the student refuses tofind any disagreement in an article, then I suggest that the student find another article. I makeit clear that students should find research that supports their claims, but one of the objectivesof this assignment is to teach them how to disagree with texts effectively.

Dissensus, in this assignment, works as a means to better understand the conversationon which each student attempts to be an expert. The central objective of the semester is tounderstand the complexity of a particular social issue well enough to state an arguable claimthat somehow extends the conversation. Teaching students to effectively disagree with research


is a necessary step to introduce them to the collaborative elements of research. All writers col-laborate when they read in their scholarly discipline in order to better understand the fieldand create claims that are products of the thinking in that particular academic conversation.With each week, students learn rhetorical phrases like “seeking common ground,” “navigatingcompeting perspectives, and “entering the conversation.” Navigating the tension between con-sensus and dissensus in research should empower students to feel more a part of the academicconversation. Ideally, this assignment forces students to listen and to disagree with claims inorder for the student to better understand his/her own claims.

Finally, if the student researches the field broadly enough, one of the by-products of thisassignment is critiquing and questioning the structures and narratives that influence writersand the structures and narratives that influence their own claims. As I mentioned before, partof how dissensus differs from disagreement is the importance a reader places the rhetoricalsituation on a particular text. At the beginning of the semester, one of our librarians spendsan entire week teaching research strategies and opportunities that our library provides.Although he just touches on analyzing rhetorical situation, I use this “library session” to createmy own lesson on analyzing rhetorical situation as a part of the dissensus process. In one classsession, during the beginning of my students’ research process, I bring in several books, mag-azines and website URL addresses that all focus on a particular topic. Over the years, I haveselected topics such baseball and steroids, evolution vs. creationism, and human trafficking.After I create collaborative groups and tell them our class topic for the day, I hand each smallgroup a particular research item. Their job is to analyze its rhetorical situation. I give themfour contexts which to consider as they think about the text’s credibility, its bias or standpoint,and its use for student research. Here are the contexts:

1. Historical Context—At what point in history was the text composed? When is thetext being read/heard? What is significant about these contexts—and/or about gapsbetween these contexts?

2. Cultural Context—In what cultural situation was the text composed? Where is thetext being read/heard? What is significant about these contexts—and/or about thegaps between these contexts?

3. Authorial Contexts—What are the perspectives and situations of authors and /or ofthe institutions with which authors are affiliated? What is significant about these per-spectives?

4. Audience Contexts—What are the perspectives and situations of different audiencesof a text and/or what are the perspectives of the institutions with which audiences areaffiliated? What is significant about these perspectives? [xix]4

The lesson works as follows: each group selects one member to “lead” the group discussionpertaining to a particular context. They look at the text (book, magazine, or website) for theanswers. Then, they are to discuss the significance of their findings. After each round, we con-gregate as a whole class to talk about group findings and significant conclusions. Ultimately,I want them to question and analyze the historical, cultural, authorial, and audience contextsso each student can get a better sense of texts speak to/with each other. Ideally, these are themoments where students learn that their families have always hated anything from FOX Newsor MSNBC or the National Review or Mother Jones or whatever.

In my classroom, research is a form of dissensus; therefore, the article response paper isthe most important assignment I create in a semester to encourage students to think criticallyand analytically about their own assumptions and the assumptions of the particular texts they


use for research. Some Marxist critics, like Greg Myers, suggest that good assignments createa sort of doubleness where students begin to better understand certain social and ideologicalstructures and a willingness (or ability) to question, critique, and maybe resist those structures(454). This doubleness, for both teachers and students, should improve critical thinking. Notonly does the student become more aware of the ideological structures that influence his think-ing, but he also begins to question and engage with those structures that influence thoseauthors he researches. This is why I recommend using article response papers and teaching“rhetorical situation” as a platform for teaching dissensus.

Now, seasoned writing teachers know that I am describing the ideal situation. I haveplenty of stories of students researching only articles that support their agenda, students whofind that disagreeing just takes too much mental exercise, students who remain intellectuallylazy and refuse to think about why exactly they think they way they do, students who continueto believe that research begins and ends with Google and Wikipedia, and students who refuseto critique social structures even when the critique seems quite obvious to me. Disagreementseems easy; they disagree with many aspects of the classroom. Seeking dissensus as a way ofbetter understanding reader and writer assumptions and becoming a more critical reader andwriter is difficult. Teaching students to utilize dissensus in order to be more critical and ana-lytical researchers, thinkers, and writers is a process. I do believe, however, that this exerciseteaches students how to view their research as a collaborative act and to see how dissensus canimprove how they interact with research.

Cooperative Discussion GroupsThis next assignment attempts to move dissensus from a private sphere (research) to a

more public sphere (small cooperative discussion groups). On the days that I collect thesearticle response papers, I have students get into pairs or groups of three to discuss their findings.This activity utilizes cooperative learning strategies to empower each student to take ownershipof his work and responses to others’ work.5 The activity is simple:

1. Each student orally summarizes one of the claims the article makes. Next, the studentspends just one or two minutes critiquing that claim.

2. After the first student presents his/her findings, each listener asks a question thatforces the student-presenter to think further about the claim or his critique of theclaim, or the listener is to make a claim that either critiques the article’s claim or thestudent’s critique of that claim.

3. The student then returns to his notes to jot down conclusions: questions, concerns,more claims, etc.

4. Move on to the next student-presenter.

As you can see, this activity could last anywhere from five minutes to the entire class period.On some days, students simply want to get through the activity to get to more importantissues like fixing comma splices, but on other days, students hit a nerve, and I can’t get themto stop talking. Implicitly, I hope that students/groups will use our discussions regardingrhetorical situation to help them engage with the chosen article.

What I find very useful in this activity is creating transparency about the objectives ofthe activity. I state very clearly at the beginning that consensus is not necessarily the goal. IfI notice that one group tends to agree with the writer’s critiques, I might sit for a momentand ask more questions and prod further, hopefully modeling what dissensus looks like. AsTrimbur suggests at the conclusion of his essay, “I am less interested in students achieving


consensus (although of course this happens at times) as in their using consensus as a criticalinstrument to open gaps in the conversation through which differences emerge” (476). Theprimary objective of this cooperative group discussion is to force each writer, through peer-dialogue, to think more critically about his or her issue and the critiques he or she has aboutthe broader conversation. I have found that those students who are not incredibly criticalwhen writing article response papers seem to respond more readily to positive peer pressurethat these small collaborative groups provide. Indeed, students may not think critically aboutanything unless peers respectfully critique the student’s work, or at least encourage the studentto think more critically about their claims. This activity, ideally, uses the form of inquiry toinstruct students how to disagree effectively and appropriately.

As I use this activity to introduce students to academic group life, I remind them that rea-sonable people can choose to disagree reasonably.6 These skills, I also suggest to them, are a partof being in a conversation (live or in research): locating disagreements, trying to understandwhere those disagreements originate, and applying competing perspectives to ones’ own claims.

Peer-Review SessionsThroughout the semester, students turn in three to four shorter writing assignments as

they construct arguments about their chosen social issue. Like many first-year writing instruc-tors all over the country, I use peer-review. Also, like many of my colleagues, I use peer-review to teach students that I am not the only one in the classroom who holds authoritywhen it comes to evaluation. The peer-review session can be a useful place to teach dissensus;each essay is a particular rhetorical moment that can be interpreted differently by each student.The difficulty is getting students to understand how dissensus can be even more useful to revi-sion than simple, and oftentimes uncritical, consensus. How many times have instructorsoverheard one of the following phrases during a peer-review session: “Uh ... I like it,” “That’sgood. You shouldn’t change anything,” “I don’t really understand, but it’s your paper. You dowhat you want,” and my favorite, “I don’t think you’re supposed to do it that way, but I couldbe wrong.” What students need, I argue, is the freedom to construct and create the peer-review session that allows them to actually hold some authority in the classroom. Far toooften, we use the peer-review session to simply mirror the conventions and rules we as instruc-tors have already laid down for the classroom.

I use an introductory brainstorming session about peer-review to teach dissensus. I suggestusing part of a class period to critique the peer-review process with students and collaboratewith them on the best way to construct peer-review for the semester. In this way, if teacherstake the time to explore how and why peer-review sessions have succeeded and failed in thepast with students, then dissensus can be used as a means to create the best way to constructand utilize peer-review. I recognize the potential problem of this claim. As the authorityfigure, I claim that peer-review is beneficial and necessary for improving student writing.However, my hope is that collaboration, and even dissensus within this collaborative exercise,can shape and improve how we use peer-review in the classroom. Secondly, a reader of anearlier draft of this chapter suggested that maybe my exercise wasn’t dissensus at all. Perhaps,it was just group negotiation. Ultimately, my critics are correct if I simply tell them how “todo peer-review” or if just tell my students to figure out the best way “to do peer-review.” AsI have attempted to emphasize throughout this essay, it is the essential relationship betweencollaboration and critical thinking, especially regarding educational narratives that seem toinfluence and dictate how we and our students “do” education, that inspire my use of dissensus.This is yet another activity where I ask students to think critically about why they like ordislike a particular topic, issue, or pedagogical strategy. Here is the lesson:


In this introductory brainstorming session (see Appendix B), I ask students to get intogroups of four and discuss when peer-review sessions have gone really well or really poorly.We make a long list on the whiteboard listing the positive and negative experiences regardingpeer-review. Then, I ask them to return to their collaborative groups and explore reasons whythese peer-review sessions went well or poorly. As a group, then, we spend a good amount oftime critiquing the negative experiences: what causes someone to say only “that’s good” on apaper? What are the inherent problems with peer-review? Are first-year students qualified toreview and assess another student’s writing? Ideally, at the end of this brainstorming session,we have thought through all of the many ways peer-review sessions can fail or succeed.Although, at this point, none of us will agree with each other, we can better understand thepower struggles, episodes of inferiority, and even class, gender, and cultural struggles thatundermine peer-review, or any collaborative exercise for that matter.

At the end of the session, I ask each student to write down what their ideal peer-reviewsession looks like. Below are a few examples from student responses:

1. Professor should pick the groups of 3 people. Then get three papers that are not anyof those three and read and edit them together.

2. Put the papers in a pile and choose randomly.3. I think we should have each person get an anonymous paper and go through and

underline the thesis and main points of each body paragraph.4. It [peer-review] should not be secret because the writer might want to discuss problems

with the reviewer.

This semester, I was amazed that the majority of the students wished to keep all peer-reviewanonymous. Throughout the semester, I have chosen to discuss why this is: power dynamics,inferiority, fear, etc. In order to construct positive and effective peer-review sessions, ultimately,students must be asked to analyze the process and even construct what the processes will looklike in the future. That is why I employ a different peer-review approach each session.

Ideally, I give the last five minutes of each peer-review session to allow students to critiquethe day’s particular method. And, usually, I email the class the major critiques and my com-ments on those critiques. Before the next peer-review session, we discuss successes and problemsas a class. The collaborative exercise should use dissensus to get students to think criticallyabout peer-review, but I also hope it allows students to better “buy in” to the idea of peer-review.

This type of transparency or critical exercise about dissensus during this brainstormingsession can troubleshoot two concerns students usually have: “I’m not smart enough” and “ithurts to receive criticism.” Instead of merely agreeing that peer-review is good practice, intro-ducing dissensus to the group validates different opinions and experiences; however, it alsoforces students to question and analyze those differences. Let us begin with the inferioritycomplex. In 1957, E. Paul Torrance wrote an article about disagreement in group decision-making.7 His claims were the result of a study at the United Air Force Survival TrainingSchool on the nature and function of disagreement in decision-making situations. Torrancecame to the conclusion that “if there is willingness to disagree with the group, there will bean increase in the range of judgment considered in making a decision” (315). However true,what I’ve noticed in peer-review sessions is that some students believe that they are not wellequipped (i.e. smart enough) to disagree with the “smarter students” or the professor. Torrancecomments on this phenomenon: “Low status individuals are reluctant to express their judg-ments either in opposition to those of high status or in fear that they might be in opposition


to them” (315). Although Torrance specifically refers to low ranking members of the USAF,the same can be said of the classroom.

Carrie Shively Levernz echoes Torrance’s remarks almost forty years later regarding the imbalance of power in peer-review sessions where some students consider themselves“knowledgeable” and other students consider themselves below or outside of that knowledgecircle. Levernz argues that “no ‘rhetoric of dissensus’ made it possible for the group to talkproductively about their differences because the rules of ‘normal’ discourse had already deter-mined that differences must be treated hierarchically” (184). Levernz argues what many of ushave witnessed on countless occasions. Students who feel insecure in an academic setting aremore willing to keep quiet during peer-review sessions and during the brainstorming session.And students who feel confident in such settings (whether they deserve such confidence ornot) are the first to display authority in the session. What concerns me about Levernz’ article,however, is that the professor, as far as the reader knows, does not provide instructional spaceto address these power-dynamic issues. I suggest that if these issues are not addressed beforepeer-review or during a feedback session during the semester, these sessions usually lead tohurt feelings, misunderstanding, and consensus in the worst fashion. The group simply goesalong with the “authority” of the group, or a few individuals, because as Levernz claims,“although students recognized that their reading and writing were different, they could thinkabout those differences only in terms of what was right and wrong” (184). Levernz helps memake the argument that dissensus, as evident in a peer-review brainstorming session, canfoster dialogue about problematic issues that usually occur during peer-review.

Another way to impress upon students the importance of dissensus is to help classes,especially during collaborative exercises, understand the difference, as Torrance writes, between“task-oriented disagreement” and “person-oriented disagreement.” He argues that “decisionmakers need to accept the fact that task-oriented disagreement is almost always ‘good’” (317).We all know that convincing students (sometimes ourselves) to separate their self-worth fromtheir work is a lesson in futility; however, the ability to separate the student’s work from thestudent’s self-evaluation may help keep students from establishing right and wrong behaviors,leaders and followers, and authoritative and marginal ways of thinking about writing. Thebrainstorming session, ultimately, can be a great lesson for the professor and the student tothink about peer-review as a task, and not as a personal affront.

ConclusionMany scholars and practitioners argue that dissensus is an important theory that simply

fails in the classroom for a variety of reasons. However, what would happen if instructors tooktime before, during, and after collaborative exercises to teach what dissensus is, why it isimportant for critical thinking, writing, listening, and speaking, and how it can be used effec-tively in research, collaborative discussion groups, and peer-review sessions. Trimbur remindsus that “we need to see consensus not as an agreement that reconciles differences through anideal conversation but rather as the desire of humans to live and work together with differences”(476). And, if instructors create activities and assignments that empower students to analyzeand question how those differences work and where those differences originate, then maybeclasses have a better chance of creating critical and analytical thinkers. Although it can betime consuming, my hope is that the activities I’ve described above can be just a few ways toengage students in thinking about why consensus and dissensus are critical elements of suc-cessful collaboration in research and in small group settings.


Appendix AAssignment Sheet

Article Response PapersObjectives:

• To evaluate popular research sources• To cultivate critical reading strategies• To dialogue with published authors• To improve reading comprehension and analysis

PurposeOne of my frustrations is listening to very opinionated people who are not very educated

on the topic they are discussing. Daily reading is a vital component to argument. JBU wantsyou to be well-rounded, articulate, critical, and analytical. That doesn’t happen if you refuseto read every day.

Assignment• You will turn in a 300–400 word, single-spaced response paper each Monday regarding

a scholarly/popular article you read that week. Each paper will have two components.First, you will practice reading “with the grain.” Write a brief paragraph summarizingthe thesis and main points of the article. Secondly, you will practice reading “againstthe grain.” Write another paragraph refuting, challenging, resisting, or questioningparticular parts of the article. Be specific and detailed. These exercises will be usefulas you construct longer essays on that particular issue.

° You must type a bibliographic entry at the end of the essay.° You must use at least one direct quotation in the second paragraph.° The article must come from a credible source. For this exercise, all articles

must have an author and must contain an arguable claim.

Appendix BLesson Plan

Peer-Review Brainstorming Session

In collaborative groups, I provide the following questions on a power point slide. I giveeach group just a few minutes to answer each question. After each question, we reconvene asa class to discuss particular groups’ findings. What is important in this stage is asking studentsWHY they think (not just how/what) peer-review sessions fail and succeed.

• What is a peer-review session?• What makes a good peer-review session?• What makes a bad peer-review session?

As I state in the text above, I ask students to answer the following question on a half-pieceof paper that they will give me on their way out of class:

• Practically, how should this class conduct peer-review sessions?

I use this feedback to create peer-review sessions for the semester.

Notes1. Obviously, my practical strategies are heavily grounded in theory. If you are interested in reading about

the debate over consensus versus dissensus, I recommend the following seminal articles: Kenneth Bruffee’s


“Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’” (College English 46.7 November 1984); GregMyers’ “Reality, Consensus, and Reform in the Rhetoric of Composition Teaching” (College English 48.2February 1986); and John Trimbur’s “Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Writing (College English51.6 October 1989). A more recent anthology is Andrea Greenbaum’s Insurrections: Approaches to Resistancein Composition Studies (State University of New York Press, 2001).

2. Several helpful articles that come to mind (all published in the Journal of Advanced Composition, Volume14.1, Winter 1994) are Julia M. Gergits and James J. Schramer’s “The Collaborative Classroom as a Site ofDifference,” Carrie Shively Leverenz’ “Peer Response in the Multicultural Composition Classroom: Dis-sensus-A Dream (Deferred),” Amy Goodburn and Beth Ina’s “Collaboration, Critical Pedagogy, and StrugglesOver Difference.” I also suggest my own recent attempt: Jacob Stratman’s and Matthew Van Zee’s “‘I’m theAuthor of this Paper’: Collaboration and the Construct of Authorship in a First-Year English Course” (TheCEA Forum: online peer-reviewed journal of teaching and learning for the College English Association,January 2009).

3. This observation has led me to choose Gerald Graff ’s and Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say: The MovesThat Matter in Academic Writing (W.W. Norton) as my primary writing text. The authors spend an appropriateamount of time covering the skills and importance of good summary in academic writing before they coverthe skills and importance of effective analytical response. Each chapter includes a list of writing prompts stu-dents can utilize in their writing.

4. I learned about analyzing rhetorical situation as a teaching assistant at Marquette University. The abovecontexts can be found in the “Introduction” of Critical Literacies: A Reader for Marquette University’s First-Year English Program, Third Edition, edited by Krista Ratcliffe (Pearson Custom Publishing).

5. For those not familiar with cooperative learning, students work in pairs or teams where each studentis held accountable for a particular task. Where cooperative learning differs from “small group work” andeven some collaborative groups is that the teacher still contains some control over the group meeting. However,it is a useful tool to empower students to have and maintain responsibility in the group. For an introductionto cooperative learning, read Robert Slavin’s Cooperative Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice and HarveyDaniels’ and Stephanie Harvey’s Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action.

6. I thank Dr. Krista Ratcliffe, English department chair and former director of first-year writing at Mar-quette University, for this helpful quip. She said it often.

7. Although almost fifty-five years old, many political scientists believe that Torrance’s work on disagreementis one of the seminal contributions to the field. For more recent work on disagreement in the political field,read Amy Gutman’s and Dennis Thompson’s Why Deliberative Democracy (1998) and Democracy and Dis-agreement (2004).

Works CitedBruffee, Kenneth. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” In Villanueva 415–436. Print.Daniels, Harvey and Stephanie Harvey. Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2009. Print.Friere, Paulo. “Chapter 2.” Pedagog y of the Oppressed. 1970. New York: Continuum, 2007. 71–86. Print.Gergits, Julia M. and James J. Schramer’s “The Collaborative Classroom as a Site of Difference.” Journal of

Advanced Composition 14.1 (1994): 187–201. Print.Goodburn, Amy and Beth Ina. “Collaboration, Critical Pedagogy, and Struggles Over Difference. Journal of

Advanced Composition 14.1 (1994): 131–147. Print.Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. New York:

W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.Greenbaum, Andrea, ed. Insurrections: Approaches to Resistance in Composition Studies. Albany, NY: State Uni-

versity of New York Press, 2001. Print.Gutman, Amy and Dennis Thompson. Why Deliberative Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 2004._____. Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998.

Kuralt, Karen M. and Molly Flaherty Hass. “Coming to Terms with Conflict: Preparing Students for theComplexity of Collaborative Writing.” Journal of College Writing 4.1 (2001): 17–34. Print.

Levernz, Carrie Shively. “Peer Response in the Multicultural Composition Classroom: Dissensus—A Dream(Deferred). Journal of Advanced Composition 14.1 (1994): 167–186. Print.

Myers, Greg. “Reality, Consensus, and Reform in the Rhetoric of Composition Teaching.” In Villanueva.437–459. Print.

Ratcliffe, Krista. Ed. “Introduction.” Critical Literacies. 3rd edition. Pearson Custom Publishing, 2006.Slavin, Robert. Cooperative Learning: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Pearson and Longman, 1994.

Print.


Stratman, Jacob and Matthew VanZee. “’I’m the Author of this Paper’: Collaboration and the Construct ofAuthorship in a First-Year English Course.” The CEA Forum. January 2009. Print.

Torrance, E. Paul. “Group Decision-Making and Disagreement.” Social Forces 35.4 (1957): 314–318. Print.Trimbur, John. “Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning.” In Villanueva. 461–478. Print.Villanueva, Victor, ed. Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2003. Print.


Part II. How do I best selectgroups in my classes?

Increasing StudentParticipation and Accountability

in Group Production of Text through Speed Interviews

MIALISA A. MOLINE

Having listened to yet another student complain about her group grade, then returningto my office to read an op-ed in the school paper railing against the use of student groups onmajor course assignments, I decided to try something new a few years ago. I decided to havestudents interview each other as potential group members—in some significant depth, ques-tioning every other student in the classroom. What came from that process was rather amazing.The quality of group projects increased, and the number of students complaining about theirgroup members (and group project grades) decreased dramatically. Classroom dynamics shifted,further enhancing the active learning environment. Headaches related to small group manage-ment for major course assignments decreased as well. Conducting “speed interviews” in the writ-ing classroom benefited students in a number of ways, including the obvious increase in studentparticipation for the creation of writing groups, an increase in the accountability group membersfelt toward their groups and their projects, and an increase in student awareness of audience.

Students have expressed, on numerous occasions and in numerous venues, that they wishthey had more control over who was assigned to which groups for large, graded projects in acourse. However, students may not know everyone attending a class. Often, students isolatethemselves into small cliques in a classroom, getting to know only those students in theirimmediate proximity. Students need to get to know all of the members of the class in a more-than-cursory way since they will be working with a broad spectrum of people upon graduation.Students need to step out of their social comfort zones, to avoid the just-like-me syndrome,and to decrease the potential for group think. In order for students to make informed choicesabout potential group members, they should expand their knowledge about all potential groupmates. One way to increase this awareness is to have students speak to each member of theclass face-to-face, individually, with a specific goal in mind.

This chapter on working with groups in the writing classroom introduces the conceptand use of speed interviews in a writing class. The chapter also describes where the activitymight fit into a writing course, suggests methods for conducting the activity, and articulatespotential benefits. Since this technique can pose some minor issues, the chapter also providesa brief troubleshooting guide.

55

What Are Speed Interviews?According to Crombie, “speed interviewing is a technique where recruiters meet with

and screen many applicants at one time. Each candidates [sic] has 5–10 minutes to meet withand impress the recruiter.” Money-zine.com describes speed interviewing as “one of the latesttechniques to hit the job market ... the method ... allows both the interviewee and hiringcompany to assess the potential match of candidate to corporation. It also exposes the applicantto a large number of hiring companies in a short timeframe, thereby maximizing the candidate’schance of finding a job” (“Speed Interviewing”). In the case of classroom application, studentsperform dual roles, those of both interviewer and interviewee. For practical purposes in theclassroom, individual interview time is held to less than three minutes.

Dr. John Sullivan offers a brief overview of speed interviewing in his 2008 article, “SpeedInterviewing: Lessons Learned From Speed Dating”:

“Speed Interviewing” and the concepts supporting it come directly from the socialphenomena known as “speed dating.” Supported by lots of cognitive research thatsuggests initial intuition is as accurate as or more accurate than prolonged assessment,a few leading-edge organizations are hopping on board and testing speed interview-ing as a possible solution to end the giant disconnect between society today and theHR systems of yesterday.

Brave corporate pioneers include such firms as IBM, Abbott Labs, PNC FinancialTravelodge, Texas Instruments, the Salt River Project, and RBC. The companies usethis process for experienced candidates and for college hires.

Speed interviewing is growing in popularity and venue. Several major companies (Sullivan)now use the technique for hiring, as do academic settings. For example, “A unique experientialtechnique known as ‘speed interview’ was [recently] used to facilitate communication betweenconference participants and to practice newly acquired skills” (White 517) for veterinary sciencestudents. White, et. al. report student willingness and clearly derived benefits taken from thisspeed interview experience.

The University of Nevada–Las Vegas recently conducted a speed interview event for busi-ness students (“Business Students Refine”). A senior finance major described the event as “oneof the best opportunities the College of Business offers.” Company participants seemed pleasedwith the event, with one team leader at Target stating, “It’s a great way to help develop talentin people. I think it’s been great for students—to see their potential.” Speed interviewing hascertainly been incorporated into the hiring process, and the writing classroom can benefitfrom this trend as well.

What Benefits Might Speed Interviews Offer?With increasing class sizes and as a response to student concerns about graded group

projects, speed interviews add a sense of logic and purpose to assigning group members to alarge graded writing project. Students need to gain more control over those with whom theywork and to become highly invested in a project, all the while exploring their own work habitsand preferences in a group environment.

Some of the touted benefits offered by the human resources sector regarding speed inter-viewing, according to Sullivan, include:

• Immediate comparisons between candidates• Less “trash time”• Less total time devoted to interviews• An opportunity to see more candidates

56 II: How do I best select groups in my classes?

• Managers like them• It fits the “next” generation• Scheduling ease• Shorter time to fill• An opportunity to assess other characteristics

Additional benefits of using speed interviews in a class setting include:

• An opportunity for students to gain experience on both sides of the interview table• An increase in the breadth of student interview results• A decrease in complaints about group work, most notably time management issues for

students with external commitments like jobs• An increase in the opportunity for students to complement their writing strengths and

weaknesses with students they choose to hire

What Are the Classroom BenefitsDerived from Speed Interviews?

Through a lesson study on speed interviews in the writing classroom, implemented overthe course of four semesters, comparative assessment measures (both direct and indirect)regarding student accountability and student participation revealed interesting gains in studentaccountability and student participation. Group project experiences formed through speedinterviewing became enhanced in several notable areas:

• The quality of group projects improved.• The number of students complaining about other group members decreased.• Classroom dynamics shifted, improving the active learning environment.• Students gained an increased sense of accountability to group members and to the

group writing project.• Students spent an increased amount of time on the group project outside of class.

Where Might Speed Interviews Fit in a Writing Course?The prime location for conducting speed interviews in the class syllabus falls when stu-

dents are in the middle of writing an individual class assignment, a week or two prior tomoving into an assignment requiring the group production of text. Adding an assignmentbetween the two is ideal for instructors with heavy teaching loads (see Fig. 1), offering theinstructor more time to figure out group assignments based on the hiring preferences formsreceived from students (see Appendix A).

Figure 1. Assignment Progressing for Speed Interview Activity

Participation and Accountability Through Speed Interviews (Moline) 57

IndividualWriting

Assignment(with speedinterview

activity couchedin the middleof the process)

Another MajorIndividualAssignment

GroupProduction of

Text Assignment

How Might An Instructor Conduct Speed Interviews in the Classroom?

A “sample” lesson plan for conducting speed interviews in a writing classroom follows:

Background Information

Class Description

• Writing course• Predominantly undergraduates• 20–25 students enrolled in the class

Time Spent in Class

• Class meets for 14 weeks, ~ 2.5 hours per week, hopefully in a technology-enhancedclassroom (not required)

Units of Study

• Individual production of text (essays or other various genres)• Group Production of text (genre may vary)

Objectives

Course

• Develop planning, writing, and revising skills• Increase ability to help other improve their writing

Unit (multiple)

• Exhibits professional writing style (writes with an active “group” voice)• Successfully collaborates with group• Critically evaluates own behavior in group environment• Critically evaluates other group members’ behavior• Actively participates in group discussions

Length of Time for the Lesson

• 2.5 hours

Materials Needed

• Group hiring preferences form (Appendix A)• Sample interview questions (Appendix B)• Speed interview group notes for instructor (Appendix C)• Self- and group-assessment document (Appendix D)• Watch or clock with secondhand• Pen

Lesson Plan

Stage 1: Pre-lesson

Student Preparation

• Preparation and submission of 3–4 interview questions composed to inform the grouphiring process: ask the students what they need to know about classmates in order tobest work with classmates in a group setting. Sample interview questions are providedin Appendix B.


Instructor Preparation• Class discussion of what traits students might find valuable in group members• Class discussion of writing interview questions (See Appendix B)• Class discussion of ethical issues surrounding interview questions (what’s legal/illegal)—

see http://www.eeoc.gov for information regarding discriminatory hiring practices• Review and return of student interview questions• Review of self- and group-assessment document (Appendix D)

Stage 2: The Lesson (see Fig. 2)

1. Remind students to take good notes just before beginning the lesson (name, major,responses to questions).

2. Write Rows A and B (with student names for each row) vertically on the board, clearlyindicating which row moves and in what direction.

3. Students create two rows, facing one another in pairs. Students in Row A interviewthe students facing them in Row B for two to three minutes. After that time haselapsed, students in Row B interview the students facing them in Row A for the sameamount of time.

4. Students in Row B move down one chair, facing a new classmate. You may need toprompt students to move, ensuring the correct row shifts in the right direction.

5. Students in Row A interview the students facing them in Row B for two to three min-utes. After that time has elapsed, students in Row B interview the students facingthem in Row A for the same amount of time.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all students in Rows A and B have interviewed each other.This is a good time for a break, since class time will likely be over. You will need tocomplete Appendix C to keep a record of which students ended up in which locations.Do not count on students remembering their end locations. Write it down so youhave a record of who has interviewed whom.

7. Students in Row A break into two new rows (Rows C and D). Students in Row Bbreak into two new rows (Rows E and F). These new subgroups should maintainphysical distance from one another (See Fig. 2).

8. Students in Row C interview the students facing them in Row D, and students inRow E interview the students facing them in Row F simultaneously, for two or threeminutes. The roles of interviewer/interviewee then switch. Students in Row D inter-view students facing them in Row C, and students in Row F interview students facingthem in Row E simultaneously, for two or three minutes.

9. Students in Rows C and E move down one chair within their rows, facing a new class-mate. Interviews commence for two to three minutes. Students switch roles, theninterview/are interviewed by the same person.

10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until all students in Row C have interviewed all students inRow D, and all students in Row E have interviewed all students in Row F.

11. All four rows break into sub-sub-groups (Rows G, H, I, and J; and Rows K, L, M,and N).

12. Interviews commence in the sub-sub-groups.13. Finally, rows G, H, I, J, K, L, M, and N interview each other within their own rows.

Depending on class size, additional or fewer sub-groups may or may not be requiredto complete the process.

14. Distribute the group hiring preferences form to students (See Appendix A).


Figure 2. Speed Interview Rounds

Stage 3: Post-lesson

1. After students complete the group hiring preferences form (Appendix A)—OUTSIDEOF CLASS—collect them and begin the task of assigning groups. Keep these formsconfidential.

2. Begin the process of assigning groups based on the hiring preferences forms—discussedin the next section.

3. Release group assignments to students.4. Collect group projects and the self- and group-assessment forms at the end of the

group project assignment. You may or may not choose to weigh the assessment resultsin your grading process. However, requiring the completion of the assessment doc-ument will ensure that students offer you feedback on the group experience.

Assessment

A number of self- and group-assessment tools exist online and in textbooks. Using existingforms like the one in Appendix D, or forms you create on your own, will assist you in evaluatingthe effectiveness of student groups. Students appreciate the opportunity to reflect on boththeir own contributions to a group effort and on the contributions of others within the group.Typical self- and group-assessment forms ask students to account for the group roles and tasksthey fulfilled while working in the group, and the time they spent on the project.


Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Group A

123456789

101112

Group B

131415161718192021222324

Group C

123456

Group D

789

101112

Group E

131415161718

Group F

192021222324

Group G

123

Group H

456

Group I

789

Group J

101112

Group K

131415

Group L

161718

Group M

192021

Group N

222324

How Should an Instructor Assign Groups?

Once you have collected and examined the group hiring preferences forms from students,you will find that each student hopes for an ideal group of their very own choosing, tailoredto their own specific needs. However, each student will submit unique requests, and figuringout who goes in which group can be challenging. A few guidelines to consider when assigninggroups based on the results of speed interviews include:

• Ensuring that no students work in groups with people they have placed in the “I don’twant this group member” category on the form

• Ensuring that students get to work with at least one group member they have listedon their “top 5” list on the form

• Articulating to students that while they may not have chosen other group memberson their “top 5” list, those students may have chosen to work with them

Once you have figured out how large you want the groups to be and who to place inwhich groups, you should release your group assignments to the students by writing them onthe board or releasing them in a course management system if you so choose. Thus, you main-tain instructor control over group assignments, but students gain significant input (and senseof control) into your decision-making process. Consider shredding the group preferencessheets once you are finished examining them. To ensure confidentiality, do not allow studentsto view other students’ preference forms.

What Considerations or Concerns Might an InstructorNeed to Address When Conducting Speed Interviews?

Potential Problem Possible Solutions

Loud classroom environment 1. Close the classroom door. 2. Forewarn professors teaching nearby. 3. Take the activity to another location, like

a conference room in the student center.

Discrimination in the hiring process 1. Review interview questions before the activitybegins.

2. Offer students the opportunity to reportethical violations.

Activity spans over multiple days 1. Keep track, in writing, of where students leave the activity, to be used on the nextclass day.

2. Remind students to take note of theirfinishing location at the end of the class period.

Absenteeism 1. Place empty chairs into the activity mix formissing students to take upon their return tothe next class period. The empty seat rotatesdown the line.

Odd (not even) number of students 1. Place an empty chair into the activity mix, soin the class that all students are facing another desk, all

desks occupied except one. The empty seatrotates down the line.

Multiple students share the same 1. Write students’ first and last names on the board.first name


Instructors should address student concerns about graded group production of text in apedagogically sound approach that benefits both the course goals and the building of knowledgein students. The way instructors assign group members is one way to begin. When studentsexercise significant control over who their group members are, they feel that investment inthe form of accountability of self to both group and to project. Additionally, when studentsparticipate in conducting interviews from both sides, both potential employer and potentialemployee, their understanding of audience improves. This activity embraces the social con-struction of knowledge in an active learning environment, with a significant emphasis on stu-dents becoming fully invested in the group production of text.

While class time of often limited, and the logistics of the activity are complex, theresulting increase in students’ accountability to themselves and to their group are certainlyworthwhile. And while assigning group members could be a relatively easy task, groundingthe assignment of writing groups in a thoughtful approach to making group assignments offersan increase in the scope of rewards. This activity is by no means perfect. But conducting“speed interviews” in the writing classroom benefits students by enhancing their active learningenvironment and encouraging their investment in group written projects.

Appendix A

Group Preferences Form

Your name: ___________________________

List, in order of preference, the top five students you would like to hire for your group project.

1. __________________________________2. __________________________________3. __________________________________4. __________________________________5. __________________________________

List any students you specifically would not want to hire for your group (optional)

1. __________________________________2. __________________________________3. __________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

Please fold and staple this document closed before returning it to your instructor.

Appendix B

Sample Interview Questions

• What are your writing strengths?• What are your writing weaknesses?• Do you work? If so, what hours and days are you available to meet with a group?• Do you live on or near campus, or do you commute from a distance?• Do you like to work at the last minute or get your work done well in advance?


• What college courses do you like and dislike, and why?• What is your favorite role to take in a group project?• What is your least favorite role to take in a group project?

Appendix C

Speed Interview Group Notes


12 sitting 12 rotating

6 sitting 6 rotating 6 sitting 6 rotating

3 sitting 3 rotating 3 sitting 3 rotating 3 sitting 3 rotating 3 sitting 3 rotating

Appendix D

Self- and Group-Assessment Form

Your name: _______________________Group Project : ____________________

Leadership Roles

• Who stood out as group leader?• Who managed the tasks and deadlines in your group?• Who managed the personalities and communication within your group?

Conflict Resolution

• Did your group experience any conflict? If so, describe it briefly and discuss how the conflictwas or was not resolved.

Assessment of Self

• What tasks did you accomplish individually while meeting with the group, and how muchtime did you spend on each task?

• What tasks did you accomplish individually while away from the group, and how muchtime did you spend on each task?

Assessment of Group Members

Your name: _______________________Group Project : ____________________

Please rate your group members on the following traits, using a scale of 1 to 10, 10 beinghighest performance and 1 being lowest performance. Do not rate yourself.

Criteria: Group Group Group Group member’s member’s member’s member’s name name name name

Offers valuable ideas to the groupAccepts other group members’

ideas with an open mindHelps maintain a professional working environment

Respects other group membersPrepares for group meetingsAttends group meetingsParticipates in group discussionsStays on task during meetingsMeets group deadlinesSubmits quality work to the group

Works Cited“Business Students Refine Skills at Speed Interview Event (News & Events—Dean’s Office, College of Business

UNLV).” University of Nevada, Las Vegas. UNLV,—. Web. 2 Feb. 2011. <http://business.unlv.edu/deans/news_display.asp?news=226>.

Crombie, Donna L. “Quick Tips for Speed Interviews.” What Are Speed Interviews? Simon Fraser University,n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2010.


“Speed Interviewing.” Careers, Finance, and Investing: Money-zine.com. Money Zine,-. Web. 2 Feb. 2011. <http://www.money-zine.com/Career-Development/Finding-a-Job/Speed-Interviewing/>.

Sullivan, John. “Speed Interviewing: Lessons Learned From Speed Dating.” ERE.net. ERE, 16 June 2008.Web. 12 Mar. 2010.

White, Brad J., Kevin P. Gwinner, David M. Andrus, and J. Bruce Prince. “Unique Educational Methods to Improve the Veterinary Employment Selection Process for Rural Mixed-Animal Practices.” Journal ofVeterinary Medical Education 34.4 (2007): 517–23. JVME Online. Web. 12 Mar. 2010.


Connecting Writing Process withPersonality: Creating Long-Lasting

Trust Circles in Writing Classes

KATHLEEN M. HUNZER

Roaming around the group of graduating seniors as they lined up to receive their diplomasat the University of Wisconsin-River Falls one semester, I stop when a hand taps my shoulder.I turn around and see two smiling faces—former students from my ENGL 251: AdvancedComposition class. They both hug me, clearly affected by the joy of graduating, and then thetwo of them tell me that when they saw me, they “had” to come and thank me. Thank mefor what, I ask. One of them smiles and says, “for 251 ... that’s when we started to be friends.”Upon further discussion, the two inform me that they were complete strangers before comingto my class but that they remained friends ever since, even being roommates their last yearof college. They had taken the class two years earlier, so I was quite surprised that they hadhit it off so well having never known each other prior to my class. In the following months,when several other students related similar reactions, I couldn’t help but wonder: did the col-laborative nature of our class alone create these bonds or was it something else?

Some BackgroundPrior to teaching ENGL 251: Advanced Composition at the University of Wisconsin-

River Falls, I had taught a variety of writing classes at different types of institutions, andbecause I had been schooled in my M.A. and my Ph.D. programs in the concept of “writingas a process, not a product” and in the major ideas of “social-epistemic rhetoric,” I was wellaware of the benefits of having students feel empowered in their writing classes, which is whyI frequently used small groups in my classes to supplement the other aspects of the classes—the lectures, the large-group discussions, and the peer critiques/reviews—but collaborativelearning had only been an occasional practice prior to my arriving at UWRF.

In a bold move once I was at my first tenure-track job, I wondered what would happenif we used collaborative learning and worked in small groups every day in some way: to analyzetexts, to brainstorm, to work on grammar/punctuation issues, etc. Would this structure allowthe course objectives to be met? Or was this overkill? Once I decided that my instinct to usesmall groups and collaborative learning in every class period was appropriate, I had to answerthat age-old question: how do I put the students into groups? Each class had different objec-tives, so at first I tried a variety of techniques to connect the collaborative goals to the course

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objectives. In ENGL 100: Academic Reading and Writing, a first-semester class, I randomlyplaced students in groups so they could meet new peers. In ENGL 200: Investigating Ideas:Reading, Writing, and the Disciplines, I clustered them by major and minor since theirresearch projects were often based in their majors and/or minors. In ENGL 241: Human Issuesin Literature, I simply counted them off by 5s and had all the 1s work together, all the 2s,etc. since they were from a variety of years, from sophomore to seniors.1 Things went primarilysmoothly: focused conversation floated through the air; insights were discovered; knowledge wasdisplayed; and the time flew by as we worked and learned together. But no one from these classeshad ever come to me after the class was over and reported what those graduating seniors had said.

When I was first scheduled to teach ENGL 251: Advanced Composition (a course requiredof all English majors, Elementary Language Arts minors, Professional Writing minors, mostMarketing Communications students, and recommended to all Journalism majors), I had tothink long and hard about how I would select groups for this class since it was such a crucialwriting class in the students’ majors and minors. I reflected back to my previous experiences,and while I recognized that things went well in general in the previous classes, I also thoughtabout some of the issues that had arisen. The main problem I had in the past was connectedto personality conflicts in the groups: the perfectionists grew dissatisfied with their less-than-perfectionist group mates, the procrastinators did not like being “bossed around” by the non-procrastinators etc. Was there a way, I wondered, of clustering people based more on theirwork ethic and personality? That’s when I happened across a topic that has worked ever sincein creating successful, balanced groups, or what I call trust circles.

Choosing Groups: Fostering Group IdentityOn the first day of class, I have students write an un-graded essay on the following topic

so I can gain a sense of where we are beginning, their personalities, and their work habits:

Regardless of why or how often you write, you approach writing in a certain fash-ion. Some people, for example, write detailed outlines while others use note cards totrack main points. Some people write directly into the computer while other actuallyhandwrite a rough draft before sitting down at the computer. Some people start anassignment as soon as they receive it, while others wait until 2am of the due date tobe inspired. The writing process that you have developed as a student is yours andyours alone; no one has the same writing process.

Take a few minutes to think about your individual writing process and why youthink you have adopted these strategies; after all, the writing process that you userelates in some way to your habits, personality, beliefs, etc.. After you reflect on thisconnection, write an essay in which you analyze your writing process and what thisprocess reflects about you. The essay should integrate both of these goals seamlessly.Remember to follow all of the elements of an effective essay that you practiced inyour previous classes.

An effective essay will be at least 500 words in length. We have plenty of time, somake sure you proofread and make any changes as neatly as possible.

As I read the essays that result from this topic, I pay careful attention to what the studentshave to say. I put the procrastinators with other procrastinators, the type-A students withother type-A students, perfectionists with perfectionists, the eclectic with the eclectic, thestretched-too-thin with the like, and so on. Then, once students are in these groups, I tellthem that this is their group for the semester (although I always tell them that if the groupdoes not work out, that I will change them, but I have never had to change the groups), andso the work of establishing their trust circles begins.

Connecting Writing Process with Personality (Hunzer) 67

Because their groups become their support system throughout the class, I try to foster agroup identity from the first time when they are in groups. First I have them introduce them-selves to the rest of the group. They spend a few minutes talking about their backgrounds,majors, interests, activities, jobs, favorite snack foods or movies—anything that will helpthem feel more comfortable with each other from the start. Second, once they have met eachother, they face the next challenge that I’ve found is crucial to fostering trust in their groups:they must all agree on a group name, a name that will follow them for the entire semester.The group names almost always reflect traits that the group has in common. One semesterthe procrastinators called themselves “11:59pm,” which is when their essays were always due.Another semester, the ones who labeled themselves as easily distractible called themselves“Let’s get to wo—look a turtle!” One group of insecure perfectionists called themselves “ThePerfect Mess,” and so on. The group name is entirely up to them and has to be agreed uponby all members. Years after students have left my class, I’ve heard them still calling themselvesby their group names on Facebook, in a study lounge, or in other classes. Therefore, the com-bination of the writing prompt and the group name seem to help establish trust early on intheir work together.

After nearly seven years of teaching the class, sometimes two sections per semester, andafter over 450 students have passed through ENGL 251, many students have returned to tellme that they continue to keep in touch with their group-mates, use the same groups to workon other classes’ projects, or have been in each other’s weddings. To this day, this is the onlygroup formation tool that has led to my former students coming back to me and telling methat they are still connected to their groups, their trust circles.

While the writing prompt and the formation of a group identity are the two primaryways that I have created these very successful groups in ENGL 251, the building of trust doesnot end there. In a series of small ways, my entire class is designed to strengthen the group’sability to work together while allowing students to grow as individuals.

My Class Context

Throughout the course of the semester, the small groups work on a variety of projectsrelated to professional as well as peer texts. When we analyze essays written by professionalwriters, students are given questions to consider about assigned readings. They know fromthe very beginning that they are responsible as a group to work through the answers. SometimesI have to intercede and prevent the work from being done by one person, but this is rare sincethe personalities in the groups usually blend well together; many times I must “shark” theroom and keep students on task, but this is true of any collaborative environment. When thetime comes for groups to report their findings, however, I do not have them do this the sameway every time.

One way that the trust circles share their ideas after they have collaborated together isexemplified on the day that we discuss a pair of essays—George Orwell’s “Why I Write” andJoan Didion’s “Why I Write”—the students attend to the following questions:

• Find as many similarities between the two essays as you can (but look beyond, “theyare both about writing”): what do we learn from these similarities?

• Find as many differences between the two essays as you can: what do these differencesshow us?

• Find as many effective stylistic elements in the two essays as you can: what specificallyworks in each essay? What specific citations support your assertions?


All of the groups must prepare answers to all of these questions, and then we list all of theanswers from all of the groups on the board so everyone sees all of the ideas. In this way, thegroups work on their own to come up with answers, but at the same time, these smaller groupsmust still interact with the entire group.

Another way that the trust circles work together to explore and then share their ideas isimplemented when more questions are assigned, such as when we discuss a cluster of essays:Joan Didion’s “Georgia O’Keeffe,” Virginia Woolf ’s “Leslie Stephen,” Annie Dillard’s “AnAmerican Childhood,” and Doris Lessing’s “My Father.” All of the small groups are told toprepare answers for all of these questions since they are told “you don’t know what questionor questions you will be assigned:

1) How do these four essays qualify as biographies? What evidence supports your answer?2) What was successfully done in each essay? What examples do you find? What was not

successful? What examples do you find?3) Who is being biographized in these essays? How do you know? Do we learn about

anyone else in these essays? How do you know?4) What “overall significance” do you find in these essays? Who, besides the authors,

can learn about from these essays and what is learned?5) What do these four essays have in common with each other? Find specific examples

to support your points.

Rather than assigning certain groups certain questions on my own, I randomize the assignmentsby having students choose an index card from my small pile, and on each card is a numberor a pair of numbers; the small group is then responsible for preparing the answer to thatquestion or pair of questions. So, in the example above, if a group chooses the index cardwith “2 and 5” written on it, that small group is responsible for presenting answers on bothof these questions. In this way, the professor is not accused of giving “easy” or “hard” questionsto certain groups, and, in a very strange way, the index card becomes a way to bring the groupscloser together: the groups start to discuss who should choose the card, or who should notchoose the card, or which card is the “best,” even though all they see is the plain front of thecard. Sometimes the members of the group even used the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” game todecide who would choose the card, thus another type of unity developed within the group.

Sometimes the trust circles perform collaborative writing tasks throughout the semestersuch as writing paragraphs or revising existing passages. In this type of task, I may give thema poorly written passage and ask them to use subordination or coordination techniques topolish the passage, or when discussing “style,” I may have the groups re-write a passage intoa different voice: low style to high, high to middle, middle to high, etc.. In this type ofexercise, students must work and struggle together to complete the task, and their collaborativetexts are shared with the rest of the class via a document camera or overhead. The index cardsare also used in this type of small group activity.

A final type of activity that the trust circles complete is peer review, which has provenespecially effective in this class since the students remain in the same groups throughout theentire semester, thus allowing them to not only trust each other but to recognize their indi-vidual strengths and weaknesses within the group. For example, I once heard one group say,“Margo, you’re the grammar expert, so you get those questions. Brad, you have great structure,and then I’ll give suggestions about sources since I do them well.” Admittedly, the first timewe do peer review, students often follow the pattern that we have all seen where they “like”everything in the essays, but after they receive their first grades and as their trust level increases,they often take the review process more seriously and learn to be much more critical because


they see that they are helping their group mates and are not attacking them. Keeping the trustcircles the same throughout the semester regardless of the collaborative task seem to allowstudents to work together more effectively and with better success.

Surveying the Students: In Their Own Words

After talking to the two graduating seniors mentioned early in this essay, I really beganto wonder: “Did the selection of groups in this class really work as well as I think? Or wastheir experience limited to their group?” To answer my question, I sent to a survey to 100former ENGL 251 students to gain a better perspective on their experiences. Only nineteenstudents responded to the survey, but all of their answers provided great insight into my ques-tion. What follows are student-written comments from these surveys2.

When asked the question “What was your overall impression of your group as the semesteradvanced?,” the following answers were offered:

Student #2: “For the most part I really liked our group! We had a lot of fun, which helpedme be more comfortable with group critiques. I wouldn’t have felt as comfortable verballycritiquing them if I hadn’t really got[ten] to know them first. The casual way we eased intogroups, having discussions about other things besides strictly class, helped as well.”

Student #10: “As the semester advanced we all became comfortable with our own andeach other’s writing styles which made it easier to give advice and know each other’s strengthsand weaknesses. We would come up with little projects for each other and ways to push eachothers writing. For example, for each paper we would choose a certain literary function, punc-tuation, a particular verb tense, a specific word, and we would each have to include it in ournext paper in different ways. It helped us become more familiar with someone new in ourown writing. That is still the only reason I’ve ever used semicolons.”

Student #11: “Up until this class I had been weary of group peer review. It seemed thatmost often I would get paired with people who [k]new very little about correct grammar andwriting. It was the equivalent of having a three year old correct my calculus assignments. Thisclass, however, was my first real positive experience with peer review. Every member of mygroup had something to add to papers. We all were open in critiquing each-other and overallhad great success. It was beneficial to have someone with a different writing style read overthe paper and point out things that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. I remember a com-mon discussion we had in our group was whether or not to use long sentences or short sen-tences. In the end it was personal preference, but it is just an example of one of the writingphilosophies we discussed with one another.”

Student #14: “I dislike group work on the whole, so I was definitely not looking forwardto it. An of course, I sized up my group members immediately ... [and] there was one womanin my group that I disliked almost immediately. I felt she was stuck up and full of herself,and I could not see how she would be able to help me.... As the semester wore on, however,I began to really like my group.... One of the group members and I actually discussed ... howwe relied on the different people for different input. Interestingly, this person was the womanI did not get along with. Over the semester, we became friends and have continued to be eversince.”

Student #17: “When I first met my group, I was not overly enthusiastic about workingwith them. My past experiences with group work had not been wonderful, so I did not havehigh hopes. I am not very good at getting to know new people, and most of the other membersof my group seemed to click with each other right away, while I just sat back and watched.


They seemed like outgoing, intelligent people, and I was a bit intimidated by them. After thefirst awkward week or so of working with a new group of people, I really came to like mostof the members of my group. I saw sides of them that I really had not expected to see fromthem when I first met them, and became pretty good friends with one of two of them. I reallycame to respect their opinions and thought[s] on my writing, which made revising my workas a whole a lot easier after they had read it.”

These responses are representative of the comments made by all but one of the nineteenresponders, which demonstrates non-statistically that the consistent groups as well as the col-laborative nature of the class were beneficial to the students.3

When asked the question, “Do you still keep in touch with your group-mates? If so,how often and why? If not, why do you think you have lost touch?,” sixteen of the nineteenstudents stayed in touch with at least one (but often more) of their group-mates or classmateswith whom they connected. The following responses demonstrate the connections madebetween the members of our class:

Student #2: “I do still keep in touch with 3/4 of them! One just through Facebook andnot very closely, another through other classes and occasional emails, and another throughoccasional emails and meetings on campus...! I remember this class’ group more than mostothers of my college career! I think it was because of the class atmosphere, and how easily wewere able to get to know each other and talk within groups about class-related things andnon-class-related things.”

Student #10: “I still keep in touch with one of my group-mates, even after graduatingand moving away. I think we just got to know each other so well through proofreading andhelping each other on ideas for papers. We stayed close throughout the rest of my Englishcareer at River Falls, which luckily was two years since taking Engl 251 and we would talkalmost daily as we had several classes together and we kept meeting in groups do to similarrevisions to what we did in Engl 251.”

Student #14: “One group-mate I have not heard from since. Another and I are acquain-tances and will speak in class or in the halls, but that is the limit to our contact. My othergroup member, who was, ironically, the woman I disliked, and I have become good friends.We have had dinner together outside of school and speak on the phone frequently. In fact,we are both inviting each other to our respective weddings. Interestingly, she told me that sheinitially disliked me as well. Today, I count her among the good friends I made at school.”

Student #19: “I do keep in touch with my group mates.... One member I keep in weeklycontact with via facebook (we have to discuss important reality TV results). Another memberI keep sporadic facebook communication with but have had a class or two since Eng 251 andwe usually sit next to each other and loathe the professor together (not any class with Dr.Hunzer though). And the other member of the core group I keep minimal contact with butit’s not an awkward thing, we just normally wouldn’t keep in touch. Such is life.”

Student #7: “A lot of my group member[s] were only English minors, so I haven’t seenthem around in the same classes, etc, but when I do see them I always say hi. There is onegroup member who was also an English major and I have many of the same classes with herand often talk to her. I also end up talking to people who were in that class but not in mygroup, we’ll often bring up good things we learned or discussed while in your class.”

The other responses offered were similar: that the students are cordial to each other whenthey see each other on campus or in other classes, that they communicate through Facebook,or that they email occasionally as friends. A few students mentioned that although they didnot keep in touch with their actual group-mates, they did keep in touch with others from theclass, which is also a clear sign that the atmosphere created in the class was beneficial to the


students. As stated earlier, however, a few students did not keep in touch with their group-mates, and there are their comments:

Student #4: “No. One girl dropped out. Another got married and started hanging witha different crowd. The guy transferred. We didn’t have Facebook back then, so it took adifferent sort of effort to keep in touch with class mates.”

Student #8: “Possibly next semester, but not during the summer.”Student #12: “I haven’t talked to any of my group-mates since we took our final in May.

This is probably because our personalities and life-styles never really allowed us to connectpast our time together in English 251.”

Although these are indeed negative responses, I do not think that these responses commentnegatively on the collaborative atmosphere or the use of consistent groups; rather, these com-ments demonstrate their differing life-paths, not a disconnection because of their work inEnglish 251.

Finally, the closing question of the survey produced very interesting responses: “Whatelse would you like to say about your experience with your 251 groups?”

Student #1: “I think that splitting a class like that up in groups is the best possible wayto teach the class. It allows the students to discuss the readings, be accountable for their work,be actively engaged with the people they see in class every day, and get positive and constructivefeedback on their writing BEFORE the final grade is given. The class as a whole was a lot lessstressful because you were automatically given group support.”

Student #4: “ENGL 251 was one of my favorite classes largely because I had that intimateinteraction with my group-mates. The professor had the perfect melding of structured andnon-structured learning, but every second was a learning experience.”

Student #5: “My experience with my 251 group made me appreciate group work morethan I had before. I realized how valuable it can be to work in a group when the memberswere chosen and assigned for specific reasons.”

Student #7: “One specific event stands out in my mind, we were critiquing papers andone member has failed to understand and address the assignment correctly. So I basically toldher she had to rewrite her entire paper. This was hard because we were so close, but I thinkshe probably was more receptive to me because we were close and she knew I wasn’t saying itto be mean or because I was overly picky.”

Student #8: “I have had peer reviews in other classes where students share their work withtheir peers on either side of their chairs/desks. This is not a beneficial mix because people fre-quently sit by their friends who typically have the same aptitude and are of the same sex.Males and females bring different perspectives. Plus, by having a mix of writing aptitudes,the products (papers) improve and most importantly, the students broaden both their critiquingand writing skills. The semester-long group work allows students to learn from a range ofperspectives, helps individuals recognize his/her weaknesses, and each person receives a varietyof suggestions on how to tackle writing problems.”

Student #10: “I really attribute a lot of my success during my undergrad college career tothat class. Before taking it I felt a little lost and alone in my major and it not only gave me achance to improve my writing, but to meet with people who were fun and who could helpme at the same time. We all learned to push each other, but still have a good time.”

Student #11: “That very same semester I had a reading class which also utilized groupreview. In that class the group would get together and discuss the readings for that particularweek. However, I keep in touch with no one from that group. In fact, I barely even rememberwho I was in the group with. I have been sitting here thinking about what makes these two


classes so different. Why, in one, did we form a bond while in the other it was just another classwhere we were going through the motions? It was while pondering this question that I had abit of an epiphany. Writing is an intimate process. We put ourselves out there with each tran-scribed word. The essays we wrote for that class were often very intimate in their subject. Weput our souls into each paper and were at the mercy of the group members to read it, understandit, and improve on it. In the process we understood each other, and sometimes, even relatedwith one another. There was a more intimate connection through our writing that is not evidentin the group work for other classes. Our writing was a vestibule for our friendship.”

Student #12: “At first, being in a group of people who were going to be critical of mypapers made me really uneasy; however, as the semester progressed I got to know my groupmembers and I began to feel totally comfortable with them reading my papers and beingcritical of them. The thought of having others outside my group read my papers definitelywas not appealing because I had gained so much trust from my own group members.”

Student #19: “Overall, this was a great experience. Group work does not work for everyclass but in a writing class it is crucial. I could not have been in a better group and wouldnot be the writer that I am if not for the group work that I experienced in 251. Just abouteveryone is apprehensive when it comes to being placed in a group but everyone is in the sameboat. Students produce better work, form better relationships, and develop better responsibilityas a result of being in groups.”

Drawing ConclusionsAs I stated early in this essay, we are all well-aware that collaborative learning has benefits

to our students, and I have used small groups hundreds of times in various classes, but myexperiences with ENGL 251 still amaze me every semester. I honestly think my use of my firstday topic is one of the main reasons this class has worked so well, but I also believe that theother qualities of this classroom atmosphere also lead to success: the pieces of the whole allfunction together in making the trust circles successful and long-lasting. First, having the stu-dents in the same groups from the first to the last day of the semester and then doing a varietyof activities within these groups has strengthened the students’ interpersonal skills as well astheir trust in their peers, both of which benefit the students in the class and as they go beyondour class. Second, planning activities for every day of class that rely on the students within agroup having to negotiate and learn together strengthens their ability to stay “on task” andbolsters the sense of camaraderie that seems to unite many of the students on a somewhatpermanent basis. Finally, relying on their personalities and writing practices as the sole wayto cluster the students emphasizes the connections between the students rather than focuseson the differences between them.

We have all had to work with people in a group situation where one person seems totake charge or boss the group, where one person is forced to do the work for the entire group,or where one or two people in the group struggle to keep the group focused and on task. Ican honestly say that these faults of group work rarely occur now that I have adopted thesepractices in my classes. I am proud to be known in the English Department as the “one whouses groups so well,” and I am especially happy to claim that my small groups live on longafter my classes have ended.

Notes1. Barkley, Cross, and Major outline ten ways to “randomly” place students in groups, three ways for stu-

dents to choose their own groups, and ten ways for the instructors to place students into groups—each of


their explanations act as “how-to” guides for use in the classroom. Ruth Mirtz, in her essay titled “ModelGroups and Un-Model Writers: Introducing First- and Second-Year College Students to a Writer’s Life,” alsodiscusses some of the practical issues you need to consider when assigning groups in class. A third source ofgreat help is Brooke, Mirtz, and Evans’ essay titled “Teaching From Experience: Claiming Small Groups.”

2. One student out of nineteen had a negative experience with her group experience in our class: “As thesemester advanced my group broke into two separate fractions, neither wanting anything to do with theother. Two of the individuals in my group felt they were right about everything and were not willing toaccept mine and the other two group members’ opinions. This, of course, proved rather disheartening: someof the members of my group had really good ideas though because we were unwilling to accept one another’sviews, often these good ideas were wasted. Overall, my impression of our group by the end of the semesteris one of apathy. Eventually, I too switched over to the “know-it-alls” side, though this is unknown to myprevious fraction.” No pedagogical technique works for everyone, so this type of response is to be expected.

Works CitedBarkley, E.F., K. P. Cross, and C. H. Major. Collaborative Learning Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty.

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Print.Brooke, Robert, Ruth Mirtz, and Rick Evans, eds. Small Groups in Writing Workshops. Urbana, IL: NCTE,

1994. Print._____.“Teaching From Experience: Claiming Small Groups.” Brooke, Mirtz, and Evans 52–80. Print.Mirtz, Ruth. “Teaching From Experience: Claiming Small Groups.” Brooke, Mirtz, and Evans 85–111. Print.


Forming Peer Critique GroupsThrough Personality Preferences

MIALISA A. MOLINE

One of the key components to the peer critique process in the teaching of writing is toget students to understand that the peer critiquer gains more from the critique process thanthe writer. This concept can be quite challenging to get across to young writers since studentstend to focus on the benefits that they, themselves, gain directly as writers. Having struggledwith student complaints about how “peers don’t offer valuable feedback,” and continuallyexplaining that exposing oneself to other writers’ choices, processes, and texts is what offersthe real value in the peer critique experience, I decided to try a new approach: using personalitytest results (like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, also known as the MBTI) in assigning peercritique partners. Students enjoy learning about their own personality preferences—informa-tion shared through the results and discussion of the personality test results—and studentsgain a fairly rich understanding of different types of audience, including the appeals that workbest for certain types of readers. So I began, many years ago, to require that my own studentsof writing take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator at the beginning of every semester, and Ibegan to further use those results in assigning peer critique partners (as I combined them witha strong consideration of the teaching concepts I wished to highlight on specific assignments).This chapter discusses the process I follow in using personality test results to inform myassignment of peer critique partners in the writing classroom.

BackgroundThe first step in using any personality test to inform teaching choices in the writing class-

room is to understand the test itself and how it relates to the writing process in individuals.The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, for example, is a psychologically descriptive personality

test that offers “a useful schema for analyzing people” (Locker 44). An individual must firsttake the test, often available through a university’s career services office, by responding to aseries of multiple-choice questions about personality preferences. This process takes a bit oftime—not to just take the test, but also to allow for the scoring, interpretation, and discussionof the results. For example, at my own campus, students must make an appointment withCareer Services to take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and then return to Career Servicesafter the results have been scored in order to meet with a career counselor and discuss themeaning of the results. This process may take up to two weeks, depending on the currentdemand for career services’ time and appointment scheduling considerations. Once students

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obtain their results and report those results to the writing instructor, the writing instructormust think carefully about how to use the results to best inform the assignment of groups forthe peer critique process. The best place to start for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, in myopinion, is to read Jensen and DiTiberio’s Personality and the Teaching of Composition. A syn-opsis of their Handouts on Personality and Writing has been included in Appendix A for yourconvenience. However, a close examination of the full text is strongly encouraged.

The results of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, for example, fall into sixteen possibledescriptive categories based on four pairs of dichotomies. These dichotomous categoriesinclude: I/E, S/N, T/F, and J/P. Thus, results include a four-letter code describing the currentpersonality preferences of the student (ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ, INTJ, ISTP, ISFP, INFP, INTP,ESTP, ESFP, ENFP, ENTP, ESTJ, ESFJ, ENFJ, or ENTJ). Students typically receive a detailedreport describing what their personal results mean. Detailed descriptions for each four-lettercombination, along with descriptors for each dichotomy, are available in Jensen and DiTiberio’stext if you would like to read further. You may also ask your career services office to forwardstudents’ results to you. Following, you will find a brief explanation of each dichotomy forthe Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (used as an example in this article), and interpretations foreach letter within those dichotomies.

Definitions of the Myers Briggs Dichotomies

• The I/E dichotomy describes “how individuals prefer to focus their attention and getenergy. Extraverted [E] types are energized by interacting with other people. Introverted[I] types get their energy from within” (Locker 44). “EXTRAVERTS try things out[and] focus on the outer world of people ... INTROVERTS think things through [and]focus on the inner world of ideas” (Felder). Extraverts tend to “generate ideas best bytalking about a topic” ( Jensen and DiTiberio 171) during the invention stage of thewriting process, while introverts are “better at creating an inner dialog” (172) andexpressing invention through planning—as in concept-mapping, outlining, branching,and free-writing (172–173).

• The S/N dichotomy focuses on “the way an individual prefers to take in information.Sensing [S] types gather information through their senses, preferring what is real andtangible. Intuitive [N] types prefer to gather information by looking at the big picture,focusing on the relationships and connections between facts” (Locker 44). SENSORS[are] practical, detail-oriented, [and] focus on facts and procedures ... INTUITORS[are] imaginative, concept-oriented, [and] focus on meanings and possibilities” (Felder).Sensors “excel at presenting factual information” ( Jensen and DiTiberio 173) and evi-dence, while intuitors “excel at presenting theories and concepts and at devising newand unusual approaches to writing” (174). “In the first drafts ... [intuitors] ... presentgeneralities without examples” ( Jensen and DiTiberio 174).

• The T/F dichotomy reflects upon how “an individual makes decisions. Thinking [T]types prefer to use Thinking in decision making to consider the logical consequencesof a choice or action to base their decisions. Feeling [F] types make decisions basedon the impact to people, considering what is important to them and to others involved”(Locker 44). “THINKERS [are] skeptical [and] tend to make decisions based on logicand rules ... FEELERS [are] appreciative [and] tend to make decisions based on personaland humanistic considerations” (Felder). Thinkers tend to rely heavily on appeals tologos, while feelers tend to rely heavily on appeals to pathos. Thinkers “may need toenliven their writing with some personal examples” ( Jensen and DiTiberio 174), and


feelers “may be overly sentimental” (175).• The J/P dichotomy describes “how individuals orient themselves to the external world.

Judging [J] types like to live in a planned, orderly way, seeking closure. Perceiving [P]types prefer to live in a flexible, spontaneous way, enjoying possibilities” (Locker 44).“JUDGERS [tend to] set and follow agendas [and] seek closure even with incompletedata ... PERCEIVERS [tend to] adapt to changing circumstances [and] resist closureto obtain more data” (Felder). Judgers tend to work with efficiency, making decisionsquickly; while perceivers tend to work well under the pressure of deadlines becausethey tend to use up all available time to take in all of the data possible. Judgers may“too rigidly adhere to their original plans” ( Jensen and DiTiberio 176), adheringstrongly to deadlines. Perceivers may “only begin to write when an external deadlineis approaching” ( Jensen and DiTiberio 177).

One letter from each dichotomy is selected and ascribed to student results. These descrip-tors, taken as a four-letter combination, represent personality preferences in a broader sense.Further investigation regarding these results is strongly encouraged before using Myers-BriggsType Indicator results to inform the peer critique process. One great way to start is to takethe Myers-Briggs Type Indicator yourself, read about the sixteen preferences in some depth(see Additional Reading), and talk to your university’s career services officer to find out moreabout what information students might gain from taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.Many academic and business texts are also available for further reading about the Myers-BriggsType Indicator. Additional texts relative to personality preferences and the writing process havealso been included in the additional reading list provided at the end of this chapter.

Rationale for Using Personality Preferences inthe Assigning of Peer Critique Groups

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator may inform our teaching in a number of differentways. Consider the social construction of knowledge ( Jensen and DiTiberio). Von Krogh, etal. assert that, “beyond the efforts of individual players, people work together in groups tocreate knowledge” (13). Part of working in groups in the writing classroom includes peer cri-tiquing. As Shirley Brice Heath illustrates so very well, “exploring creatively the need for socialconnectedness ... offers us ways to create and tell new stories” (376). As students consider theiraudience(s), they may find new ways to persuade readers through text. “Knowledge enablinginvolves a mix of deliberate decisions and going with the flow” (Von Krogh et al. 17). Use ofpersonality preferences expressed in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator results offers studentsan approach to the consideration of audience that explores a wealth of rhetorical considerations.Kitty Locker rightly asserts that students will, “... be most persuasive if [they] play to [their]audience’s strengths” (Locker 44). Understanding how the writing process is affected by per-sonality preferences can be useful. Understanding how readers assign value to different typesof appeals, for example, can improve a writer’s rhetorical effectiveness. Considerations of evi-dence, group work habits, time management, and invention may also be affected.

Through discussion and application of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, invention maybecome a thoughtful activity in student writers, less tacit in nature, and far more deliberative.As Karen Burke LeFevre claims,

... while we as teachers of composition will work with individual writers as well aswriters in pairs and groups ... we must take into account writers’ inextricable connec-tions to social realms beyond the classroom. Since neither the individual nor thegroup invents in a vacuum, we must consider the relationships of inventors to other

Forming Peer Critique Groups Through Personality Preferences (Moline) 77

social groups and institutions, all of which impose on inventors various roles, prefer-ences, conventions, and restrictions [133].

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator offers us one such avenue in the consideration of socialrealms beyond the classroom. The MBTI can enhance students’ understanding of audience.Sharon Crowley points out that “invention reminds rhetors of their location within a culturalmilieu that determines what can and cannot be said or heard. The only effective argumentsare those to which the community is prepared to respond, whether negatively or positively”(168). Building a writer’s understanding of the diverse nature of personality preferences withina community encourages the writer to expand outward from their tendencies toward presentingparticular types of evidence and appeals when attempting to persuade readers to action.

Bringing appeals to pathos and ethos into the discussion of the construction of rhetoricalarguments (through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and T/F dichotomy in particular) helpsstudents understand that all three types of appeals may work well together to reach a broaderaudience. “Since thinking types base decisions on logical, objective, and impersonal criteria,and feeling types base theirs on personal, subjective values, the writing of each often reflectsrespectively an analytical or a personal approach to both content and audience” ( Jensen andDiTiberio 92). Aristotelian rhetorical appeals include appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos.Logos, or rational appeal “appeal[s] to the audience’s reason or understanding” (Corbett andConnors 18). Pathos, or emotional appeal “often [sways people’s] will ... more by their passionsor emotions than by their reason” (Corbett and Connors 18). “There is nothing necessarilyreprehensible about being moved to action through our emotions; in fact, it is perfectlynormal” (Corbett and Connors 77) “... emotional appeal plays a vital part in the persuasiveprocess” (Corbett and Connors 84). Ethos, or ethical appeal, “stem[s] from the character ofthe speaker ... [and] ... Aristotle recognized that the ethical appeal could be the most potentof the three modes of persuasion.... Skill in convincing the intellect and moving the will ofan audience could prove futile if the audience did not esteem, could not trust, the speaker[or writer]” (Corbett and Connors 19).

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator preferences in the T/F dichotomy tend to favor thepresentation of logic, facts, and statistics for thinking types and the presentation of humanexamples and testimony for feeling types. Students favoring both sides of the dichotomy weightheir own individual preferences heavily when evaluating a peer writer’s ethos. In terms offorming peer critique groups, matching the T/F dichotomy between students with opposingpreferences offers both thinking types and feeling types the opportunity to get a better senseof what types of evidence they may add to bolster their arguments for people preferring dif-ferent appeals.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator preferences in the S/N dichotomy tend to address theoverall structure and details provided in a text. Placing students with opposing preferencestogether in small groups offers intuitors the opportunity to assist sensors with adding a senseof creativity and surprise to their thesis statements. Sensors may also offer intuitors a sense offocus and narrowing of the thesis statements and a discussion of possible evidence needed tosupport those theses. Sensors will likely have gathered a great deal of evidence to present andmay need assistance connecting that evidence back to the thesis. They will also likely needassistance in writing transition statements and connecting sections of the text together to makeit flow. Intuitors may be capable of such assistance. Conversely, intuitors will likely have gath-ered a limited amount of evidence but connected it back to the thesis well, yet leaving gapsin supporting material. Sensors may be capable of finding good locations to add importantevidence, locating and identifying gaps in the text and suggesting ways to fill those gaps.


The I/E dichotomy primarily has to do with how people maintain their personal energylevels and manage to balance social interaction with their energy levels. Placing extrovertstogether during the invention stage of writing offers them the opportunity to talk out theirideas, and then write them down individually, post-discussion. Placing introverts togetheroffers them the opportunity to brainstorm individually in writing and then share their textsand ideas as a group, once their ideas have been put to paper.

The J/P dichotomy tends to affect time management, which can be applied to studentwriting groups in terms of work habits. In the interest of enhancing collaborative writinggroups, placing judgers together offers them an opportunity to work ahead, setting and fol-lowing through on agendas and reaching closure on their own terms and timelines. Placingperceivers together offers them the opportunity to resist closure together and work efficientlynear the deadline, making decisions nearer to the end of the process. Placing a perceiver in agroup with all judgers has the potential to create conflict, as the perceiver tends to have moredifficulty following a set schedule within the group, hoping to resist closure for as long aspossible.

Planning and Conducting Peer Critique SessionsUsing Personality Preference Results

Personality preferences are certainly not the be-all-end-all guarantee that student groupswill work well together. However, it is a place to start, particularly if an instructor has limitedknowledge of those students and their writing processes. At the start of a semester, gatheringas much information as one can about student preferences, strengths, and weaknesses willassist instructors in making informed decisions. Assessing the writing goals for a given assign-ment also must happen before you proceed to matching up students into peer critique groups.Assigning students to peer critique groups based on personality preferences can be challenging,based on the preferences of any given room full of students. The chart in Appendix A offerssome limited insight into how students’ personality preferences might affect their writingprocesses. Jensen and DiTiberio have gone to great lengths to relate personality preferencesto specific traits of the writing process, and these descriptions can inform an instructor ofwriting at the beginning of the semester much more effectively than just using guesswork,physical proximity, or randomization for the creation of peer critique groups.

Assigning student peer critique groups based on personality preference must remain flex-ible, due to the “luck of the draw” regarding which students attend a given class during agiven semester with other given students. Using personality preference results, an instructorwill have to examine the overall mix of preferences in the class and decide how to apply theresults to the work of assigning peer groups. One may have five introverts and twenty extroverts,or twenty-two sensors and three intuitors in a class. Dealing with the individual nature ofstudents and their personality preferences means working with a set population of students,the mix of which you may have no control over (some added variables might include regis-tration issues, prerequisites, class scheduling and availability of seats). To overcome such issues,an examination of the overall mix of preferences becomes necessary. I typically type studentnames and personality preference results into a brief database, to be used as a convenience forsorting students by preference. Then, I use that list to assign peer review groups. Like anyclassroom management tool, the use of personality preference results may inform, but certainlyshould not dictate, how a class is managed.

Working within a flexible approach to the use of personality preferences, an instructormight, as I do, mix up the works every time a new assignment focus arises. For example, if I


want my class to work on brainstorming topics and conceptualizing how a paper might evolve,I will try to pair up students with similar I/E preferences. If I want the class to work on exam-ining the use of evidence later in the semester, I will try to create peer groups that hold a mixof the T/F preferences. Because the Myers-Briggs types (the four-letter combination results)are so complex in describing people’s preferences in a comprehensive sense, I try to avoidusing those broader results when applying personality preference results to narrow foci withinthe writing process, based on Jensen and DiTiberio’s findings (as summarized in Appendix Aof this chapter). By the end of the semester, students generally know with whom they like towork, and within whom they find the greatest value in the peer critique process; so I rely lesson the personality preferences near the end of term and more on the expression of students’wishes much later in the semester.

The Process: I first have students take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator with our careerservices office. After they have taken the test and met with career services about the results,I examine their results and record them for use. Next, I identify the writing aspect on whichI would like students to focus during a given peer critique process before examining, sorting,and combining specific traits within students’ expressed personality preferences—preferencesthat I think will complement each other during the peer critique process. Finally, I releasepeer critique group assignments to the students, either with or without guided critique ques-tions. I do like to use a combination of open response and directed peer critique questionsfor peer critiques; but I leave that decision up to the reader, as it relates directly to teachingpedagogy and assignment goals more than to the creation of groups. One example of my own approach includes a peer critique session designed with the intended goal of having students critically examine their use of sources in a research report. Using the T/F dichotomy,I will try to place students in small groups that include people expressing opposing preferences.That way, the students with thinking preferences can help the students with feeling preferencesin finding ways to add different types of evidence—evidence that appeals to a reader’s senseof logic; and the students with feeling preferences can help the students with thinking pref-erences in finding ways to incorporate evidence that appeals to a reader’s emotions.

Working within a given student population with given expressed personality preferences,an instructor may only attempt to figure out the best combinations of groups for the writingtasks at hand. Students do seem to appreciate this approach, especially at the beginning ofthe semester, if the MBTI results are appropriately explained to them by the test administratorand the use of the results are appropriately explained to them by the instructor using the results to assign groups. Informing students of your use of this tool as merely one tool among many in your toolbox will help them understand your rationale behind groupassignment choices and help the students focus on their strengths during the peer critiqueexperience. Table 1 illustrates a bit more about those writing activities I personally find mostuseful in applying personality preference results and how I use the results to inform my deci-sions.

Table 1. Writing Activities and SuggestedCombinations of Personality Preferences

Writing Activity Beneficial Combinationsof Personality Preferences for Small Groups

Brainstorming/ The I/E dichotomy:Invention • Placing extroverts together offers them the opportunity to talk out their

ideas, and then write them down individually, post-discussion. • Placing introverts together offers them the opportunity to plan individu-

ally in writing and then share their plans and ideas as a group.


Gathering, Analyzing, The T/F dichotomy:and Presenting Evidence • Placing students with opposing preferences together in small groups offers

the opportunity to discuss the value placed on different types of evidenceand to whom they appeal (those favoring logical or emotional evidence).This oppositional complement offers students the opportunity to “bal-ance” their appeals through evidence, encouraging the use of mixedappeals to effectively persuade a broader audience.

Crafting thesis The S/N dichotomy:statements • Placing students with opposing preferences together in small groups offers

intuitors the opportunity to assist sensors with adding a sense of creativityand surprise to their thesis statements. Sensors may also offer intuitors asense of focus and narrowing of the thesis statements and a discussion ofpossible evidence needed to support those theses.

Making connections / The S/N dichotomy:writing transitions • Sensors will likely have gathered a great deal of evidence to present and

need assistance with winnowing and connecting that evidence back to thethesis. They will also likely need assistance in writing transition statementsand connecting sections of the text together to make it flow. Intuitors maybe capable of such assistance. Intuitors will likely have gathered a limitedamount of evidence but connected it back to the thesis well. Sensors maybe capable of finding good locations where intuitors may add importantevidence, locating and identifying gaps in the text for the writer.

Group production of The J/P dichotomy:text—large collaborative • In the interest of enhancing groups, placing judgers together offers themwriting projects an opportunity to work ahead, setting and following through on agendas

and reaching closure on their own terms. Placing perceivers together offersthem the opportunity to resist closure together and work near the dead-line. Placing a perceiver in a group with all judgers tends to create groupconflict, as the perceiver tends to have more difficulty following a setschedule within the group, and wishes for more flexibility than judgers areoften willing to give. However, judgers may prove too inflexible in chang-ing their approach to a topic, even when such change is clearly beneficial;and perceivers may need assistance in focusing or narrowing their topic inthe pre-writing phase.

Reflecting on the Experience

One of the most important concepts to convey to students when using the Myers-BriggsType Indicator in the classroom is the risk of labeling people. Introverts can still socialize well,and extroverts can still function by themselves. They simply manage their personal energy indifferent ways. After a period of socializing, an introvert may choose to be alone to increasepersonal energy. After a period of being alone, an extrovert may choose to socialize to increasepersonal energy. People expressing a sensing preference can still see the larger picture, andpeople expressing an intuitive preference can still work well with details. They simply preferone approach over the other. People expressing a thinking preference still have feelings; andpeople expressing a feeling preference can still think. People expressing a judging preferencecan still weight decisions appropriately based on adequate data; and people expressing a per-ceiving preference can still reach closure on a decision. Helping students understand that per-sonality preferences may change over time is also helpful, and noting the risks of using theresults to label people is important. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has taken criticism inthe past for the labeling of people by type. Help students understand that type is not associatedwith defining them as people, but rather that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is simply atool with which you inform your assigning of groups according to expressed preferences. Such


an approach will somewhat alleviate that risk. While I have taken some liberties in that areaby citing Felder herein, I have done so merely in the interest of efficiently and concisely con-veying the concepts and processes by which I personally apply personality preference resultsto the writing classroom. I take great care in helping students understand the dynamic andcontextual nature of expressing personality preferences. I encourage you to do the same. Becareful not to label your students according to type.

Additional challenges may arise when applying personality preference results to the writingclassroom. Some students will strongly disagree with their results. Your career services officeshould be able to address this issue if they are administering the test. Helping students under-stand that your approach to using personality preference results is not set in stone, and thatyour use of the results is only one factor in the assigning of groups, should alleviate their con-cerns. Writing instructors already tend to weigh many factors in the assigning of groups forcollaborative writing projects, including but not limited concerns of gender diversity, individualwriting strengths and weaknesses, and classroom behavior; and the use of personality prefer-ences only expands those variables we consider. But the most difficult challenge that I havepersonally faced in assigning groups using personality preferences is one of logistics. Certainresults are more frequently expressed in a population, and thus I will often end up with groupsof students sharing the same expressed preferences. I have found that creating peer critiquegroups of three or four offers added flexibility in placing students with opposing preferencestogether (example: one student expressing the intuitive preference placed in a group with twostudents expressing the sensing preference).

Overall, I have been happy with using personality preferences in my writing classes whenforming writing groups. While it may not always be appropriate pedagogically, I have foundthat it does help inform the formation of peer critique groups when appropriate. Studentshave repeatedly expressed their appreciation of a thoughtful approach to the assigning ofgroups for writing tasks like peer critiquing. Students have been exposed to small group worktypically running the gamut in terms of how those groups were assigned. Offering a thoughtfulapproach to assigning small groups, and explaining one’s rationale behind such an approach,help students see just how their strengths and weaknesses as writers complement the otherstudents around them. Students can actually see the value they might add to the peer critiqueprocess, and work hard to show their strengths.

Appendix A

Jensen and DiTiberio’s Handouts on Personality and Writing—Modified,Condensed, and Categorized Into Writing Stages


I(introversion)

You may have lessdifficulty with writingthan extroverts becauseyou tend to follow thecomposing process as itis traditionally taught.Your writing follows theprewriting-writing-rewriting pattern. Youwant most of your ideasclarified before writing.

As you begin to write,you may pause fre-quently to plan furtheror to anticipate thedirection of the text.You tend to write alone,asking for advice reluc-tantly and then perhapsonly from close friendsor during private ses-sions with a teacher.

Because you generateideas in isolation, yourtexts can be improved ifyou revise to connectyour ideas with livedexperiences, perhaps byadding descriptions ofexperiences or facts.

PreferenceExpressed Prewriting Drafting Revising


E(extroversion)

You probably write withlittle planning, thoughyou might feel guiltyabout not writing fromoutlines. You tend togenerate ideas best fromtalking about the topic,interviewing others, orpresenting an extempo-raneous report. You findfreewriting a goodmethod for developingideas.

Outlining is beneficialafter writing a first draft,in order to clarify ratherthan generate ideas. Youare blocked less fre-quently when first draftsare unfocused, filledwith a wide range ofdata or ideas. In laterdrafts, you can moreeasily bring balance toyour writing by selectingthe most importantideas or data from thefirst draft and writingabout each.

Discussing drafts help inthis stage. You may notrevise until you actuallyreceive verbal feedback.

S (sensing)

You collect largeamounts of data, foreach fact seems equallyimportant. However,you may become over-whelmed by the amountof data and unsure ofwhat facts to include insubsequent drafts.

Your first drafts tend tobe a recording of factsnot always clearlyrelated to a centraltheme or idea. Youprobably find writingeasier when given aspecific framework tofollow. You tend to payclose attention tomechanics in first drafts.

You probably view revis-ing as merely “correct-ing” or proofreading.You probably need to beencouraged to explainthe implications of yourdata or ideas by addingor rewriting topic sen-tences, thesis statements,or summaries.

N (iNtuitive)

You write best whengiven general instruc-tions from which youcan create your owngoals. Developing aunique approach to thetopic seems to be animportant part of yourprewriting, but you canbecome blocked by yourneed for originality.

You generate ideasalmost unconsciouslyand write quickly, let-ting one idea triggeranother with little atten-tion to mechanics. Yourfirst drafts may containonly ideas and generali-ties unsupported byconcrete examples,which are left for laterdrafts or neglectedentirely.

You need to resolveunnecessary complexi-ties, check your facts,correct mechanicalerrors, and clarify yourideas by supplying con-crete examples.

T (thinking)

You are motivated towrite when an assign-ment engages your mindanalytically and is pre-sented with a clear andlogical rationale. Unlessassigned topics for writ-ing are presented withclear objective perform-ance standards, you mayview the writing projectas a meaningless aca-demic exercise andbecome blocked.

You tend to organizeideas and findings intocategories or clearly for-mulated organizationalstructures. You focus onthe clarity of contentrather than on whetheror not the audience willfind it interesting. Yourfirst drafts read as dryoutlines in which keypoints are numbered.

When revising, you mayneed to enliven yourwriting with personalexperiences.

J (judging)

You tend to limit topicsquickly and set goalsthat are manageable.You usually devote timeto include plans to stopat key intervals to ana-lyze and revise objec-tives.

Your process is to com-plete the first draftquickly. You tend tomake stylistic and orga-nizational decisionsquickly. Your quicklywritten first drafts areoften shorter than laterdrafts. Your need tocomplete tasks helps youfinish writing projects,but it may also createblocks. When writingbefore finishing yourresearch, you may havenot gathered enoughinformation to generateadequate ideas; thus thedraft proceeds slowlyand painfully. Writingcan become easier foryou if you learn to put astalled project aside tofinish the research orgenerate more ideas.

When revising, youneed to re-evaluate deci-sions that have beenmade hastily, to considermore thoroughly theimplications of yourdata or ideas, and toexpand your writing toclarify or qualify bluntlyworded statements.

F (feeling)

You are motivated whengiven special encourage-ment and when projectsrelate to what you caremost about. You becomeblocked when writingabout a topic you can-not relate to your per-sonal values. What ismost important is foryou to connect withanother human beingthrough your communi-cation.

You tend to focus moreon how your audiencemay react to your writ-ing than on content andorganization. You maybe excessively concernedthat your audience maybe bored or that yourideas are inadequate.You may likewisebecome stalled bysearching for just theright phrase or wordingto capture the reader’sattention.

Because your concernfor impact is oftengreater than your con-cern for content, whenrevising, you may needto clarify your thoughtsor improve your organi-zation.

P (perceiving)

You tend to select broadtopics and dive intoreading without narrow-ing your focus. You dis-cover a multitude ofinteresting possibilities-related studies in litera-ture search, withoutclearly knowing whatyou will do with theinformation you gather.Your topics may be lim-ited only as the deadlineapproaches.

You may have difficultydividing the paper intosections, and may thusbelieve you need a largeblock of time before youcan begin to write.When writing, youpause more frequentlythan judging types, notto reflect or anticipate asan introvert does, but totake in numerous alter-natives. Your first draftstend to be long andthorough but also tooinclusive.

When revising, you usu-ally need to cut downthe length of the paperor to refocus its direc-tion.

Source: Jensen, George H. and John K. DiTiberio. Personality and the Teaching of Composition. “Appendix 3: Hand-outs on Personality and Writing.” Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1989. 171–177. Print.

PreferenceExpressed Prewriting Drafting Revising

Additional ReadingBriggs Myers, Isabel. Introduction to Type. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1980. Print.Briggs Myers, Isabel and Mary H. McCaulley. Manual: A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-

Briggs Type Indicator(r). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1985. Print.Jensen, George H. and John K. DiTiberio. Personality and the Teaching of Composition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex,

1989. Print.Thompson, Thomas C., ed. Most Excellent Differences: Essays on Using Type Theory in the Composition Classroom.

Gainesville, FL: Center for Applications of Psychological Type, 1996. Print.

Works CitedCorbett, Edward P.J., and Robert J. Connors. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. 4th Ed. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.Crowley, Sharon. The Methodical Memory: Invention in Current-Traditional Rhetoric. Carbondale, IL: Southern

Illinois University Press, 1990. Print.Felder, Richard M. “Matters of Style.” ASEE Prism 6 Dec. (1996): 18–23. FirstSearch. Web. 8 Apr. 2003.Heath, Shirley Brice. Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms. New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1983. Print.Jensen, George H., and John K. DiTiberio. Personality and the Teaching of Composition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex,

1989. Print.LeFevre, Karen Burke. Invention as a Social Act. Studies in Writing and Rhetoric. Carbondale, IL: Southern

Illinois University Press, 1987. Print.Locker, Kitty O., and Donna Kienzler. Business and Administrative Communication. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-

Hill Irwin, 2008. Print.Von Krogh, Georg, Kazuo Ichijo, and Ikujiro Nonaka. Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the

Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.Print.


Part III. How do I integratecollaborative learning techniques

into electronic environments?

Collaborative Learning and Writingin Digital Environments1

CINDY TEKOBBE, YAZMIN LAZCANO-PRY,AND DUANE ROEN

Thanks to digital media, everyone in the digitally connected parts of the world, in a sense,lives next to each other.

—James Paul Gee and Elizabeth R. Hayes,Language and Learning in the Digital Age (35)

As Lev Vygotsky suggests in Thought and Language and Mikhail Bakhtin in The DialogicImagination, the words of writers and speakers often reflect the voices of others who inhabitthe minds of language users. Bakhtin refers to these voices as “social heteroglossia” or the “Tower-of-Babel mixing of languages” (278). Writers facing a computer screen or sheetof paper “negotiate [these] various languages” (Trimbur 220), drawing on them freely even when the voices are not at the level of consciousness. These “bits and pieces of Textwhich writers and speakers borrow and sew together to create new discourse” (Porter 34) aremore common than we realize. In some sense, then, writers collaborate with language userswith whom they interact, including those who wrote texts centuries or even millennia ago.Although these kinds of tacit collaborations occur frequently, learners and writers can alsobenefit from more explicit collaborations. For example, in Mind and Society, Lev Vygotskymakes the case for small groups when he describes the zone of proximal development: “thedistance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solvingand the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adultguidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Mind 86). Of course, it is a logicalfallacy to assume that any given student in a group will consistently be the more/most capablepeer. For one task in a writing project, Erin might be that student, but for another task Jamesmight be. Although these kinds of social interactions can occur in face-to-face classrooms,we will demonstrate in this chapter that digital environments offer even greater opportunitiesfor students to work collaboratively. Unlike physical space that students inhabit togethersimultaneously, virtual space permits, even encourages, students to collaborate across timeand space.

87

The Impetus for Teaching in Digital Environments

In a digital space, students can engage the course materials provided by the instructor,but they can also “link” in their own course materials that they have sourced from their owndigital files or they have discovered during their Internet research. With search engines suchas Google and Bing offering suggestions and providing links to secondary materials relatedto an initial search string, students can throw a wide net to capture examples to share withthe class. Using the following free and widely available creative tools, students can use theirown media to illustrate a point or pose a question:

• Personal Web sites, such as MySpace and webs.com• Social media sites, such as Facebook• Presentation tools, such as Prezi and Sliderocket• Video and production sites, such as YouTube and Xtranormal• File sharing sites, such as Dropbox.com and Box.net• Link sharing sites, such as Bo.lt and Diggo.com• Blog communities, such as Wordpress and Tumblr

A student can engage in a discussion about messages in advertising and submit a videoclip supporting her claims. Other students can comment, submit alternative clips, or worktogether to design their own media for consideration allowing the kind of hands-on sharingthat is not possible in a traditional classroom. This kind of sharing, showing alongside telling,decentralizes the role of the instructor, who is then free to act as an expert practitioner (GeeGood ) rather than a singular conduit of knowledge.

Digital environments support dynamic peer review and peer collaboration as documentsare easily shared, revised, and annotated with simple and freely available tools. These toolssimplify the collection and evaluation of student work and allow for greater instructor timemanagement as digital files can be easily stored, transferred, modified, exchanged and archived.File sharing services such as Dropbox.com and Box.net offer free space for uploading andsharing files, while URL sharing sites such Diggo and Bo.lt allow members to share onlinesources. These digital spaces require limited funding and significantly less financial supportthan brick-and-mortar spaces. They free students to manage their own time and adjust their own workload. Flexible file and information sharing tools may be particularly attractiveto working, returning, and non-traditional students who may be balancing the responsibilitiesof employment or family with their coursework. The distributed classroom model, with students and instructors meeting together online from a scattering of physical spaces, improvesaccessibility for students who might otherwise be unable to travel to and from a physical campus. This greater flexibility can also be leveraged to improve student retention rates, pro-viding students with more choices and increased customization of their own educational expe-rience.

Digital learning spaces provide students time to read the course materials and commentsof their instructors and peers, contemplate, and construct responses without the time con-straints of a classroom discussion. This built-in time lag provides a framework for the practiceof mapping, writing, and revising as metacognitive acts. The ability to compose writtenresponses, review, and revise them before contributing them to the community for consider-ation can encourage increased reflection and self-assessment because “in the process of makingtheir thinking clear to others, [students] need to first learn that they can think about theirthinking in very conscious ways” (Smith). Students are freer to point out any perceived gapsin their thinking and writing, and to ask for feedback or assistance.

88 III: How do I integrate collaborative learning techniques into electronic environments?

Managing Time and Workload in Digital Environments

If some students tune in and out of the online environment, they may miss the appropriateresponse window, and the dialogue will have branched beyond them. Once a student hasfallen out of the pattern and direction of the discussion, she may find it difficult to re-syn-chronize with their peers’ comments. Therefore, it is helpful to establish a regular responseschedule and evaluate student work accordingly. An instructor might decide that initialresponses to discussion questions are all due by midnight on Monday, peer responses are dueby midnight on Wednesday, and follow-up responses are due by midnight on Friday. Whena student knows that she must respond to three of her peers for each discussion as defined bythe course guidelines, she can make individual decisions about when and how much time shecan contribute on any given day. Of course, this does not stop the flood of midnight writers,but it does provide benchmarks for the path of the dialogue.

Table 1. Reminder to StudentsReminder to Students: Deadlines for Posting Responses

Midnight on Monday Midnight on Wednesday Midnight on Friday

Respond to question posed by Respond to at least three peers’ Respond to at least two peers’teacher. responses from Monday. responses from Wednesday.

Instructors can encourage earlier and engaged responses by entering the discussion andproviding feedback to the on-time responders. This positive affirmation reinforces the instruc-tor’s expectations and serves as a visible demonstration of the benefits of sticking with theschedule. These entrance points for the instructor also establish natural openings to mediateor moderate the discussion. Checking in early can provide valuable information about howstudents interpreted the assignment prompt, thus allowing the instructor to shift the discussionback on track by reframing the questions when necessary.

Although planning is critical to the success of a digital learning environment, the actualteaching obligation in the 24-hour, on-demand culture can quickly swamp an instructor’sresources. In this digital culture, instant responses are the norm, and students may expectemails sent at midnight to be answered within minutes. Instructors may be tempted to workwhen students are working because the vitality of the network in motion is engaging. Yet ifstudent and instructor work practices are conflicting, the idea of engaging real time with stu-dents adds large blocks of time to the teaching schedule. Instructors may find it helpful tocommunicate in advance to students the windows of time when the teacher will be enteringthe dialogue, as well as establishing standards for responding to email, providing feedbackand posting grades. The digital space, in its unbounded ability to produce instant and simul-taneous interaction, without clarification, can unrealistically shape student expectation andundermine the integrity of the instructor, instruction and space.

For example, it may be helpful to establish that for two hours each day the teacher willread and respond to student posts while simultaneously recording grades. Students can adjustto a 48-hour window for responses to email and can ground themselves in the knowledge thatthey will receive responses on their major projects within one week. Perhaps daily assessmentsare posted on Fridays or anything submitted beyond Thursday at midnight will not be con-sidered. Establishing a separate forum for housekeeping and administrative questions can behelpful. Teachers can encourage students to respond to one another’s questions before theteacher responds by establishing participation in the forum in the assessment criteria. Thiscan help to avoid answering the same question (e.g., how many sources are required) multiple

Collaboration in Digital Environments (Tekobbe, Lazcano-Pry and Roen) 89

times in multiple emails. This self-help practice also supports student agency and encouragesindependence and responsibility. However a teacher decides to manage time and workload,advance planning, and clear conveyance of schedules and expectations will help constrain theadditional time commitment of digital learning spaces.

Blogs, Wikis, and Discussion Boards2

Blogs, wikis, and discussion boards are effective virtual spaces for collaborative learningand writing. Because students can use these tools to share ideas with classmates, as well otherpeople across the globe, they understand the collaborative nature of knowledge construction.Further, by sharing ideas with people who will respond with questions and comments, studentscome to appreciate that they what they write matters. Writing is not just something that theteacher assigns and grades; writing affects other people.

BlogsBlogs (Web logs) are online journals designed to allow a user to launch a personal space

with little, if any, Web site development skills and experience. Most allow readers to postcomments and content in response to the blogger. Blogs are generally customizable and offerpersonalizing features, such as avatar images, color schemes and layouts, and “plugins” thatextend blog functionality. For example, many blog sites offer plugins that link the blog to theuser’s other social media applications such as Twitter and Facebook. Users can configure theseplugins to automatically notify Twitter and or Facebook of new blogs posts or new followers.For those who work with holistic and portfolio assessment, blogs provide a seamless way toaccumulate a student’s body of work because each assignment can be submitted as a singleblog entry. In this way, blogs encourage students to see their assignments as connected andinterrelated, which may undermine the list-making and box checking tendencies studentsoften exhibit in their approach to the course syllabus.

One possible method of running a course in blogs is to choose a blog provider, such asWordpress, and ask each student to construct a Wordpress blog and send the blog URL to theinstructor. The instructor then constructs a Wordpress blog for the course, and using the linksmanagement tool of the course blog, build a listing of all of the students’ names with links totheir individual blogs. The course blog can be used to post assignment prompts and announce-ments while the students use their own blogs to respond to prompts and use the commentsfeatures to respond to the writings of their peers. Plugins can be added to link the course blogto the course file-sharing site, a site such as Box.net. The instructor can then load the coursesyllabus, assigned readings, assessment rubrics, assignment prompts, and other course documentsto the file sharing site. The blog plugin does the work of making visible to students on thecourse blog page the available course documents housed in the file sharing site.

Another possible approach is for the instructor to develop a single course blog. In thisschema, the instructor posts writing prompts and assignments to the course blog while studentspost their work as a “comment” to each assignment. Students’ using their own individualblogs provides opportunities for more student interaction because they can post their commentson each other’s work, but instructors may find it more difficult to evaluate performance becauseshe must check each student’s blog separately for both assignments and peer comments. Asingle course blog allows fewer opportunities for students to respond to their peers but is morestraight- forward for an instructor to assess and administrate. Some popular blog sites includeBlogger, Blogspot, Wordpress, and Tumblr.

Because blogs can be made available to the larger blogosphere (although most have settings


that can be configured by the user to limit access to the blog), students can use them to shareideas not only with classmates but also people outside the course community. For instance,if a student in a writing course were crafting an argument that state and federal governmentagencies need to support the development of all-electric vehicles and the accompanying infra-structure (e.g., recharging stations), she could post ideas and drafts in a blog. In the collab-orative learning space of the blog, classmates and even members of the general public couldcomment on the student’s ideas, offering a range of perspectives. In the blog the student couldeven post a link to a survey that she has constructed in Survey Monkey at no cost, posingspecific questions to test public views on the topic. These kinds of interactions with othershelp students to see how learning is a collaborative process—that others can help learnersrefine their thinking.

WikisBy their very design, wikis are collaborative spaces. They are essentially Web sites that

may be edited by multiple participants. Although wikis’ design functionality allows for col-laboration, they do vary in scope and purpose. Therefore, it is helpful to conduct a basiconline search for examples of what course wikis across disciplines and grade levels look like.The easiest way to construct a wiki is through Web sites that offer to host them for free.Popular options include Wikispaces.com, PBworks.com, Wetpaint.com, and Wikia.com.Instructors may simply follow the step-by-step instructions provided in each of these Websites to design their own course wikis.

Although collaboration is the central activity engaged in when using wikis, instructorshave ways to control the degree of participation through the manipulation of wiki design fea-tures. Skepticism about the validity of information found in the most famous wiki to date,Wikipedia, reflects the commonly touted drawback that they can be modified by anyone tosay anything. This is actually a security feature and can be controlled by the wiki owner. Ifan instructor wants to be the only person to modify the wiki, she can configure the Web siteto accept only her changes. Alternatively, an instructor may intend to leverage a wiki as a col-lective environment for students to submit their own resources and recommendations or tobuild a group project. Depending on the wiki provider, most wikis feature change trackingoptions that post the identity of the participant who made additions or modifications, as wellas the timestamp of the change. This allows students to see the contributions of their peersand evaluate their own participation in the group effort. Wiki features thus provide somereassurance against the concern that the wiki is too easily corrupted by participants.

Because wikis are designed to be collaborative spaces, the following principle can helpto design effective activities: Students are not only consumers, but also producers of knowl-edge.

• A wiki may be used to offer students the opportunity and space to develop and co-develop coursedocuments.

1. An instructor can craft a syllabus, course policies, program policies, key terms, pre-ferred sources and resources, and samples and models of assignments in a wiki format.This format allows students to self-navigate the course requirements and, more impor-tantly, makes transparent the pedagogy of the instructor. Instructors can also use awiki to provide a space for a student-driven list of key course terms collected andedited throughout the entire semester by the students themselves.

2. Students may also collaborate to design course writing prompts, projects, and dailyassignments. Using the program and course objectives as guidelines, students can


work together to invent, draft, revise, and edit course assignments that they will actu-ally complete. This activity extends the opportunity for metacognition beyond thatoffered by the time-lag built in to coursework in a way that encourages students tothink about their thinking regarding pedagogically sound activities.

• A wiki is an ideal space for any collaborative project culminating in a single written text.

A collaboratively written research paper may be composed from brainstorming to thefinal product through wikis. Instructors may structure the collaborative work by developingwiki pages for each stage in the writing process (West and West 88–90). Students may alsouse the space to design multimodal final texts which incorporate images and video alongsidetext.

Table 2. Wiki Resources

Goal Resource(s)

Understanding how wikis work CommonCraft demonstration http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

Design a wiki page Wikia.com PBworks.com Wetpaint.com Wikispaces.com Additionally, the following YouTube video walks users through each

step in developing a wiki on Wikispaces.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK7C8Gjmn-o

50 additional uses for Wikis SmartTeaching.orgin the classroom http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/50-ways-to-use-wikis-

for-a-more-collaborative-and-interactive-classroom/

Discussion BoardsDiscussion boards and online forums are perhaps the oldest form of digital collaborative

learning spaces. As such, they have an established linear framework that is dependent on timeof submission. Discussion boards can be arranged to push the most recent responses forwardor to sort the oldest responses to the top. But these configurations are limited by the establishedprotocol of turn-taking post and response controlled by the movement of time. While thislinear format may be a constraint, it is also easily navigated and provides a clear and visualrepresentation of the shape and direction of a conversation. Topics that attract student interestare easily identified by the number of posts and responses. Because these responses are recordedand displayed in a hierarchy, it is possible to track the moments of change or synthesis in thediscussion. This visual representation provides participants and instructors with a scaled viewof their contributions and foregrounds the importance of student engagement.

Discussion boards are easily managed and, because they are time driven, lend themselvesto efficient scheduling and effective time management practices. Their innate record-keepingstructure makes assessing student work a straight-forward task. Because they are ubiquitous,they require a minimal learning curve, and the practices and protocols of discussion boardconduct are second nature to many participants. With a few simple instructions regarding“flaming,” “trolling,” “lurking,” and “toading,” students can freely engage in the conversationwith little intervention or moderation on the part of the instructor. And because they are sowell-integrated culturally, most institutions already have the digital discussion board frameworkin place, requiring minimal construction labor and administration on behalf of the instructorwhose only responsibility may be to populate course content.


In our own teaching, we routinely use discussion boards for a range of collaborativelearning activities. For example, when we post a discussion question in a discussion board,we ask students to respond to that question and then to respond to other students’ responsesto the original question. Early in the semester we guide students so that they respond in waysthat encourage further exchanges. First, we remind them that any negative comment can berecast as a positive one that accomplishes the same goal. Second, we encourage them to respondwith further questions, preferably ones that evoke open-ended responses rather than close-ended responses such as “yes” or “no.”

We also ask students to post drafts of their writing in discussion boards so that peers canoffer feedback for revising. When we do this, we ask that students offer feedback on at leastthree peers’ drafts, but we find that some students often respond to the work of additionalpeers. In some cases, students may respond to six or seven peers’ drafts. Such displays of gen-erosity can be contagious, inspiring others to respond to more drafts than expected.

Forming Small Online Feedback Groups

In physical classrooms, there are constraints on the size of small feedback groups becauseof the time available for them to work—as the size of the group increases, each group memberhas less time to offer or receive feedback. In virtual spaces, though, there is more flexibilityin forming groups because they can work asynchronously 168 hours a week. In these virtualspaces, a group might have as few as three members, or the whole class could be invited tooffer feedback on any given piece of writing. Also, the instructor can observe the work of allfeedback groups, offering helpful suggestions when that is needed.

Small feedback groups can work in diverse venues. For example, in course managementsystems such as Blackboard or Learning Studio, a teacher can establish as many discussionboards as necessary to assign students to small feedback groups. Commercial educational socialnetworking environments such as GoingOn.Com offer similar tools, providing tools for stu-dents to share a wide array of projects with peers. Some teachers encourage students to workin Google Docs, where peers can synchronously or asynchronously offer comments, questions,or suggestions.

When we form small feedback groups, we strive to match students with similar interests.For example, if four students in the class are writing about sustainability, we place them inthe same feedback group. However, when we form groups, we also consider students’ com-plementary skills. For instance, if five students in the class are especially skilled at editingdigital videos, we might place them in five different groups so that they can offer more expertfeedback and guidance to peers who are less experienced with digital video. Such practicesare consistent with the concept of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development described earlierin this chapter (Mind 86). That is, students feel encouraged to learn collaboratively becausethey understand how they are both benefactors and beneficiaries in such groups.

Of course, to help peers offer focused, timely feedback, we remind students that certainkinds of responses are more helpful at certain points in the process of completing a project(Diogenes, Roen, and Moneyhun). We often suggest questions to focus attention on learningoutcomes such as the WPA Outcomes Statement: (1) Rhetorical Knowledge; (2) CriticalThinking, Reading, and Writing; (3) Processes; (4) Knowledge of Conventions; and (5) Com-posing in Electronic Environments. We also suggest feedback that reinforces the writerly habitsof mind described in “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” (Council of WritingProgram Administrators et al.).

Beach, Clemens, and Jamsen specifically focus on digital tools, categorized “asynchronous,


synchronous/hybrid, and reflective/portfolio-based” (159). The synchronous digital tool ofonline conferencing between students and instructors, peers, and tutors via text, audio, and/orvideo chat, as well as the e-portfolio (174) are particularly effective in promoting self-assessmentbeyond the duration of the course. Table 2 lists a few of the asynchronous tools that Beach,Clemens, and Jamsen examine for the purpose of giving feedback to student work.

Table 4. Asynchronous Digital Tools toUse for Feedback on Student Work

Type of Feedback Medium/ApplicationComments E-mail; the “track changes” feature in WordBlog comments WordPressAudio comments Digital recorders producing audio files; podcastsHighlighting and comments Diigo Web site, a personal and collaborative

bookmarking toolCollaborative word processing Google docsAnnotation Trailfire, a Firefox extensionWeb clips EvernoteVideo annotations YouTube; Video Ant (ant.umn.edu)Discussion Threads via “virtual learning sites” like Moodle,

Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Drupal, Ning,Nicenet.org

Social NetworksSocial networks offer students and their instructors potentially rich opportunities for

learning and collaboration. As Boyd and Ellison note, social network sites (SNSs) are definedby features that “allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within abounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and(3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”(211). Despite shared structural elements, social networks construct and are constructed bymany cultures and subcultures and can vary greatly in terms of purpose. Whereas some socialnetworks draw people together based on shared language and/or common ground stemmingfrom national, ethnic, religious, and sexual identities, others work to connect people basedon what James Paul Gee and Elisabeth R. Hayes describe as a “common passion-fueledendeavor” (107). Gee and Hayes posit that a “passionate affinity group” is grounded on thefeature which allows “people to relate to each other primarily in terms of common interests,endeavors, goals, or practices—defined around their shared passion” (“Passionate AffinityGroups” 107). This conversation invites teachers of writing and their students to explore theterms under which they connect to people in their social networks in general and how thisconnection in turn shapes the collaborative learning and writing in those spaces in particular.Social networks thus exemplify the nature of Web user participation brought about with theWeb 2.0, that is, one which also allows users to construct knowledge as they write and produce(Greenhow, Robelia, and Hughes 247).

FacebookFacebook, driven by a mission to “give people the power to share and make the world

more open and connected,” is currently one of the largest online social networks with overfour hundred million active users (http://www.facebook.com). The social network’s designfunctionality enables people to connect with one another in various ways, including through“status updates,” by sharing links, uploading photos, as well as through third-party applica-


tions. Because many students spend much of their time connecting with others on Facebook,educators should seriously consider the potential pedagogical opportunities inherent in its use(“7 Things”). The following suggested uses are organized under several principles to considerwhen designing collaborative learning and writing activities on Facebook. Namely, educatorsshould recognize, value, and cultivate the negotiation skills their students demonstrate whileparticipating on Facebook to meet relevant course goals, and collaboration through Facebookcan have the same purposes and benefits as collaboration in other spaces.

Collaboration through Facebook Can Have the Same Purposes and Benefits as Collabo-ration in Other Spaces

• Facebook may be used in addition to official course management software.To start, instructors should note that the co-construction of knowledge through the use

of Facebook in the classroom may function much like official learning management systemsused by schools, such as Blackboard—a context familiar to many instructors.

1. Instructors may choose to use a Facebook course “group” as a supplement to anyofficial course software used by their schools. Constructing a course group page onFacebook (see Table 3) helps to foster a sense of community among learners withina context which may be more familiar to students than academia’s walls.

2. Like the announcements section of Blackboard, teachers may use Facebook’s “notes”feature to provide information to students. One way to do this is to use the coursegroup page “wall” as a discussion board where both students and instructor may sharelinks, post YouTube videos or images to engage in online discussion (DeCosta, Clifton,and Roen 18). A benefit of using the Facebook wall instead of other discussion forumsis that students may easily broaden the conversation taking place in their course grouppages to their profile page where their entire network of friends may also commenton shared links, images, and videos.

Educators Should Recognize, Value, and Cultivate the Negotiation Skills their StudentsDemonstrate While Participating on Facebook in Order to Meet Relevant Course Goals.

• Facebook may be used as a rhetorical text itself so as to study the writing process, notions of audi-ence, and identity.

1. Writing in a virtual space, e.g., Facebook’s wall, while intended to express one’s iden-tity, may also be seen as a form collaborative writing—what Gerben describes as a“co-author[ship] [of ] each other” (“Web 2.0”). Guiding activity questions to cultivatethis line of thinking may include the following. How do students use writing to co-author the identities of their Facebook friends? How do their own “friends” in turnco-author their own virtual identity? What is the purpose of this kind of writing?

2. In addition to posing these exploratory questions in the context of the ever-evolving“conversation” documented on a Facebook profile, instructors may design a lessonwhere students study the writing process documented through status updates andcomments. The documented flow of composing, Gerben says, directs attention to thenotion that writing is in fact a process occurring within communities (“Web 2.0”).

• Facebook may be used by students as a tool to direct their own learning1. Another space teachers can potentially use to help students become better writers is

Facebook’s “Questions” feature. Unlike individual user profile pages, which can belimited to “friends only,” the writing composed in the context of this platform isaccessible to every registered Facebook user. How will students take this broadenedaudience into account when posing and answering questions on Facebook? Instructors


can also construct a writing activity wherein they assign students the task of composinga provocative question along with a well-supported and clearly expressed answer toboth tap into and contribute to a wide knowledge base.

2. Students may also work collaboratively in either large or small groups to develop theirown Facebook “group” page around a topic or issue they find interesting and impor-tant. This activity will prompt students to think strategically about how they will userhetorical concepts, such as kairos, to form a group that somehow connects to a currentconversation occurring in the public sphere. Through the experience of choosing forthemselves what purpose their Facebook group will serve, students will come to knowwhether and how their own digital rhetoric is effective with their target audience.

Table 3. Facebook Resources

Goal Resource(s)Form a “group” YouTube user “JayDsfsu” provides step by step instructions on how to set

up a group page http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm0aDPRHiQA

Using Facebook Questions This page offers a detailed list of Questions features, as well as a couple ofin the classroom ideas for implementation in the classroom http://edudemic.com/2010/07/

how-to-use-facebook-questions-in-the-classroom/

101 additional ways to use Useful resource for instructors and students on using Facebook in a variety Facebook in the classroom of contexts for a myriad of purposes http://www.onlinecollege.org/2009/ 10/20/100-ways-you-should-be-using- facebook-in-your-classroom/

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging site that aggregates its users’ 140-character posts into “feeds,”or running lists of user posts. To “follow” a person is to subscribe to their “tweets.” Thus, a person’s Twitter feed is made up of “tweets” from all of the people she follows. One effectiveuse of Twitter is as a “backchannel” in a large lecture. The teacher can project her Twitterfeed where it is visible to everyone in the lecture hall, and students can post tweets with their comments and questions as a backchannel communication during the lecture. This allows students to participate in productive cross-talk while providing instant feedback to thespeaker.

To explore writing within social networks, students follow established writers on Twitter.As students note how writers negotiate the elements of audience, voice, purpose, and mechanicsin the context of social networks, they themselves are made aware of their own engagementwith these aspects of the writing process. This activity not only carves out a space for potentialcollaboration with expert writers, it also situates students as producers of knowledge.

To engage with identity work, students can spend a specified period of time tweeting,perhaps a week, then reflect upon the choices they made in constructing their posts—whatdo their posts reveal and obscure? How did the responses of their followers shape their tweets?What is the relationship between writer and Twitter audience? How does context shift insocial media?

As an information exchanging tool, there are a number of other academic possibilitiesfor Twitter:

• Information sharing• Network building• Research resource• Civic engagement• Public sphere research


Online Writing Communities

Conducting a Web search on the phrase “online writing community” yields millions ofhits. Online writing communities bring together writers who share common interests in genresand topics. People who join writing communities often display unbridled enthusiasm for writ-ing and a generous willingness to offer feedback to other writing enthusiasts. Students whojoin such communities benefit in several ways. First, they learn that many people in the worldhave a passion for writing and that positive affect can be contagious. Second, they receivefeedback from readers who understand that writing has real-world purposes—that writing isused to get things done. Third, they understand that learning to write is a collaborative, socialendeavor—that others can enrich the learning experience. They come to appreciate that peopleoutside of college care about writing and learning to write.

We encourage students to search for those online writing communities that most closelyalign with their interests in writing—e.g., a particular genre or topic. We suggest that theylurk in the community for a short period of time to get a sense of how the community works.Then it’s time to share their work and to give and receive feedback in the community. Theprocess is fairly simple.

Digital Environments: The Futureof Collaborative Learning

As noted throughout this chapter, digital environments foster collaborative learning inseveral ways. First, students increasingly see digital environments as social spaces, virtual placesto interact with others. Second, digital environments make it possible for students to interactwith other people across time and distance; they don’t have to reside in the same city, state,or even country. What’s most exciting about working in these environments is that new digitaltools become available every day. With these new tools come novel opportunities to collaboratewith other learners.

When students work with other learners in virtual spaces, they more fully appreciatehow their thinking is influenced by other people. In turn, they better understand how theycan influence the thinking of others. Perhaps most importantly, students understand thatlearning occurs in a wide range of venues. When students use Web 2.0 tools for learning, theydevelop collaborative learning skills that will serve them well not just in the academic arenaof life, but also the professional, civic, and personal arenas. By helping students use thesetools effectively, we encourage them to become more effective lifelong learners.

Notes

1. For teachers who have not taught in online environments, we recommend Donald Hanna, MichelleGlowacki-Dudka, and Simone Gonceicao-Runlee’s 147 Tips for Teaching Online Groups: Essentials for Web-Based Groups. Many of the tips point to work that faculty should do before entering a virtual learning space.We have also found helpful videos on YouTube and Common Craft, with savvy advice from teachers whohave much experience with online teaching.

2. Blogs, wikis, and discussion boards are widely and freely or inexpensively available on the Internet.They can be innovative alternatives to institutionally provided digital applications and frameworks, but theycan contain advertising of the site. Institutionally provided products generally lack the commercial messagesof freely and cheaply available applications on the Internet, but they may also lack customizable and user-centric features. [0]


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22 Nov 2009. Web. 3 June 2010.


Keeping Up with the Future: UsingTechnolog y to Facilitate Small-Group

Collaboration in the Writing Classroom

KELLY A. SHEA

Throughout this collection and elsewhere, the advantages of small-group collaborationin the writing classroom have been well-documented and accepted as givens. Even so, manystudents report that they are, as one article describes, “grouped out” (Gillespie et al. 81)—they have done so much group work that they are tired of it and, in many cases, fail to seethe educational or long-term value. According to studies of group work analyzed by Gillespieand her colleagues, as well as their own study, “students report mixed views about and expe-riences with small groups” (81). Students remain puzzled about how to proceed in smallgroups, they become concerned about one or two people doing all the work, and they some-times decide that the professor is being lazy or doesn’t have enough material to cover the classtime. These responses are corroborated by Peter Kittle and Troy Hicks in their article, “Trans-forming the Group Paper with Collaborative On-line Writing,” in which they point out thatthese types of problems can be “compounded by [professors’] ... fears of plagiarism, credibilityof on-line sources, students’ ability to work (or not) across time and space ... and, of course,the concerns that writing teachers always face about peers reading and responding to eachothers’ work in productive ways....” (525). In addition, we must appreciate that there is a dif-ference between group work and group collaboration—especially when writing is involved.Helping students into the difficult area of true collaboration is a tricky business, indeed, andit’s one in which faculty are not always willing to engage (Cooper et al.).

But we must, of course, combat these mindsets so that our students—and we as teach-ers—can reap the benefits of small-group collaboration without being predisposed to dislikingit. Contributors to this volume have discussed ways of enlivening small group work in theirwriting classes, focusing on developing clear group assignments, managing small groups inlarge classes, and directing small group work when there are special populations in the class.I submit that another way of making small group collaboration more meaningful, effective,and relevant in a writing class is through the well-planned and judicious use of technology—specifically, through course management systems (CMS), wikis, and blogs, as well as other,newer Web 2.0 applications like social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and thelike), video- and image-sharing sites (YouTube, Flickr, and others), and document-sharingand -editing tools like Google Docs or OneNote. Note that I am not talking about using

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technology for technology’s sake—I am talking about using technology in an organized, effec-tive way to facilitate the group work as well as the writing the groups might be creating. Kittleand Hicks point out that this work involves distinguishing “between a world that is simplyfull of more technology and a mindset that encourages participation and collaboration inmany new ways” (526).

Technology meets students where they live, which, for many students, is on the computer.Even our older students (and faculty) are now comfortable enough with email and, to a lesserextent, Facebook, that training them in how technology can enrich small-group collaborationneed not be a daunting task. Faculty must be comfortable with the technology in order to dothis work, but I would also suggest that it is okay for students to know more than we do inthis regard. I am always happy (and somewhat relieved) when students make suggestions ortroubleshoot about how a particular methodology can be improved for more effective learningor more time-efficiency.

Still, there are those who decry the use of technology in the classroom, saying it engendersexactly the opposite of collaboration because of its solitary and isolating nature. While thiscan be true, it doesn’t have to be true if the technology is used correctly and to good purpose.Many writing faculty have determined that using computers in the classroom is importantand useful. In 2007, Kairos, an on-line journal devoted to “exploring the intersections of rhet-oric, technology, and pedagogy” (“About” 1), launched a new feature, “PraxisWiki,” in whichteachers contributed narratives about their use of digital technology in their classrooms. Inthe first edition, 15 college teachers published articles on using web-based course tools; thearticles included three pieces on Blackboard; two pieces each on WebCT (now Blackboard)and Drupal; and individual essays on Facebook, home-grown wikis, MagicFunnel, Sakai,iTunes University, Segue, Flickr and MediaWiki, and turnitin.com (Kairos “PraxisWiki: Storiesof Digital Tool Use. Featured Narratives” 1). All of the essays but one were contributed byteachers of writing at universities ranging from small to large. If this leading-edge journal’sexample is any indication, then, composition faculty are right at the forefront of using thelatest technology in their teaching. And many of these uses are focused on collaboration.

Perhaps for obvious reasons, there is a sense among composition instructors that havingstudents use, first, word processors and PCs, and now, laptops, handhelds, and course man-agement tools and social networking applications to engage in the writing process is going tohelp them produce better writing and is going to help their peers and faculty respond to thatwriting in a more meaningful, engaged way. In her report of a study on using CMSs to facilitatepeer response, Peshe Kuriloff suggests that “students write quickly and casually with the assis-tance of technology, and common sense dictates that we need to use technology to teach themto write better” (36). This extends to helping students work and write better in groups, aswell.

Indeed, students seem to think that using technology improves their learning, so whynot use it? We are teaching a generation of students who are more motivated by technologyand are thus more stimulated by learning that takes place assisted by technology. This is borneout by a 2006 Educause study of students, “The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students andInformation Technology,” which summarizes that “many of our respondents really do believethat IT is contributing to their learning” (Salaway et al. 16). According to the study, 99.9 per-cent of the more than 28,000 respondents use email to communicate, 80 percent use instantmessaging, 98.8 percent use computers to complete coursework, 94 percent use computers toaccess library websites, and 75 percent use course management systems, sometimes accessingthem several times per week or more (Salaway et al. 6, 11). And is using technology so differentfrom bringing in updated readings or textbooks or other materials that have the most current


research or including modern language or music or contemporary poetry to meet studentswhere they are? Hasn’t it always been our intention to make our teaching and academic infor-mation accessible to students through means that are currently relevant? In the 21st century,does not using and even exploiting computer technology fall into this category? This clearlyis where students are.

Course Management Systems (CMS)in the Composition Classroom

As a professor at a university that, since 1999, has required its undergraduates to buyinto a laptop initiative, I have regularly used course management systems, i.e., BlackBoardand more recently, Sakai, for paired and small-group collaboration in the face-to-face com-position classroom. Not a semester has gone by in 10 years in which I haven’t used it. My pri-mary use of the CMS is in peer response. The students post all of their writing (prewriting,outlines, preliminary drafts, and final drafts) in the discussion board individually and thenrespond to others’ (and their own) in a number of ways (see below). This is all done quite“publicly”; that is, all the students can see (and respond to) each others’ writing. The onlypart of the process they can’t all see is the final grade.

I also use the CMS for informal small-group work in class—the students might be askedto answer a few questions in a small group and post their group’s responses in a discussionboard forum. I will also use the formal group area in the CMS for organized small groups(those working on presentations, for instance) to collaborate around ideas, meetings, and finalprojects.

This work has been done in first-year, upper-class, and graduate writing courses—allmy classes do peer response and small-group collaborations. In addition, I used the CMS wikifeature in an extremely intensive way in a graduate class on scientific and technical writing,where small groups collaborated on wiki pages that came together to form a larger wiki onthe different types of scientific and technical writing.

Course Management Systems for Peer Response

The writing courses I teach are hybrids—we meet face-to-face twice weekly (once perweek in the case of graduate courses), but we use the CMS daily to keep the class materialscentralized and organized and to complete in-class and out-of-class writings and peer response.This last application is probably the most important feature of my use of the CMS. For myclasses, peer response forms the backbone of small-group collaboration. I ask students to posttheir writing and then read and respond to their classmates’ responses and to my commentsto that writing. We most often use the CMS in class for peer review of formal essays. Studentspost their drafts in the discussion board; their partners download them, save, read, and addcomments to those versions; and then post the new versions as a reply to the original students’threads. They are given directions as to how to do the peer review (see Appendix A); the tech-nical directions are given verbally. The students are put into pairs in various ways—sometimesit’s based on geography (whom they’re sitting next to or whom they’re avoiding), sometimesit’s based on topic (if they are writing on the same essay, poem, or short story—or on a totallydifferent one), sometimes it’s based on the order in which students have posted (I just godown the list pairing them up), sometimes it’s based on nothing in particular, and the studentsare just randomly assigned. The students then sit with their partners in class (sometimes thisinvolves actually getting up and moving around, a process that itself needs to be managed,

Keeping Up with the Future (Shea) 101

but one that can be very effective at perking everyone up) and discuss the comments. This istime-consuming, but when draft day comes around (about every two weeks), everyone knowsthat their drafts need to be posted or some will not have writing to read during class.

After peer review, I download the peer-reviewed versions, write my comments (I typicallyhand-write with a tablet PC stylus, but typed comments also work, just as long as they’re dis-tinguished from the peer responder’s and the actual writer’s typing—all capitals work, too,and there’s the Comment function in Word), and then post those documents as replies to theoriginal threads. This system means that all students have the ability to see each others’ writ-ing—and all responses to it—but this is no different from most writing workshops. Whatthis also means is that we need to quickly develop a community of trust, which, again, isrequired in any writing course. Typically, I find that students are not necessarily clicking onall of their classmates’ threads and reading every paper submission. That can be fairly time-consuming.

Does this work? Once the initial hesitation wears off (mostly because students know weare going to do it for every draft and they quickly learn its value and its necessity), moststudents seem to appreciate the idea of giving and receiving helpful, structured feedback totheir peers, whether it’s on an essay, an in-class writing assignment, or a presentation. Notsurprisingly, one student, in an anonymous survey about our class use of the CMS, expressedconcern about others being able to see his/her writing—and I have had the occasional studentwho has written about a topic that is very personal and will request that only I, not a peer,read it. I do offer this as an option and I will grant such requests. They typically occur onlyonce, though, at the beginning of the semester. I even had one graduate student who droppedout of a writing class because she was deeply uncomfortable with the process. I fear that Imight not have explained it effectively. And certainly, every semester students will complainabout the CMS being “down,” but the student feedback I have received on peer review usingthe CMS has been overwhelmingly positive. In course evaluations, students routinely reportthat peer response (and technology) has been one of the most valuable aspects of the class. Asone undergraduate pointed out, “Being able to post papers on this discussion board for theclassroom has made everything less stressful, and it was a much easier method of submittingideas and papers. I really enjoyed being able to have my paper reviewed several times by dif-ferent people so I was able to get many different perspectives on what would I could changewith my paper.”

Course Management Systems for Small-groupWriting and Presentations

Another way that I have used the course management system is for small-group writingand presentations. While I do like having students write individual responses to in-classwriting prompts, I have come to rely on the CMS for small-group responses as well. A typicalin-class writing (ICW) assignment, which would be basically the same whether it was on-lineor hand-written, asks the students to answer a few questions about an essay or piece of literature(see Appendix B for a sample in-class writing assignment). However, the collaborative twistis to put them in small groups (as with peer response, I have many different ways of groupingstudents, from having them count off, to having them separate based on where they are seated,to grouping them by essay peer-review partners, to having them group up on their own) andhave them read, discuss, negotiate, and write the answers to the questions as a group, thenreport the answers to the class for further discussion. This requires that they choose a scribe(someone who types the answers for the entire group into the forum—this is put into just


one thread but all the group members’ names are included so everyone gets credit) as well asa reporter—someone who takes responsibility for sharing (sometimes, but not always, reading)the group’s responses with the class. My classes are fairly small (around 20 students), so thegroups could be as small as a pair or as large as four or five. I prefer groups of three or fourat the most. That size seems to be most productive and one that doesn’t lend itself to oneperson doing all the work.

The most important aspect of this exercise, of course, is the negotiation of responses. Itell the groups that they ultimately have to come up with answers that the entire group agreeson. As I train and facilitate the group work, I encourage students to actually engage in a con-versation about the question—who in the group answers the question a certain way and why,and where in the text (always referring back to a text) do they find these answers? Whoseanswer makes the most sense? How might they combine or refine the individual answers tocome up with a more thorough or sophisticated group answer? Then, after they have negotiatedan answer, they develop a written response that they post. Sometimes the scribe does a greatdeal of the writing, at other times the scribe will actually wait for the group members to directhim/her in what to write. Then, when the entire class regroups as a whole, it is up to thereporter (often with the help of the group members) to fairly represent what the group hassaid or written. Sometimes, it is a matter of the reporter simply reading the response that hasbeen written. Then, hopefully, the class as a whole will continue to discuss the topic.

Facilitating and observing this process can be so rewarding. A bit of cajoling and returningthe students to task may be required at first, but students get involved in both academic andsocial (which is not so bad, in small doses) conversations in the small group that they mightnot have in the larger class. Because there are typically only two or three people in the group,everyone needs to find a way to talk, even if they might be reticent to speak in the larger class.Sometimes groups have forgotten to choose a reporter, and then I have the opportunity ofgently encouraging someone who might not have volunteered to do it. Again, they might onlyread what the group has posted, but it is still worthwhile to get them to participate.

In a small class, many advantages to doing small group work exist : I can walk aroundfrom group to group to ensure that everyone is participating, I can give each group one ofthe several questions I want the class to consider that day, the students all get to know eachother quickly, and, of course, it keeps the students more actively engaged. For instance within-class writing questions in Appendix B, I can put the class into five groups and then assigneach group one question. Sometimes the groups will be given a few questions to answer, andthe students will try to assign one question to each member to answer, but I do not allowthis. That is not collaboration—that is individuals working separately within a group—andI make it clear that is not what I’m looking for. Sometimes I give more than one group thesame question, and it becomes a competition, of sorts, to see who comes up with the bestresponse. In these situations, it is not uncommon to see groups talking more quietly so thatanother group with the same question doesn’t hear their deliberations.

Of course, the best-laid plans do not always succeed, and problems can arise. Sometimesno one in the group seems to understand either the directions, the question(s), and/or theprocess, and the answers are general, thin, or short. Sometimes the students will just try tofinish as quickly as possible, and the small-group discussion and the results remain somewhatsurface-level. Another problem is that sometimes the group work takes so long that we runout of time to hear from all the groups. Then, when we come back together (sometimes intwo days, sometimes in five days), it can be a bit difficult to resume the discussion. Trying tobe vigilant in terms of how much time to give the groups to do their work in class is key. Inany case, the trick is not to give up. Just as with peer response, students need to engage in


the process repeatedly in order to get better at it. And the students do seem to like breakingaway from the large-group format at least once a week. For them, the work provides variety,interest, and a break from the traditional setting.

In the anonymous survey, one undergraduate student reported that s/he likes using theCMS for in-class discussion questions: “It allowed us to see what the other students wroteanytime we want instead of just hearing it when being questioned about it in class.” Even oneof my graduate students thought that it was effective to use “the discussion board aspect of[the CMS] ... through all facets of the course (in-class work, free-writing, group discussion,assignments, etc.), as this offered a ‘central meeting’ ground for us to communicate and respondto each other.” I have observed that reluctant participants often become less frightened ofjoining in, even of speaking aloud in class, after they have posted a few responses to in-classwriting prompts, worked in a small group on in-class discussion questions, and completedone or two peer response sessions.

I also use this type of group work for setting up or checking in on group presentations.I might use the formal group area of the CMS (most have a separate section you can manipulatefor group work) or the class discussion board to post a forum that asks each group to write about what they’re working on, what progress the group is making, what questions or problems that have come up, and how they’ve solved their problems up to this point. Doingthis helps to keep the groups on task and lets them use some class time to work on their presentations as well as to show the results of that in-class work to make sure it is produc -tive time. Students often report that finding time to work together as a group outside of class is difficult, so I will give them in-class time, but they have to clearly account for it in their group posts. By allowing this, the students will often come up with far better presenta-tions.

Wiki for Small-group Writing in Presentations

Another twist on using technology for a group presentation is using a wiki to developthe group work. I used this technique in a joint grad/undergrad scientific and technical writingclass. The small-group presentation assignment was to create a wiki page (or set of pages) thatdefined and displayed different types of scientific or technical writing for a lay audience orfor a student who might be interested in understanding what exactly constituted scientificwriting or technical writing. Essentially the students, in five groups of three, ended up creatinga website of sorts that could be used as a resource for scientific and technical writers.

Each segment of the wiki—which the students broke up into the scientific narrative, thehow-to manual, the technical report, the project proposal, and scientific journalism—hadimages, definitions, examples, and links to other relevant sites. The groups had to collabora-tively write the text for the site as well as decide together about what their part of the wikiwould look like from a design perspective. In addition, they were charged with not onlyfinding good examples of their chosen type of writing from outside the classroom but alsodeciding on at least one example from their classmates’ submissions. Depending on their inter-ests, each member of the class had already written at least four examples of the genres, so therewere several student samples from which to choose. Negotiating what would be written,included, and organized took a great deal of time and effort. Another unusual aspect to thisproject was that the groups were a mixture of graduate and undergraduate students—it wasan upper-level class, so they were all fairly competent and confident writers and students, but that layer of varying experience and expertise added a need for even more fine-tuning to the group work. I needed to be careful to have a mixture of graduate and undergraduate


students in each group, and each group (and I) had to ensure that no one did more work thananother. While it is sometimes difficult to track, regular checkups on the groups’ progressallowed me to see and hear what was working and what was not working. In order to get asense of the groups’ progress, in addition to asking the group as a whole, I would also ask theindividuals of the group to either report verbally in class or post an in-class writing response,answering the questions, “How is your project going so far? What is working well? What isnot working well? Are there any particular problems the group is having? What solutions hasthe group developed for solving these problems? Do you need any help from me?” Thesequestions try to get at whether the group is progressing or whether it is having any of theproblems typical to group work: trouble gathering, trouble organizing, one person doing toomuch or too little work, and/or leadership problems.

For this project, the students created the wiki inside of the CMS of our course. Theycame out extremely well—the students essentially developed excellent websites. Unfortunately,the technology that the students used to create the wiki also resulted in my not being able toresurrect all that hard work. Because it was housed in our CMS—and the wiki tool has sincechanged—the original wiki is not visible in the old course. This, of course, points to a majordisadvantage of using technology for collaboration—we need to make sure it remains acces-sible, or the results of the collaboration cannot be shared widely. I could have published iton-line after the semester had ended, but I did not have permission from all the students, sothat is crucial to keep in mind if one is going to try to take students’ technology work productslive.

Other Uses of Technolog y for Collaborative Small-group Work

Faculty can use technology and small groups in many ways within creatively conceivedwriting assignments—having groups create Facebook pages to set up fictional businesses orto develop the lives of fictional characters, using Twitter group projects to teach the value oftight writing in marketing or other classes, or teaching groups to write digital stories abouttheir own (or others’) lives and posting them on YouTube. These newer technologies createnew possibilities, which are, of course, endless, as long as the faculty have proper pedagogicalgoals and training and as long as they can be explicit with the students about those goals andeducational outcomes (Gillespie et al. 100). Kittle and Hicks’ discussion of on-line collabo-ration with group paper-writing is quite intriguing: they describe this work with “new litera-cies” (525), including the document-sharing and document-development tools in GoogleDocs and wikis, through which on-line groups create multi-genre writing and on-line col-laborative manuals (529–535). My students have done a few of these types of projects, andin different environments—for instance, the wiki project described above was completedmostly face-to-face, not on-line—but I would like to do more and will use their article as aresource.

One extremely interesting adaptation of using a CMS in a composition course setting isrelated by Peshe Kuriloff in “Rescuing Writing Instruction.” Kuriloff describes an on-linelearning assignment that resulted in a distance-learning project in a three-credit writing course;students were put into CMS-based writing groups that worked with each other virtually (on-line) on shorter assignments, but over the course of an entire academic year. They alsoresponded to each other’s writing from other classes (36). As a result of this program, Kuriloffsays,

students in the electronic writing groups learned as much as and, in some cases,more about important aspects of writing than their counterparts in traditional com-


parison groups. Outside evaluators judged the written work ... as equal and, in somecases, superior ... students found their instructors more accessible, and they experi-enced a stronger sense of community than did the students who met their instructorsand classmates twice a week face-to-face [41].

Final ThoughtsKuriloff ’s statements are bold claims, indeed, and she adds the analysis that this model

could actually cost less than traditionally structured composition courses (41). Even more inter-esting is the wisdom that this project indirectly imparts: Do not to try to do too much all atonce, especially if new to teaching with technology. New writing instructors who want to usetechnology in their teaching should choose a few areas on which to focus—say, small groupscollaborating on in-class writing prompts or paired or small-group peer response in writingclasses—and incorporate additional features as time and experience permit. As the students inthe Educause study point out, keep the use “moderate”—don’t overdo it (Salaway et al. 11).

To some, my and others’ work with technology and small-group collaboration in thewriting classroom may seem too leading-edge, to others it might already seem “old-school.”Certainly there is a great deal more that can be done—and is being done—with digital tech-nology in the writing classroom. Indeed, according to a 2007 editorial by Edward Maloney,the so-called Web 2.0 applications (wikis, blogs, social networking software, and so on) aremuch more highly functional in the classroom than are course management systems (alsoknown as learning management systems) (B26). Maloney contends that, “Course-managementsystems were not created to enhance learning, but to make it easier to deliver materials tostudents,” and further claims that Web 2.0 tools are better for the classroom because they usenewer information sharing and knowledge management technology rather than content deliv-ery technology, which forms the basis of most CMSs (Maloney B26). This may be true, butthere are many faculty members who would say that they are using CMSs to enhance small-group learning, particularly in the writing classroom—and I am among them. Using a pre-fabricated CMS is a good way to start, actually, because so much can be built in to the facultymember’s specifications—and the software has been designed with different teaching situationsin mind. In fact, according to a 2003 Educause-sponsored study conducted at the Universityof Wisconsin system titled, “Faculty Use of Course Management Systems,” while “there islittle empirical evidence that course management systems actually improve pedagogy ... usinga CMS does invite faculty to rethink their course instruction and instructional environment,”which has the “pedagogical side effect of enabling better course organization, providing greatertransparency and accountability in the course, and potentially increasing student engagementwith the materials” (Morgan 13).

Indeed, I do believe the use of technology has improved students’ learning and my ownteaching in the collaborative writing classroom. I urge my faculty colleagues to try it. Withthe amount of faculty input and ease of use built into the current course management systemproducts out there, faculty can be successful fairly quickly. Students truly do seem to appreciatethe effort I make to incorporate technology into our classes. They are “there,” so they enjoythe fact that I try to be there with them. If it’s done well, the students will very likely findthemselves more actively engaged in their learning—and they will thus actually learn more.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge Seton Hall University’s Institutional Review Board,which approved the studies referenced herein. In addition, much of the student-oriented study


of course management system use was first published in the “PraxisWiki” section of Kairos,the on-line journal. Finally, thanks to my students and faculty colleagues who have generouslyshared many conversations on group work, technology, writing, and their intersections overthe years.

Appendix A

Peer Response Form

GUIDELINES FOR PEER RESPONSE

Author’s Name ____________________ Responder’s Name ____________________

Please follow the steps below, answering questions when asked. Keep in mind that the pur-pose of peer response is to help each other write better.

1. Read your classmates’ composition.

2. Can you find a thesis statement? _______ Yes _______ No _______ I don’t know.

3. If you think you can find a thesis statement, what is your opinion about it?_______ 100% clear _______ 75% clear _______ 50% clear _______ Not clear at all.

4. What do you think is the best aspect of your classmate’s writing? What do you like thebest?

5. Underline everything in your classmate’s writing that you don’t understand.

6. Write down all the questions you have about your classmate’s writing.

After you have answered these questions, discuss them and the writing with the author.Remember that you are writing for each other, so it’s important that you understand eachothers’ writing. Please tell the author what you think because it can help him/her writesomething really good.

Appendix B

Sample in-class writing assignment

“The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka

1. What did you think when you read that the protagonist had been transformed into abug? What do you think it means?

2. How does the family regard Gregor before and after the metamorphosis? Does his familyexploit him?

3. Identify several symbols or revealing details in the story, i.e., food, the hospital, Gregor’sjob.

4. How do you interpret the ending of the story? What does Kafka mean when he writes“it would soon be time to look for a good husband for [Grete]”?

5. Is this story a masterpiece of fiction? Why or why not?

SourceDiYanni, Robert. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

641–642. Print.


Works CitedCooper, James, et al. “Implementing Small-Group Instruction: Insights from Successful Practitioners.” New

Directions for Teaching and Learning 81.2 (2000): 63–76. Print.Gillespie, Diane, et al. “Grouped Out? Undergraduates’ Default Strategies for Participating in Multiple Small

Groups.” The Journal of General Education 55.2 (2006): 81–102. Print.Kairos: Rhetoric, Technolog y, Pedagog y. “About” 11.3 (2007). Web. 20 March 2011._____. “PraxisWiki: Stories of Digital Tool Use. Featured Narratives: Using Web-based Course Tools” 11.2

(2007). Web. 20 March 2011.Kittle, Peter, and Troy Hicks, “Transforming the Group Paper with Collaborative On-line Writing.” Pedagogy:

Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 9.3 (2009): 525–537. Print.Kuriloff, Peshe. “Rescuing Writing Instruction.” Liberal Education 90.4 (2004): 36–41. Print.Maloney, Edward J. “What Web 2.0 Can Teach Us About Learning.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 53.18

(2007): B26-B27. Print.Morgan, Glenda. Faculty Use of Course Management Systems. Boulder, CO: Educause Center for Applied

Research. 2003. Print.Salaway, Gail, et al. The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technolog y, 2006. Boulder,

CO: Educause Center for Applied Research. 2006. Print.


Cooperative and CollaborativeWriting with Google Docs1

DONNA J. EVANS AND BEN S. BUNTING, JR.

IntroductionWhen you consider how to include group writing2 in your first year composition (FYC)

class, one of the first questions to come to mind will likely be “should I use an online platform?”Many FYC classes already use offline technologies like Microsoft Word to facilitate the writingprocess, but online technologies have unique advantages that should be considered duringclass planning. When using an online platform, students’ social interaction can foster an ethosof sharing essential for successful group writing. Online platforms that offer synchronous(always-on) editing and feedback capabilities support students as they work together in real-time (logged on in the same room or at distant locations), and can increase the group’s com-position process efficiency. In addition, using an online platform mitigates traditionalgroup-writing complaints like “our group never had time to meet outside of class.” Someinstructors may view as a benefit teaching students to write together while they learn how tonavigate a new piece of technology, while others argue that adding the teaching of technologyto composition complicates an already complex learning environment.

Wanting to test some of these pro-online assumptions as empirically as possible whilemaintaining the integrity of the FYC curriculum, we conducted a research project in the fallof 2008 in response to two questions. First, we planned to observe our students’ writing withonline and offline technology and listen to their reactions to the experience. Second, we werecurious as to whether students’ access to and proficiency with technology before enrolling inour classes would, in turn, facilitate or complicate the use of online composition platforms inthe classroom.3 For these purposes, we selected Google Docs as the required word-processingsoftware in two sections of English 101 (52 students total), and as a control, the third section(26 students) used offline word-processors such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice. Studentsin all sections completed the same group writing assignments. With these three sections offirst year composition students, we pursued a semester-long research project and presentedour findings the following spring at the 2009 Conference on College Composition and Com-munication.

We have included several handouts from those original classes for your reference (seeAppendices), but our purpose in this essay is to draw on our experiences to explain the “whys”and “hows” of implementing Google Docs in a group writing classroom, not to discuss our

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findings directly. This essay provides theoretical and practical support for composition instruc-tors who wish to confidently adopt online writing platforms for use in their classes and encour-ages thought and discussion about how those platforms do or do not enable student learning.

What Do Theorists Say about Group Writing?

Before getting into the mechanics of using Google Docs in FYC, we will address thequestion “why group writing?” After all, don’t students already have enough to do as theyattempt to learn the ins and outs of college writing without having to also learn to cooperatewithin a group and share the responsibilities of essay writing? Often, the answer to this questionfrom students and their instructors is a resounding “yes.” The debate among American edu-cators over whether this extra work is worth it for the student has been raging for at least fortyyears with no clear resolution in sight.4 Although our essay does not address this larger debatedirectly, we would be remiss if we didn’t make clear some of the potential difficulties you willface as you decide whether to teach group writing in FYC.

One point that few proponents of group writing in FYC will bring up is foregroundedby Rafael Heller in “Questionable Categories and the Case for Collaborative Writing:” groupwriting often goes against the pre-college writing-instruction grain. Accordingly, teachingstudents to effectively group-write is often an uphill battle against their previous learning. AsHeller puts it, “By and large, students are taught to be possessive of their writing and to com-modify their ideas and stylistic achievements, which they cash in by way of grades, rankings,scores, and jobs. To learn to write in the academy is to learn to own one’s writing and to com-pete with others” (309). Indeed, we found that many students entered our classes with thisattitude. As one student commented, “[G]roup papers are, to be quite honest, very stupid forcollege level writing. They do not show your own personal writing style or allow you to choosewhat you want to choose.” On top of this prejudice, students’ negative image of group writingwas often being reinforced by the requirements that they cite sources (giving credit to otherwriters) and complete single-author writing assignments in their other classes. If group writingis more work and against the general perceptions students have about writing, then why botherteaching group writing at all?

First of all, most students need the experiences and skills acquired by working togetherwith other group or team members just as much as they’ll need a competitive instinct. Thus,conversation with peers is necessary. In “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation ofMankind,’” Kenneth Bruffee states that learning the language of the community is the pre-requisite for being accepted as a member, and “[w]riting is a technologically displaced formof [such] conversation” (552, 551). When students practice this kind of conversation, they arebetter prepared for similar occasions in the future. “This is one of [collaborative learning’s]main goals,” writes Bruffee, “to provide a context in which students can practice and masterthe normal discourse exercised in established knowledge communities in the academic worldand in business, government, and the professions” (553). Introducing students to collaborativelearning and group writing early in the college experience thus supports their investment inand maintenance of the knowledge base of the community, a pursuit based in social construc-tionist theory.

To this purpose, group writing in the FYC classroom requires temporary commitmentto a community; yet, by virtue of multiple voices conversing on a given topic, it exposes students to ideas beyond those a student might generate independently or that the teachermight incorporate in the assignment. At a time when career goals may have only begun toform, group writing supports the individual student’s exploration of diverse ideas, values,


epistemologies, and disciplines within a knowledge community that is learning about andsharing in a conversation on writing.

As a socially constructed experience, teaching group writing calls for careful attention topedagogy as the course is planned. Collaborative learning can be a valuable tool when spaceis designed for students’ voices to be heard regarding ideas, views, and approaches, and whenassigned tasks are relevant to learning. Bruffee writes that “[s]tudents are especially likely tomaster [the normal discourse of a new community] if their conversation is structured indirectlyby the task or problem that a member of that new community (the teacher) judiciouslydesigned” (553). Because the teacher is invested in designing and nurturing the writing class-room as community, she is also interested in monitoring and modifying the design to assurethat it supports course objectives and student learning.

Still, the very real question of unequal access to technology arises when a writing courserequires use of a particular word processor. In FYC, does the technology (in this case, Docs)place unnecessary burdens or restrictions on students and their writing? The answer likelydiffers from campus to campus and from class section to class section. Cynthia Selfe discussesthe dangers of inequity in Technolog y and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Atten-tion. “In our educational system, and in the culture that this system reflects,” Selfe writes,“computers continue to be distributed differentially along the related axes of race and socioeconomicstatus and this distribution contributes to ongoing patterns of racism and to the continuationof poverty” (101). This distribution differential can be assumed to influence the level of tech-nological acculturation a first-year college student attains before arriving on campus; afterentering college, other factors influence access as well.5 But even so, when students advanceto upper division major classes, many will be introduced to group writing through a high-stakes assignment. This assignment will likely assume that the means of production as well as the knowledge of process are at hand. What if, instead of this abrupt immersion, students are exposed to group work by means of scaffolded, low-stakes assignments introducedearly in their college experience, in FYC? Is this an unnecessary stress or a rare opportunity?

Why Online Group Writing?

In an academic regimen where single-author writing is often prized over comparativelyambiguous group-author work, FYC is one of the few classes that lends itself by default to thecooperative/collaborative ethos of group writing. In their paper “Decentered, Disconnected,and Digitized: The Importance of Shared Space,” Beth L. Brunk-Chavez and Shawn J. Millercharacterize the composition classroom as one uniquely positioned to reap the benefits of groupwriting. Because FYC has been at the forefront of the group-writing/individual-writing debatefor several decades, the is predisposed toward challenging the oft-assumed superiority of theindividual author. As Brunk-Chavez and Miller portray FYC’s position, “Though [online groupwriting] flies in the face of a traditional teacher-centered, or ‘sage-on-the-stage’ pedagogy, weknow that, on the whole, composition hasn’t been ‘traditionally taught’ for quite some timenow” (1). Through the exercise of group writing, Brunk-Chavez and Miller, among others, areadvocating for what they call “collaborative learning.” Group writing provides a way in whichstudents can take part in the construction of knowledge in the classroom that, according toBruffee, “helps students learn better—more thoroughly, more deeply, more efficiently than learn-ing alone ... .collaborative learning teaches students to work together effectively when the stakesare relatively low, so that they can work together effectively later on when the stakes are high”(quoted in Brunk-Chavez and Miller 5). So, if Bruffee is right, how can group writing be enactedin the FYC classroom so as to make the extra work worthwhile for students and teacher?

Cooperative and Collaborative Writing with Google Docs (Evans and Bunting) 111

Brunk-Chavez and Miller write that while teaching composition online, they asked howstudents adjust when learning becomes less centered on the teacher and more student- andcontent-focused. Their experience suggests that “success of the students and the class seem tobe directly related to the design and use of collaborative as well as cooperative learning activ-ities,” with course design and planning also emphasized by Bruffee (Brunk-Chavez and Miller2; Bruffee 553). Based on this observation, we adopted Brunk-Chavez and Miller’s definitionsof cooperative and collaborative writing as clear and replicable descriptions of two distincttypes of group work. In cooperative efforts, they write, “students divvy up the work, go do it,then cobble their results into a final presentation” (4). Neither synchronous nor asynchronoustechnology is necessary; students bring “their” chunks of work to the group and assemblethem into a single unit. This method “account[s] for accumulated knowledge” and maintainsteacher-centered authority (4, 22). On the other hand, collaborative work encourages studentsto take charge of individual and group learning through critical thinking and discussion;learning is student-centered and student-driven (5). So it is that in a cooperative essay, anindividual student makes limited contributions, with other group members expected to takeon somewhat equal segments of labor. On the other hand, a collaborative assignment engagesall group members in every stage of the writing process, with both synchronous and asyn-chronous contributions desirable and practical.

A collaborative writing environment exposes students to considerations that they maynot encounter anywhere else in their college experience (Brunk-Chavez and Miller 13). In asingle-author situation, contradicting evidence or arguments contrary to a student’s own thesiscan be summarily discounted or simply ignored; but, it’s not as easy to pretend ignorancewhen those ideas come from a fellow group member. In Brunk-Chavez and Miller’s experienceand our own, this has been a largely positive experience for students. Brunk-Chavez andMiller report that their students “overwhelmingly stated that they appreciate and seek outtheir classmates’ perspectives, opinions, and ideas” (14). As one of our students comments,“Before this paper I believed that English should be more of a solitary course than say scienceor math, however, this different approach to a very similar assignment changed my opinion.Group activities are a way to bring people and ideas together to form a more error free openminded and intellectual result.”

In addition to encouraging students to expand their ideological horizons, collaboration(and to a lesser extent, cooperation) gets them to question the balance of power in the classroom,to put more stock in feedback given by their peers and to not defer only to the “sage-on-the-stage.” Loosening this sage/student dichotomy through group writing leads to a situation inwhich students can experience shifts in knowledge production between cooperative—“knowl-edge is shared rather than constructed”—and collaborative—“knowledge is socially constructedthrough meaningful conversations between students”—learning (Brunk-Chavez and Miller4–5). Students are simultaneously challenged by learning to critically think outside the “oneright answer” mentality (received knowledge) that other coursework may require while theyare supported in that challenge by group members who bring new perspectives.

Heller is correct when he cautions that group writing works against the competitive grainin some ways. He is correct, in our experience, when he says that teaching group writing inFYC adds more to an already full plate for both the student and the teacher. However, hedoesn’t address possible advantages or the fact that knowledge is not proprietary. His articlecloses on a reductionist note when he says of group-writing advocates, “[They] want us tocommit not to some form of life that we know already, or to one that lies just around thecorner. Rather, they are trying to secure commitment to an entirely different form of life, inwhich people write with no thought of personal gain or glory, motivated by the sheer pleasures


of fellowship and of writing itself ” (311). As a rebuttal, consider Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford’sargument in “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship” that knowledge-building is inher-ently collaborative and that the idea of a totally “original” work of scholarship is actuallyimpossible (358). Word choice and word order within a composition might be entirely original,but the author is always already in conversation with someone. To direct a FYC class in whichthis conversation is foregrounded and elaborated upon might be more work, but it addressesa truth about the construction of knowledge that students may well not learn anywhere elsein their university experience; or, if they do face this truth elsewhere, it will likely be in theform of a high-stakes assignment.

Why Google Docs?Why choose Google Docs6 instead of Blackboard, WebCT, or any of the many other

organizational tools made for academic purposes or available free on the web? The simpleanswer is that Docs is streamlined—only an office software suite and nothing else.7 GoogleDocs is simple from a composition perspective as well, providing a word-processing windowon which as many as fifty8 writers can collaborate at once. All editors9 of a particular documentsee changes being made. In this way, Docs helps democratize composition and revisionprocesses while also making them more time-efficient, unlike an asynchronous Course Man-agement System (CMS) like Blackboard.

Docs also facilitates direct interaction between teacher and student(s) during group writ-ing and for feedback. Brunk-Chavez and Miller explain that “[m]any instructors choose touse a [CMS] as a digital ‘closet’ or ‘file cabinet’ for their courses,” and that while “[s]tudentsuse the technology to gain access to the material/content, and may even be accessing andreading the content at the same time,” this use of a CMS does not facilitate truly collaborativework (18). Google Docs enables collaboration in a much more accessible way. Brunk-Chavezand Miller propose that the teacher of a FYC class should simply learn to “bend” their CMSof choice in a more collaborative way (22). However, this makes little sense post-2007 asGoogle Docs provides teachers with a tool that requires no bending.10

Docs, with its synchronous editing, works in the classroom to create what Brunk-Chavezand Miller call “shared space,” a term borrowed from Michael Schrage and redefined as aspace that is “variable and dynamic; it can be a virtual space, a physical space, or a digitalspace” (7). But what really matters, according to Schrage, is that “you need to have the mediawhere the ideas can be captured and represented and those representations can be modifiedand played with” (quoted in Conner). The existence of some type of shared space, then, isnecessary for the kind of collaboration we have discussed to function in the classroom, andfor this we selected Docs. But now you probably wonder, as we did, how you get Docs towork in class.

How Do I Use Google Docs in the Classroom?As mentioned, Docs’ main function—and what makes it unique when compared to other

online platforms—is its synchronous group-editing capability. Any Doc your students (oryou) work on is automatically and frequently saved online. This means that any member ofa group can access the document from any computer at any time once invited by the documentcreator to view or edit. Students can then make changes or additions to the document thatappear in real-time on the screens of anyone who has that document open. This can be a littlejarring if you’re not already familiar with the idea of synchronous editing, so let’s walk throughthe process of creating and editing a simple document:11


1. Assuming that you’ve already created a Google account, log in at http://docs.google.com,which will load the main Docs page. Here you will find a list of links to all the doc-uments you have created and/or have access to, much like a window that shows thecontents of your hard drive in your computer’s operating system. You have optionsto “star” documents (i.e. make them a favorite document for easier access), sort doc-uments in various ways, and tag documents or create folders in which to store thosedocuments. These last two options are especially useful if an instructor or student isusing Docs in more than one class or working with more than one paper for a course,as was the case with our portfolio-based FYC course.

2. To begin a new document, click the button in the upper-left corner of the windowthat says “Create new.” You can also upload documents that you began writing inWord or another word processing program, but for now let’s assume that you’re startingfrom scratch.

3. When you click “Create new,” a dropdown list shows the types of files you can create.Choose “Document.” This puts you in word processing mode, which you’ll probablynotice looks a lot like your offline word-processor.12

4. Name your document. Go to the top of the screen and click on “Untitled document.”For this introductory practice, change the name to “Tutorial.” Once you have savedthe document, you’ll find it again on your main page (from Step 1) listed as “Tutor-ial.”

5. Docs has most of the functionality that you use in your offline word processor. Inaddition, it has a few functions you need to explore before introducing it to students.The first of these is a link to the right of the bar where you changed the Doc’s namethat says “Private to only me.” Click this link and you’ll find the sharing options forthis Doc. If you click to change the Doc from “private” status, you get a windowexplaining your other options. One makes the Doc available to anyone to whom yougive the URL, while another makes the Doc available to anyone on the Internet whostumbles upon it. Google explains all of these options under the “Learn more aboutvisibility” link. For our purposes, we’ll assume that your Doc will be private andshared with a few fellow editors.

6. If you choose either of the non-default privacy options, you’ll find a link to your doc-ument to give to others. Since this tutorial is private, you’ll have to invite othersbefore anyone else can access your Doc. Doing this is simple. In the window youbrought up by clicking the link in Step 4, click in the box under “Add people.” Hereyou’ll be able to enter email addresses of people you want to have access to the Docand determine whether they will edit it alongside you or just view it. Once you addpeople to your access list, Docs will automatically send an email message (unless youopt out) and explain how to view the Doc.

7. Once group access has been established and writing is in process, you may want todownload or print the Doc. Under the “File” menu, click on “Download as.” Thisoption lets you choose the format (ODT, PDF, RTF, Text, Word, and HTML) youprefer for your downloaded Doc.

8. The “See revision history” option, also under the “File” menu, is very useful in revi-sion-heavy composition classes. To see how this works, type “2+2=5” into your Doc,then save. Next, change your text to “2+2=4” and save again. Now click “See revisionhistory.” You’ll see the document as is, but with arrows above the document to allowyou to move back to previous versions to see changes you’ve made. Not only can youroll back the document to the point where the equation was wrong, but also to the


first blank page. Unlike the word-processor-standard “Undo” command, this revisionhistory can be used to revisit and potentially roll back changes you made days, weeks,or months in the past. When you view a previous version of the document, you’llalways be presented with the option to “revert” to that particular incarnation of thedocument. The revision history option is even more useful when it comes to collab-orative documents, because it allows group members to go back and view not onlywhat changes were made to the document and when, but who made those changes.This is not only useful for students wanting to keep track of changes to a group-authored document but also for an instructor who gives suggestions for revision toeach student, as we did in our 101 classes.13

Docs has a simplistic interface, but it’s not entirely intuitive. As discussed above, Rafael Hellerwarns that teaching collaborative writing adds a layer of difficulty to the learning (and teaching)of writing. We caution that using an online platform like Docs adds a similar layer of difficulty.To require use of Docs in-class, you must learn how to use Docs and then teach your studentswhat you’ve learned. This may seem obvious, but based on our experience, the time and effortthis learning and teaching takes is worth considering. You must also be prepared for inevitabletechnology failures. Some will be brought about by student or instructor error, others whenthe server goes down, and still others will be inexplicable.14 That said, we believe that Docsis one of the best free online technologies currently available and conducive to true collaborativewriting in the FYC classroom.

Any new type of knowledge that your students must learn and utilize in class will in turncause new problems. Our intent in pointing out some of the difficulties associated with teachingwith Docs is not to discourage you but to nudge you away from what Gail Hawisher terms“technocentrism”—that is, a sort of unbending optimism for all things technological—andthe related assumption that any new technology introduced to the classroom will be understoodand adopted with zeal by all students (quoted in Brunk-Chavez and Miller 9). This was cer-tainly not the case for us with our original project, as many students had trouble understandinghow the use of technology fit in with the class. Even those who “got it” had trouble under-standing how the features of Google Docs afforded unique possibilities, as did one studentwho insisted that “the same thing could be accomplished through e-mail.”

By the same token, a few students having difficulty picking up the use of a technologyin class is, in essence, little different than a few students having difficulty picking up the useof MLA style, or the idea of a summary, or what “scholarly source” means. Brunk-Chavezand Miller agree when they write that “[m]ost of us who have taught in an online environmentwould concur that while not every student succeeds in all levels and all aspects of a face-to-face (f2f ) composition classroom, not every student succeeds in the technology-enhancedclassroom either” (1). That said, entering the class knowing how you will use Docs and beingaware of the potential pitfalls inherent in that use will ensure that the number of studentswho have trouble with Docs, and with the class as a whole, will be kept to a minimum.

How Do I Assign Work with Google Docs?Contrary to what pop culture would suggest, not every student born after 1990 is a

natural computer hacker. In fact, the majority of students in our classes showed very littlecomputer savvy beyond being able to check email and use instant messaging.15 Consequently,we learned that the first step to using Google Docs in the classroom is to allot adequate timeearly in the semester and orient students to the program’s use.

From the outset, students need to know what they can do with Docs and what you’re


going to require them to do for the class. These two things must be communicated directlyand clearly to them because, like it or not, they’re unlikely to use Docs for anything otherthan required work. Our in-class orientations covered many of the main functions of Docs,similarly to the way we introduced Docs above. Specifically, we discussed how the studentswould submit class papers and documents online (required for the class) and engage in onlinecooperative and collaborative learning (required). Depending on the class section, studentswere instructed how to access the class handout list (not required), complete peer reviewonline (not required, but encouraged), and use the “revision history” function as a portfolio-building tool (not required, but encouraged). By and large, students engaged in the first twoactivities, but not the last three.

Docs, then, provides a useful, customizable canvas for group writing. But how do youcommunicate to your class assignment particulars and standards while also championing thevirtues of democratized feedback and the benefits of peer review? Brunk-Chavez and Millerdiscuss the results of a study indicating that “though we may think our collaborative, purposelyvague assignments are forcing our students to apply (and yes, develop) critical thinking skills,they are quite possibly robbing our students of the guidance necessary to analyze and storethat experience in their long-term memory” (6). How, then, can Docs be used for groupwriting assignments in a way that upholds both the ideas of sufficient teacher-guidance andclassroom democratization?

First, consider your program’s requirements:

1. Review the catalog description of the composition course you will teach, and studythe composition program’s learning objectives. What course objectives should stu-dents have achieved by the end of the course?16 How will group writing support studentlearning in conformity with your institution’s guidelines? Consider the end of yoursemester your starting point for design. What should students have learned about writ-ing, and how will you teach them the processes and skills necessary for practice?

2. Examine the kinds of writing assignments students in your program are askedto do. Can these assignments be adapted or replaced with group writing assignments?In our program, each FYC instructor designs a writing sequence (four to five writingassignments) that culminate in portfolio submission. Students must include in theportfolio a reflection letter and the final research essay, but they select from otheressays written in class to reach the 22 revised-page submission requirement. Sincestudents already participate in peer review and sometimes are assigned group presen-tations and activities, group writing seemed to us to be an intuitive next step topreparing our students for upper division and professional group writing situations.

3. Discuss your ideas with your FYC administrator and consider her concerns andsuggestions. Does she support your proposal to integrate group writing into yourcourse? If so, you are ready to begin drafting the design of your course.

Next, work backward from the end of the semester and envision your students’ writing needs:

1. Revisit (again) institutional course and program objectives. Add to your objectivesa statement about what students should learn from group writing by the end of theterm. Include this list on your syllabus.

2. Determine the kinds of writing you want students to submit for grading. Willyou include one or two group essays, or will you design smaller, less time-consumingassignments? Will these smaller assignments help build a group-written paper, andwill you grade and/or comment on them? How much time can you devote to reviewand grading?


3. Review the assignments you have designed for previous courses and recall whichones have worked well.17 What kinds of group writing are you already assigning,and where can you include additional or more rigorous group work?

4. Determine a method for evaluating group writing. The final group essay shouldappear to have been written with one voice, and, ideally, all writers will have con-tributed to the process. The instructor, then, must consider what kinds, quantity, andquality of writing each student is expected to contribute to the group’s project, andstudents must be informed about these expectations when the assignment is made.What will your methods be? Synchronous and asynchronous surveillance is possiblewith Docs, but how much time will you spend on this? You may decide to have eachstudent choose a different font color with which to clearly mark individual contribu-tions. Casual surveillance can be carried out in the classroom as you observe groupsworking together and discuss problems and progress with them. You may request orrequire each student to submit a confidential evaluation of their group’s interactions,and comments can be corroborated through several reports originating from differentgroup members. Or, you may take a more casual approach and discuss group dynamicsin private or group conferences. How and when will you implement such strategies?What percentage of the final grade will group writing represent?

5. Consider posting class materials (the syllabus, paper guidelines, etc.) on Docs.You may choose to give these materials ‘view only’ availability. Or, though you don’thave to take things this far, you may invite contributions from students in the designof course materials. University classes have been taught using class materials editedby the students.18 The more that students use Docs, the more comfortable they’llbecome with using it to write.

6. Establish a file-naming protocol. While printed papers require little thought to for-mat beyond documentation styles like MLA, digital submissions do. Decide how youwill organize your folders and files to make student papers accessible, and enlist studentcooperation in adhering to this format (See Appendix: Electronic Submission of Filesand Folders).

How Do I Evaluate Work Done with Google Docs?

We chose Google Docs for our FYC classrooms because the program appeared capableof facilitating and illustrating cooperative and collaborative writing processes. However, wealso anticipated that Docs could help streamline feedback between students during peer reviewsessions and between the instructor and student(s) when papers were submitted, reviewed,and responded to online. Because of this, printed copies of papers were not accepted, andinstructor comments were made electronically. In our Docs sections, instructors used the“Insert comment” function under the “Insert” menu to make in-text comments. Because com-ments automatically insert the commenter’s name in a color selected by that writer, instructorcomments seem more of a conversational insertion or aside than appropriation of student text.Also, at the end of each draft, instructors typed a short paragraph or two of feedback rangingbetween strengths and/or weaknesses in the essay as a whole to sentence-level patterns of error.Instructor comments were immediately available to students.19 Because less time was requiredto type than hand write each response, more extensive comments could be given.20 On theother hand, our students would have preferred receiving printed comments on their papers,and many of them were concerned with what they perceived as the erratic nature of the elec-tronic submission process and awkwardness of the interface. One student wrote, “The program


used to edit [the papers] was pretty primitive ... it looked like none of the formatting that Ihad on my paper stayed when I submitted it.” Docs has a shortage of formatting options, soin order to give our students adequate practice using MLA format, we required students todownload the final drafts as Word documents and to comply with MLA format.21

Peer review was also conducted electronically. This was intended to give each studenttwo forms of feedback on each draft—peer review followed by instructor response. Studentstend to prize instructor comments over comments made by their peers, and although we hadhoped that receiving electronic comments would democratize this issue, this method did notnoticeably alter perceptions. Students often viewed peer review as useless, not because of theissues of access and the Google Docs interface being difficult to navigate, but because studentscontinued to see their peers’ comments as having little value in comparison to instructor com-ments. However, the purpose of peer review is not only to receive peer comments but to readand respond to the peer’s paper, which benefits the reviewer’s own writing process.

Generally, synchronous electronic feedback and submission didn’t seem to democratizethe portfolio construction process. When it came to using all available feedback to revisedrafts and construct the portfolio, students often chose to follow only instructor suggestionsas to which papers to include in their final portfolio. One student writes that “I ended upchoosing [portfolio papers] based off of which one you liked more,” and another says thatthey “[p]retty much just used the papers that didn’t suck the most.” Occasionally this choiceseemed to involve individual agency, but such a remark was more often made by studentschoosing essays that they thought the instructor would grade highest. Often portfolio paperswere chosen somewhat by default, as students were required to include at least one grouppaper (either a collaborative paper or a cooperative paper). This “choice” led to many commentslike this one: “Although I was confident on the papers I selected for the portfolio, the mosthesitated paper was of course the group paper.” Much of this hesitation seemed to come fromthe question of authorship, which is an important consideration when teaching group writing,but one less tricky to navigate when using Docs.

In their essay “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship,” Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsforddiscuss the ways in which collaboration in composition—especially collaboration online—can muddy the waters of authorship. Paraphrasing Sherry Turkle, Ede and Lunsford claimthat “the opportunity to deploy virtual selves with distributed and potentially ever-changingidentities can be a source of alienation and anxiety as well as of liberation—can make it hardindeed for us to determine ‘Who am we?’” (355). While there is merit to this point, especiallywhen you consider the multiple avatars and identities students frequently navigate throughservices like Facebook and MySpace, Docs mitigates much of this identity/authorship con-fusion with both optional and built-in functions.

First of all, as mentioned earlier, each student-author must be logged in to Docs beforethey can edit a document. Then, once they have made changes or additions to those documents,their contributions can be tracked using the “Revision history” feature. This feature not onlylists the time/date of each contribution but the name of the user who made said contribution.Secondly, all comments made on the document using the “Comment” function are similarlytime- and date-stamped and include the commenter’s username. Last, Docs provides thefunctionality for each author to indicate their individual voices at their own discretion. Optionsto highlight text or change the font color are there, and assigning a color to each writer orletting him choose (strategies we used with our own group writing on Docs) allows studentsa way to distinguish their individual voices while still collaborating effectively. Of course, agoal of writing collaboratively is the cultivation of the illusion that several writers will unitewith one coherent “voice.” While this idea concerned our students—for example, one com-


plained that “I found out through this paper that no matter how hard you try to mesh everyones[sic] pieces together you are still going to be able to tell that it wasn’t one writer who wrotethe paper, or if it was one writer it was one with multiple personalities”—Docs allows enoughcontrol to keep individual contributions straight while still making the final draft cohesive.

Docs’ functionality makes it easy for you to decide the amount of feedback you want togive and the amount of control you want to have over your students’ compositions. Here aresome suggestions for using Docs to evaluate student work:

1. Decide how accessible your students’ documents should be to you. You may wantto allow them to work privately and only present to you their final draft, or you maywant to be able to view their document, live, while the group works on it. Also, youmay want to comment on or add to a group’s document while they’re working andso need an early invitation to the Doc. Any of these options are possible in Docs bytelling your students how you expect them to use (and not use) the permissions settingsfor their documents. They can choose to include you as a collaborator on their doc-uments, as a viewer, or simply not include you at all, leaving you out of the processuntil you receive a printed or electronic copy of their complete draft. However, it isyour responsibility to check to see that the access you require is available and havestudents who overlook this instruction to adjust their sharing settings.

2. Decide how important it is to you that the students blend their voices when col-laborating. Making sure that the paper has a cohesive voice was important to us inour classes, but often the students were so concerned about making their voices blendeffectively that they focused too heavily on their sentence mechanics when revisingand did little work on making their arguments and evidence cohesive across the essay.

3. Inform students of all the ways that they can expect to receive comments fromyou. Using Docs makes it at least theoretically possible that you’ll be available tocomment on their work 24/7, and so they need to know where your attention willfall on a scale between “always-on” and “never-on.” If you plan to give each studentone paragraph of feedback and are only willing to go beyond that if they requestfurther help, explain that to them. Make clear as well exactly how much time willpass between submission of their papers and receipt of your comments. For example,forty-eight hours between receipt and response for a draft excerpt for which a fewstudents request help may be reasonable, while a week between receipt and responsefor required, class-wide draft submissions is prudent.

4. Remember that your primary goal is to teach writing. Group writing is but oneway to go about doing so. Distinguishing between students who are having troublein the class because they need help with their writing and students who are havingtrouble in the class because they are having trouble in their group or can’t figure outthe electronic submission process is important.

Certainly other considerations exist that we haven’t included and details that you’ll wantto specify to your class as you become more comfortable with the Docs interface and its capa-bilities. Keep a record or journal of these items as they occur, perhaps on a Doc set up forthis purpose.

Reflecting on Teaching with Google Docs

Our original project to teach group writing in FYC using Google Docs ended with less-than-stellar results as we’ve mentioned briefly and you can see more clearly in this article’s


notes. Even so, many of our problems in those particular classrooms came from inexperiencewith teaching group writing and the fact that at the time of the project, Docs was still in abeta stage. The office suite’s ease of use has much improved since the time of our study. Oneof the more dramatic disappointments in our classes—at least according to the students—was the technology aspect of the course as a whole. Brunk-Chavez and Miller say that “[w]hen[students] don’t succeed in a course, they have the tendency to look beyond themselves andblame what they can’t control such as the instructor, the technology, or their group members”(8). As tempting as it might be for some to take this as an excuse to wipe their course cleanof anything but pencils and paper, and plan nothing but individual writing assignments, thereis reason to be suspicious of claims that technology is to blame for all of a student’s (or group’s)shortcomings. Moreover, Brunk-Chavez and Miller warn that students may claim that “tech-nology is to blame for their lack of success in the course. New twists on the old, traditionalclassroom excuses come into play: they couldn’t find the link to the handouts, presentations,or assignments; they couldn’t figure out how to use the technology; they had a hard timemeeting with their group members online; the system was down; and so on” (9). We foundthis to be the case with the feedback we received from our students, and while we don’t meanto imply that these complaints are always invalid, it’s worth noting that new technology doesn’tinstantly make old excuses have greater legitimacy.

Another oft-heard remark was more characteristic of the nature of collaborative writingthan the technology of Docs itself. Students strongly disliked (or liked, depending on theircircumstances) the leadership dynamic that arose in group situations. Again, Brunk-Chavezand Miller express our sentiments when they explain that in their experience:

Students suggested that they don’t like the leader/follower dichotomy arrangementin most groups—some because they want to be the leader and some because theywould rather not be the leader—that they work faster and/or more efficiently ontheir own, that they would prefer to be accountable for their own work rather thandepending on others, and that their shy or “timid” personalities makes working ingroups an uncomfortable activity [12].

This is an understandable complaint and, again, somewhat intrinsic to group work. How-ever, we believe that this complaint can be mitigated by Docs’ functionality. The amount of work that each student is directly responsible for generating and showing to you as beingtheir own work is easily managed by the commenting/color-coding functionality describedabove.

Finally, online collaborative writing will be more effective if it is supported by other kindsof collaborative work in the classroom. Whether it’s more pen-and-paper collaborative writ-ing or an activity that organizes students into groups that work together to answer a basicquestion about writing an introduction paragraph, live collaboration will beget successful onlinecollaboration. Instructors should realize at the onset that by choosing to use Google Docs for group writing, you aren’t choosing a tool for your students to occasionally pick up in serviceof completing a compartmentalized activity in your course. Instead, you’re choosing to exposethem to an additional type of writing beyond that to which they’re likely accustomed. If you’vedecided to use Google Docs for group writing, the rest of your class structure should reflect that choice. As useful as Docs is, it is ultimately only a tool for cooperation and collabora-tion—a technology useful and appropriate for introducing students to a new method of composing.


Appendix A

Creating, Naming, and Sharing Google Docs

To create a Google Doc:

1. Sign into your Google account and go to Google Docs.a. You may find a link on the sign-in page. If not, search for Google Docs in your

browser search window.2. Click on Create new, the far left link on the Google Docs onscreen toolbar.

a. Select Document from the dropdown list.

To name a Google Doc:

3. Click on “Untitled” and refer to the “Electronic Submission of Papers and Portfolio”handout for instructions. (For example, enter your names followed by the Paper num-ber (i.e., P1) and draft number (d1): lastfirst_P1_d1).

a. Begin a new document for revision drafts begun after receiving comments fromthe instructor.

To share a Google Doc:

4. Click on Share, the blue tab on the right side of the Google Docs onscreen toolbar.a. Click Share with Others.b. Paper 1 (Writer’s Autobiography): For all drafts, enter my email address,

[email protected], thus adding me as a collaborator. This will automaticallygenerate an email message notifying me that I have access to your document.Keep the box marked “Send email notifications (recommended)” checked so thatthe email will be sent.

c. Paper 2 (Cooperative): For all drafts, one student in your group will create adocument and enter all group members’ email addresses, as well as mine.

i. Paper 2 Reflection: Same as Paper 1.d. Paper 3 (Collaborative): For all drafts, see instructions for Paper 2.

i. Paper 3 Reflection: Same as Paper 1.e. Paper 4 (Independent Research): Same as Paper 1.f. Portfolio Reflection: Same as Paper 1.

Summary:

• For a paper you write alone follow instructions under 4, 4a, and 4b.• For papers you write with a group follow instructions under 4, 4a, and 4c.

You will write at least two (2) drafts of each assigned paper, including the Portfolio Reflection.You may choose to write more than one draft of your Paper 2 and Paper 3 reflections, especiallyif you plan to include one of these papers in your Junior Portfolio. However, for this class,you are only required to submit one reflection for each of the two group papers. Thus, youwill be an active writer on at least thirteen (13) Google Docs submissions:

1. Paper 1: 2 drafts2. Paper 2: 2 drafts + 1 reflection3. Paper 3: 2 drafts + 1 reflection4. Paper 4: 2 drafts + 1 reflection5. Portfolio Reflection: 2 drafts


Appendix B

File/Folder Protocol

Electronic Submission of Papers and Portfolio

Organized folders and files makes keeping track of electronic documents much easier for youto locate the paper you want to submit as well as help your instructor keep track of commentedand graded work.

Important: Always save your electronic documents in at least two separate locations.Download drafts of your Google Doc after significant revisions and save to your PC and/orthe lab’s server, email a copy to yourself, save to a thumb/jump drive, etc.

Read about Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and Drawings at http://docs.google.com/support/ or enter “Support” in the search window.Preparing your Doc for electronic submission:

How to prepare folders:

• Create a course folder named: ENGL ###.##. Be sure to include the course and sectionnumbers.

• In the course folder, create a separate folder for each major assignment and associatedreflection papers: Paper 1, Paper 2, Paper 3, Paper 4, PFL (see abbreviations below).

How to prepare files:

To download from Google Docs:

• Click on the File tab at the top left of your document‡ Download as ‡ click onOpenOffice or RTF or Word

• Save the file on your personal computer (or to your account on the computer lab server)in a folder named ENGL ###.##:

File name for individual papers (Papers 1, 4, PFR, and R4)

° Include your name, the paper number, and the draft numberß lastfirst_P1_d1ß Example: lastfirst_P1_d1 (no reflection assignment for Paper 1)ß Example: lastfirst_P4_d2ß Example: lastfirst_R4_d2

° You will save Paper 1 draft 1 in the ENGL ###.## folder under Paper 1.ß ENGL 101.46‡Paper 1‡lastfirst_P1_d1

° The Paper 4 folder will contain your research paper and a reflection paper.

File name for group papers (Papers 2, 3, R2, R3)

° Include your name, your group’s number, the paper number, and the draft numberß lastfirst#_P2_d1ß Example: lastfirst6_P2_d1 (name, group 6, Paper 2, draft 1)

Preparing your final portfolio for electronic submission:

• Create a folder titled lastfirstPF (for Portfolio) in your course folder, ENGL XXX.XX.• Save each document you want to include by adding a number to its name, in the order

you wish it to be read. For example:


° ENGL XXX.XX‡ lastfirstPF ‡1 lastfirst_PFR_d2

° ENGL XXX.XX‡ lastfirstPF ‡2 lastfirst_PFR_d1

° ENGL XXX.XX‡ lastfirstPF ‡3 lastfirst_P4_d2

° And so on ...• Burn to a CD. Be sure the files are saved in a format that your instructor can open—

.doc, .docx, .odt, .rtf, .pdf. Check the CD to be sure that files can be opened.

Document abbreviations:

P: Paperd: draftR: ReflectionPFR: Portfolio Reflection Letterpr: peer reviewRhA: Rhetorical Analysis

If you need additional abbreviations for file names, contact your instructor.

Appendix C

Cooperative Essay AssignmentIn cooperative learning, students divide the work among themselves and later assemble it intoits final product to be evaluated.

—Beth L. Brunk-Chavez and Shawn J. Miller. “Decentered, DiÎsconnected, and Digitalized: The Importance of Shared Space.” Kairos 11.2 (2007).

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.—Edwin Schlossberg

Learn as much by writing as by reading.—Lord Acton—Schlossberg and Acton borrowed from The

Quotations Page: Quotations by Subject: Writinghttp://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/writing/31.html

Context: You have probably participated in at least one group project sometime in your aca-demic career. Perhaps you worked with one or more lab partners, performed in a music ensem-ble, contributed to a group presentation, or, in extracurricular activities, played volleyball,football, basketball, or some other team sport. If so, you may have had an assigned task orposition to fulfill. Often when a group or “collaborative” writing project is assigned, studentsdivide the work into “chunks,” with each group member taking responsibility for a specificportion of the work. The purpose of this Cooperative Essay assignment is to explore thebenefits and problems associated with divvying up a writing project and to prepare you toexplore a truer form of collaborative writing in your next assignment.

Assignment: Write an argumentative research paper about a topic upon which your groupagrees.

How to Do the Assignment: In your group of 3 or 4 people, decide on a topic that each of youknows something about; however, you need not be experts. Use invention techniques suchas brainstorming to uncover specific ideas about the topic that your group wants to explore.Decide as a group how you will conduct research on your topic and what source materials areappropriate for your purpose and audience.


ß This paper has three parts:1. Write a 1200–1300 word essay in ‘chunks.’ That is, each person will write an

equitable portion of the argumentative essay. Organize the chunks and use tran-sitions to connect the chunks into a unified whole. Include a Works Cited pageand MLA citations.

2. Write a 600-word reflection on your experiences with this cooperative writingassignment.

Due Dates:

Appendix D

Peer Review:* Cooperative Essay

Peer Reviewer: ________________ Group #: ___________ Email: __________________

Remember: Be honest and constructive but be respectful.

Please fill out the blanks above and respond to the prompts for Section I, Section II, and yourpartner’s response to question 1 on this sheet. Respond to your partner’s question and theother prompts on a separate sheet of paper (or on the draft itself if you so choose). Both thecopy of P2_d1 and an electronic version of the completed peer review need to be turned inon Monday. Send the electronic documents to the email address at top right and [email protected] by the beginning of class on Monday.

Section I: Does your partner convincingly explain what interests his/her group about thistopic? Summarize your partner’s connection to the topic in one sentence:

Section II: Summarize your partner’s argument in one or two sentences:

One specific aspect of the research paper on which your partner would like feedback:1. What do you appreciate about this draft? What has the group done effectively? What

did you like best about the paper? Be specific.2. As a reader, what additional information do you want or need from the group? Are

all of the important ideas clearly defined and all of the points adequately supportedby examples and specifics? Were there any areas of confusion? Where would you liketo see more development? Be specific.

3. What is the tone of your partner’s paper? Is it too informal or too distant? Does ittake audience into consideration? Does it address the naysayer/other side?

4. What is the balance between the writers’ words and the words of their sources? Is iteffective? Is there too much paraphrasing/quoting/summary without discussion? Isthere too much discussion without anything to back it up? Are the sources treatedfairly and cited correctly? Can you locate one or two rhetorical appeals (logos, ethos,pathos) that have been used effectively?

What do you think of the title? The introduction? Do those things make you want to keepreading? If not, do you have a suggestion on how they could be improved?

Focus on ideas and concepts for now. Proofreading will come later.


*Adapted from the original by Sarah Aleshire.

Appendix E

Pitch Proposal

(For Step 1 of the Collaborative Essay Assignment)

The purpose of the pitch proposal is to enlist other class members in researching andwriting about a topic for a collaborative paper on a topic that interests you. This proposalwill be delivered orally, and you must have a visual aid that you design yourself. Class memberswill divide into groups on [day/date], through a voting and elimination process.

The oral portion of the presentation will be one (1) minute long. State the topic youwould like to pursue and tell why it will be a great topic or issue for an academic researchpaper. Explain why the topic is important or relevant, and propose a potential audience.

Begin with an opener or introduction that will grab your audience’s attention and makethem excited about your topic. End with a creative and/or memorable appeal, but rememberthat your instructor is part of your audience, too. Humor is acceptable, but it must be appro-priate for a classroom environment.

You are not expected to spend a great deal of time in designing your visual, but do thinkabout and experiment with the CRAP principles:

Contrast: The idea behind contrast is to avoid elements on the page that are merely sim-ilar. If the elements (type, color, size, line thickness, shape, space, etc.) are not the same,then make them very different. Contrast is often the most important visual attractionon a page—it’s what makes a reader look at the page in the first place.Repetition: Repeat visual elements of the design throughout the piece. You can repeatcolors, shapes, textures, spatial relationships, line thicknesses, fonts, sizes, graphic con-cepts, etc. This develops the organization and strengthens the unity.Alignment: Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. Every element should havesome visual connection with another element on the page. This creates a clean, sophis-ticated, fresh look.Proximity: Items relating to each other should be grouped close together. When severalitems are in close proximity to each other, they become one visual unit rather than severalseparate units. This helps organize information, reduces clutter, and gives the reader aclear structure. (Williams 13)

Source

Williams, Robin. The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice.2nd ed. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2004.

Appendix F

Dialogue Assignment

(Preparation for the Collaborative Essay Assignment)

Write a dialogue in which each group member represents the voice of one of the authorsor sources he/she was responsible for researching. Think of this as a conversation in whichyou pick up on topical cues for an appropriate point at which to add summarized or quotedideas from your source.

Each person will defend that source’s point-of-view and will contribute at least one pageof writing (about 300 words) to the conversation. Use MLA documentation style as you place


quotation marks around text quoted from the source, cite page numbers as necessary, andcreate a Works Cited page.

Appendix G

Collaborative Essay Assignment[I]n collaborative learning, knowledge is socially constructed through meaningful conversationsbetween students.

—Beth L. Brunk-Chavez and Shawn J. Miller.Decentered, Disconnected, and Digitalized:

The Importance of Shared Space. Kairos 11:2.

The hardest problems of pure and applied science can only be solved by the open collaborationof the world-wide scientific community.

—Kenneth G. Wilson

But things can happen in a band, or any type of collaboration, that would not otherwise hap-pen.

—Jim Coleman Wilson and Coleman from BrainyQuote: Collaboration Quotes

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/collaboration.html

Context: In the Cooperative Essay, you worked in a group to research and write an argumen-tative essay. You completed a section or chunk of the work, as did each member of your group,and assembled it into a whole. Sometimes cooperative writing is efficient, as it might be inlarge-scale projects or reports, or when time constraints demand that information be collectedand combined quickly. Collaborative writing, another type of group work, encourages creativeand critical thinking that may lead to unexpected learning and knowledge making.

Assignment: Write an argumentative research paper on the topic your group chose throughpitch proposals.

How to Do the Assignment: Your goal is to collaborate with each other to develop ideas throughdiscussion and while writing texts, with each person contributing at all levels of research andcomposition. Rather than writing in ‘chunks,’ for this essay you will weave ideas, paragraphs,and sentences together. For example, a summary may be written as a group, meaning that allmembers read a source and agree on the content and structure of the summary. Or, in onesentence, four group members may contribute through word choice, sentence reorganization,spelling, and/or grammar, or with techniques not mentioned here. Each person will write anequitable portion of the argumentative essay.

1. Each person will suggest a topic for research by preparing and presenting a one-minute pitch proposal accompanied by a visual text. The class will then work togetherto combine similar topics and narrow the field to 8–10 topics. Each student willchoose a topic and group with which to work, with no more than 3–4 people pergroup.

2. Write a 1200–1300 word essay using an organizational framework of your group’schoice, and document sources with MLA citation style. Include a Works Cited pageand citations in MLA format.

3. Write a 600-word reflection on your experiences with this collaborative writing assign-ment.


Appendix H

Peer Review: Collaborative Paper

Group reviewed: _______________________ Group reviewing: ____________________ Group members: ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________

Assignment: Which assignment requirements did the writers address? did the writers notaddress?

Focus: What is the writers’ main focus? How do the writers connect subtopics to the paper’smain focus? How do the writers tie the end of the paper to the beginning?

Organization: What organizational structure(s) did the writers use in this paper? Are transi-tions between paragraphs and between sentences smooth?

Support: Identify the writers’ claims and the anecdotal evidence used to support those claims.Identify the naysayer in the text and how the writers’ address the issue(s) raised.

Proofreading: Name two areas in which the writers could improve the practice of editing andproofreading.

Discuss: What ideas do you have about revising your collaborative essay after peer reviewinganother group’s essay?

Appendix I

Reflection on the Collaborative Essay

This Reflection should provide a balanced, well-considered account of your experienceswhile composing the Collaborative Essay. Here you will demonstrate to your audience yourcontributions to the group essay. Also, should you choose to include the Collaborative Essayin your Junior Portfolio, the reflection will serve as a supporting document that helps portfolioreaders understand your written contributions to the group essay.

How to Do the Assignment: Compose an essay (about 600 words long), using the followingquestions to reflect upon your experience writing the Collaborative Essay. The questions areintended to be helpful guides, but you are not expected to respond to all of them. You mayadd information that is not mentioned in the questions. Be sure to include an introductionand conclusion and to give examples.

• What was included in your group’s composing process?• How did your group go about discovering ideas for topics and details?• How did your group collaborate on research and writing as opposed to adopting the

chunking method of the cooperative process?• How was group writing helpful to your understanding of the writing process?• How did group writing interfere with this understanding?• How did the dialogue assignment help or hinder your group in writing the essay?• What did you find most difficult about collaborative writing? How was it different

(not just easier or more difficult) than cooperative writing?• How did your group work together to revise?


• How did you use others to assist you in making effective revisions?• How have you worked on improving your editing process? What tends to be your

group’s most common mechanical problems?• Which communication habits have changed or remained the same during this semes-

ter?• What was your overall experience with this assignment?

Due: [day/date]

Notes1. This essay was written collaboratively using Google Docs.2. We use “group writing” throughout as an inclusive term for collaborative and cooperative writing.

Later, we will distinguish between “collaborative” and “cooperative” writing.3. The technology we used and the course materials we developed conformed to goals laid out in Wash-

ington State University’s (WSU’s) English 101 Rubric under the headings of Critical Thinking, RhetoricalAwareness, Processes of Writing, and Knowledge of Conventions.

4. Kenneth Bruffee writes in “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’” that collab-orative learning originated in Great Britain in the 1950s but didn’t receive much notice in American educationuntil the 1970s (546).

5. At WSU, English instructors can arrange to occasionally hold class in a computer laboratory, and stu-dents pay required fees or purchase passes that provide access when the labs are open (not scheduled for class-room use). Ostensibly, students have access to computers during and outside of class time. However, in-classlab access was limited more than anticipated during our research because the two 9 a.m. sections met duringa period of peak demand.

6. For the purposes of this essay, the term “Google Docs” can refer either to Google’s entire online officesuite or specifically to the word-processing software that is part of that suite and the particular focus of ourstudy.

7. Docs allays potential user interface issues that students or instructors might have with other platforms.Uploading is simple and flexible. Docs allows you to upload almost any document format, and it will convertthat format to something the entire group can read. Specifying who has access to a given document andexactly what access features individual editors should have is as simple as adding email addresses to a list andsending invitations with a click of the mouse.

8. The maximum number of people who can work synchronously on Docs has increased from ten at thetime of our research to the current fifty. The maximum number of collaborators, 200, remains the same.

9. A Doc invitation may give permission to edit or to view only.10. Google Docs is easy for your students to access. All one needs to do to start creating, editing, and

accessing Docs is visit http://docs.google.com and sign up for a free account. Docs offers a full office suite ofprograms. If you’re using Docs for a composition class, you’re likely focusing on the word-processing feature,but you can also use it to create spreadsheets (compatible with Excel), forms, drawings, and presentations(similar to PowerPoint but with limited design options). Docs can be just as useful for your own administrativetasks as it can be for your students’ work. The more you use it on your own, the more likely you are to beable to confidently generate innovative tasks for your FYC students. As instructors, we have used Docs withsuccess for recording student grades on spreadsheets; sharing and tracking handouts, including changes madeto them over time; and planning and revising our daily course calendars.

11. Google Docs has been extensively upgraded since our original project. Any instructions provided in this essay are accurate as of August 2010, but some handout materials in the Appendix may reflect Docs as it was circa 2007–2008. For more extensive help in using the software, visit http://docs.google.com/support/.

12. “Draft” view in Word has a similar appearance, with no outlines to indicate page borders.13. As we write this article, Google Docs is in the process of updating its Revision History function. Notes

on Docs’ official support forum indicate that full functionality should be reinstated in the near future.14. When one group opened their Doc during class, the program loaded code instead of text. Fortunately,

“See revision history” allowed the group to revert to the document as they had last left it. Even so, this expe-rience reinforced the practice of making a backup copy of the document.

15. Student use of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace has increased dramatically sinceour study two years ago. This may have affected the technological readiness that current FYC students dis-play.


16. Our syllabi included these course objectives:At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:

© Apply the four composition strategies outlined as English 101 Outcomes.© Employ written and visual texts as an argumentative strategy.© Access sources and integrate appropriate support in a research writing project.© Engage in and understand differences between cooperative and collaborative writing.© Discuss ways in which we occupy space as well as in which space influences our epistemologies.© Consider influences that technology has on writing.17. For example, instructions for dialogue writing in the Appendix (Paper 2 Step 1) were adapted from a

previous assignment. We recommend shifting this assignment to Paper 3. Also, the Pitch Proposal and Anno-tated Bib assignments were used in previous courses and adapted from ideas that we were introduced to byother instructors.

18. In an upper division technical writing class taught the year before the group writing project, oneinstructor invited students to design a grading rubric for memos. Students had strong ideas about what highand low limits of acceptable work should look like; but they left the middle zones of the rubric blank andresisted encouragement to complete the class assignment.

19. At times, students logged on and observed as the instructor drafted comments. This gave interestedstudents an unusual opportunity to observe the instructor’s writing process in real-time.

20. Yet, students often complained that electronic submission was unsettling on an aesthetic level. Forexample, a student wrote that “I feel like bringing in a hard copy is just better.”

21. All students in our composition sections were informed about the research project and invited to par-ticipate in compliance with Institutional Review Board non-exempt project approval. Questions about thestudy were answered, and students were invited but not required to sign a consent form. Class requirementsfor each participant were the same as for non-participants. Students were expected to complete assignmentsand, as outlined in the syllabi, comply with attendance and other policies regardless of whether or not theychose to participate in the study. We explained to our students that a research study on group writing assign-ments and synthesis of sources would be conducted, and that they were invited to participate. Students weretold that whether they participated in the study or not, the class would require about the same work loadthat could be expected in other composition sections. Students were told that the efficacy of common tech-nology tools was being evaluated, with some sections using Google Docs and others using different wordprocessors. Students were also informed that the reflective essays they wrote might be quoted but theiridentities would remain anonymous.

Works CitedBruffee, Kenneth A. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” College English 46.7 (1984):

635–52. Rpt. in The Norton Book of Composition. Ed. Susan Miller. New York: W. W. Norton & Comp.,2009. 545–62. Print.

Brunk-Chavez, Beth L., and Shawn J. Miller. “Decentered, Disconnected, and Digitized: The Importanceof Shared Space.” Kairos 11.2 (2007): n. pag. Web. 31 July 2010.

Conner, M. “Our Shared Playground: An Interview With Michael Schrage.” LineZine 3.1 (2001): n. pag.Web. 31 July 2010.

Ede, Lisa, and Andrea A. Lunsford. “Collaboration and Concepts of Authorship.” PMLA 116.2 (2001): 354–69. JSTOR. Web. 18 May 2008.

Heller, Rafael. “Questionable Categories and the Case for Collaborative Writing.” Rhetoric Review 22.3(2003): 300–17. Informaworld. Web. 12 May 2008.

Sakellariadis, Artemi, and Sam Chromy, Viv Martin, Jane Speedy, Sheila Trahar, Susan Williams, and SueWilson. “Friend and Foe? Technology in a Collaborative Writing Group.” Qualitative Inquiry 14.7 (2008):1205–22. Sage. Web. 13 Nov. 2008.

Selfe, Cynthia L. “Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention.” Computersin the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and ElizabethOverman Smith. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 93–115. Print.


Working with Groups Online:Collaborating with Web Conferencing

CHERYL HAWKINSON MELKUN

Finding a writing instructor who does not feel that collaboration encourages creativityand promotes excellence would be difficult today. As a writing center director and teacher ofbusiness writing, I know firsthand the value of collaboration. Solo writers, in particular, oftensee the ability to write well as akin to a genetic trait, either you have it or you don’t. Workingin writing groups and teams dispels this myth. Students who write alone, struggling withtheir writing assignments, often blossom when they begin working with others as they cometo realize that they are not alone, that writing—good writing—is the result of struggle, ofworking through successive drafts, of wrestling with problems concerning content, form, andstyle. Peer review groups and collaborative writing teams create learning communities in whichmembers exchange drafts, provide commentary, encourage reflection, and suggest revision.Collaborative writing has, for these reasons, flourished in writing courses across the disciplines;however, instructors teaching blended or online classes often abandon the collaborativeapproach after a few failed attempts, despite their recognition that the problem is not withthe collaborative concept, but with the technology employed.

Many collaborative technologies can facilitate online peer review groups and collabora-tive writing teams with varying degrees of success: they include email exchange, group dis-cussion boards, chat sessions, and web conferencing. Email exchange has the virtue of being asynchronous and of being a familiar technology, one that instructors and students alike knowhow to use without any additional training; nevertheless, it is the least effective collaborativetechnology. In a study of writing tutorials, Spooner found that email exchanges typicallyresulted in “only one round of turn-taking: the student sends a text with a question, and the tutor replies, exit” (Spooner 7). This pattern is also typical of peer review groups employingemail to exchange texts and ideas, and it is observable, to a lesser degree, among collabor-ative writing teams using group discussion boards to share their work and communicate ideas.

Group discussion boards embedded within course learning management systems such asBlackboard and Moodle are superior to email in that they offer a central location, a grouppage, where students can post their work and receive commentary from their peers; however,discussion board commentary and response is similar to email commentary: It is often cursoryand frequently focuses on lower order concerns. And while more than one round of turn-taking can and often does take place within group discussions boards, the amount of turns

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(posts) that students complete is generally determined by instructor-set participation mandateswith few students exceeding the number of compulsory posts they are asked to produce.

Unlike email and group discussion boards, chat and web conferencing are synchronoustechnologies; the significant difference between these two technologies is that web conferencingutilizes voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) enabling students to orally discuss their work,while chat technology employs instant messaging requiring students to discuss their work bytyping queries and responses. Chat is superior to email in that its synchronous nature enablesa dialogic exchange, creating an environment that is truly collaborative; however, chat stillhas major drawbacks the most notable of which is significant delays between typing andreceiving messages.

Working and Collaborating with Web Conferencing

Web conferencing is an excellent online platform for peer review groups and collaborativewriting teams since it offers all the features of chat with the additional advantage of VoIP,enabling students to collaborate and communicate with one another in “the most natural,human way possible” (Grogan n.p.). Peer review groups and collaborative writing teams meet-ing via web conferencing technology are able to speak with one another, view their documents,and edit their work. Many web conferencing platforms provide application sharing that permitsgroup and team members not only to view the text but also to share control of the text,enabling any web conferencing participant who has been given control to move text andobjects, rewrite sentences and paragraphs, add or delete content, and edit for style and con-sistency. In a study of writing conferences employing synchronous VoIP technology, it wasfound that students using this technology were more apt to engage in revision than studentsmeeting face-to-face (Hawkinson Melkum 199). At the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF),a similar tendency has been observed. According to Thurber, the Director of the writingcenter at UAF, the use of web conferencing visually and mentally engages students in theirwork and has led to “an increase in students finding and correcting their own errors” (156).Thurber also notes that students meeting online are more willing to discuss higher order con-cerns than students meeting face-to-face.

The willingness of students to work with documents online when using collaborativeweb conferencing software is not surprising when one considers that most students no longercompose their drafts with pen or pencil: they compose their drafts while on their computersusing a word processing platform. A recent article in the NCTE’s Council Chronicle acknowl-edges this and goes one step further identifying student engagement with technology as a bestpractice and stating that students should be “engaged in collaborative processes using Web-based tools” (Collier 7). Web conferencing programs enable group and team members toopen, view, and edit their document in real time using the same word processing platformthat created it. Revisions made during the web conferencing session can be saved to the writer’scomputer, creating a dynamic, collaborative environment in which team members make sug-gestions, try out rhetorical techniques and strategies, and decide on permanent textual changes.Web conferencing meetings are identified by students as “working sessions” during which “realprogress” is being made. In addition, most web conferencing platforms permit participantsto surf the web, enabling team members to collectively search, find, and discuss articles withintheir university’s online databases. Some web conferencing platforms even provide web con-ference participants with an audio and video recording of their collaborative session.

In addition to these tangible web conferencing benefits, there are intangible benefits thatare equally valuable, especially for nontraditional students enrolled in blended and online

Working with Groups Online (Melkun) 131

courses. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), “moderately orhighly nontraditional students [are] more likely than either traditional students or minimallynontraditional students both to participate in distance education and to be in platforms avail-able entirely through distance education” (Snyder et al.10). Nontraditional students are also“less likely to attain their degree goal within 5 years and are more likely to leave postsecondaryeducation” (Choy 13). While no definitive study connecting the high attrition rate of nontra-ditional students to online delivery has been published, many scholars speculate that the onlineenvironment fails to create a meaningful learning community, a critical component for studentsuccess (Kuh et al. 74).

Often online students, both traditional and nontraditional, complain of working in avacuum. Collaborative group sessions hosted via web conferencing technology may lessen thisproblem by building student connections, fostering a sense of community, and creating a sup-port network. A graduate student at California State University at Monterey Bay stated thatcollaborative group work was a critical component of her academic success: “When I founda partner to study with and got to know my classmates, I had a connection.... I found someoneelse who understood my struggle.... Since in groups you just don’t talk about homework orthe test, you talk about home, and share about yourself.... It was a tremendous support forme” (Kuh et al. 75).

Web Conferencing for Peer Review Groups

Collaborating with other students, whether in the brick-and-mortar classroom or online,leads to increased student involvement, improved writing skills, greater rhetorical awareness,and increased student success. One collaborative strategy that can be incorporated into anyclass in which students create significant written work is peer review. Peer review allowsstudents to obtain feedback on their writing while it is still a draft, creating an opportunityfor reflection and revision. Francine Davis, an early proponent of peer review noted distinctpatterns of verbal activity in peer review groups: 1) asking questions about their work, 2) pro-posing revisions of their work, 3) agreeing or disagreeing with the recommendations of peers,and 4) explaining their stylistic choices. While peer review group members are not trainedtutors, they are interested readers, and as Davis notes, group members often ask probing ques-tions that promote critical, reflective thinking about writing (1–12).

Forming student peer response groups in blended and online classrooms can be chal-lenging given the limited opportunities the instructor has to observe the communication skillsof individual class members. Some instructors form peer review groups by sending studentsan email asking them whether there are class members with whom they would like to work.Groups are then formed accordingly with students who did not express a preference fillingout partial groups. Advocates of student-formed groups contend that students who haveselected their own group are more comfortable within the group and, therefore, interact easilywith one another. The disadvantage of student-formed groups is that students tend to picktheir closest friends as group members. These friends often share the same world view andare frequently reluctant to comment on one another’s work.

Instructor-formed groups can create diversity and break-up student cliques. Instructorsmay want to consider their students’ individual written oral communication skills as well whenforming groups. Ideally, every group should have strong as well as weak writers. Students whohave the same type of writing problem—whether with content, organization, syntax, diction,or grammar—should be placed in different groups. After all, if students are unable to recognizea problem within their own work, they are unlikely to recognize that problem in the work of


others. A student with a pattern of subject/verb agreement errors, for example, will probablynot detect subject/verb agreement errors in another student’s work. A student who uses anabundance of polysyllabic words, convoluted sentences, and lengthy paragraphs in an effort toimpress the reader will be delighted to see this style reflected in the work of a classmate.

Even carefully formed peer review groups need guidance. Instructors should create peerreview guidelines and establish a peer review protocol. In the courses I teach, students followa protocol that requires them to read their papers aloud during their web conferencing reviewsession (see Appendix A). While students often balk at this, I have found that students whoknow they have to read their paper aloud generally work harder on their drafts. Reading thepaper aloud also forces group members to listen attentively and focus their comments onhigher order concerns rather than lower order concerns.

Though web conferencing technology enables group members to share their documentview as well as document control enabling reviewers to point out specific sections, sentences,and even words that need changing, sharing control should be kept to a minimum. Studentsshould not edit the writer’s work; however, writers may want to highlight areas for futurerevisions, insert comments and suggestions, and make minor revisions during their web con-ferencing session. In my writing classes’ peer review sessions, writers are responsible for solic-iting comments from each group member, asking clarifying questions, and recording thehighlights of what each group member said, noting who said what. Writers are not permittedto argue with group members, defend what they have written, or explain what they have writ-ten. When discussing this protocol, I tell students, “You will not be sitting next to me whenI read your paper.”

For peer review to be successful, it must be fully integrated into the class and incorporatedwithin the syllabus. Students should be graded on peer review participation: the quality andthoughtfulness of their commentary, their willingness to receive and consider constructivecriticism, and their implementation of the advice received. The consequences for failing tohave a draft prepared or for missing a peer review session should be clearly spelled-out in thecourse syllabus. The instructor may also want to require students to submit their rough draftas well as their notes from the peer review session when the final draft is submitted. Thisenables the instructor to determine which members of the group are contributing, the qualityof the advice the writer is receiving, and the willingness of the writer to revise his/her workin light of perceptive commentary.

Web Conferencing for Collaborative Writing Teams

Collaborative writing teams are distinctly different from peer review groups in that teamswork together to develop, design, research, write, and produce a collaborative document orproject. Unlike peer review groups in which the writer listens to group members but ultimatelyis solely responsible for the work produced, collaborative team members share responsibilityfor the final document or project. The diverse views and skills of individual team membersenhance learning opportunities and allow members to achieve more than they could possiblyhope to accomplish alone, a fact that has long been acknowledged by business and industryprofessionals. In the workplace, cross-functional teams address company-wide problems; task-force teams develop a product, service or system; and managerial teams oversee work projectsand task schedules (DeJanasz 202–204).

While teams have been a part of the business landscape for decades, the benefits ofteams—increased awareness of diversity, greater creativity and innovation, and improvedcommunication skills—have only recently been acknowledge and embraced by academia.


This new awareness may be due in part to the writing-across-the-curriculum movement thathas fostered the development of writing courses within diverse disciplines including science,technology, and business—disciplines that have long embraced a team approach to problem-solving. Not surprisingly, team writing assignments are most common in technical and businesswriting courses where they enable instructors “to provide authentic team experiences that willproduce college graduates with strong interpersonal, management, and coauthoring skills”(Wolfe 5). Student writing teams provide students with valuable experience and allow membersto tackle large, complex projects they would be unable to complete on their own. Familiartechnical and business writing team assignments include white papers, business plans, oper-ations manuals, and case studies

As with peer review groups, teams can either be formed by students or by the instructor.Student-formed teams increase team member buy-in and group cohesion; however, student-formed teams can also be problematic in that they can lead to the formation of polarizedhigh-achieving and low-achieving teams, particularly in small academic programs where stu-dents know one another well. In such environments, high-achieving students tend to selectone another class after class and to decline admittance to low-performing students. Hence,low-performers tend to end up on the same team. This can be a positive situation in that itforces these students to step up, produce, and perform. In order to achieve, however, theseteams typically need intervention and guidance from the instructor.

Instructors may wish to create writing teams in accordance with the students’ expressedresearch interests especially in classes that allow the team to choose among several differentproject options such as a business plan, a company website, or an interactive multimedia proj-ect. Another consideration when forming teams is diversity: studies have shown that “teammembers benefit from a diversity of approaches and perspectives that lead to innovativeinsights” (Wolfe 5). Instructor formed teams tend to be more diverse than student-formedteams and may provide students with more opportunities to learn from their peers. An addi-tional benefit of instructor-formed teams is the instructor’s ability to balance the team byleveraging the individual team members’ written and oral communication skills.

Oral communication skills are particularly important to consider at colleges and univer-sities that have speaking-intensive as well as writing-intensive general education requirements.Team assignments are particularly appropriate for classes that are designated both writing andspeaking intensive. Team writing assignments not only save instructors time with end-of-term grading, but more importantly, they provide students with an opportunity to practiceand learn effective strategies for small group communication and team management. In tra-ditional and blended classrooms, a preliminary exercise (see appendix B) can be used to intro-duce and discuss common communication styles—passive, passive-aggressive, assertive, andaggressive—and to provide the instructor as well as students an opportunity to observe classmembers interact within a small group.

The information gained through preliminary small group exercises can be helpful whenforming teams. Students who are aggressive communicators, demonstrating a need to wintheir point and dominate class discussion, will also want to dominate their teams. Aggressivecommunicators should be placed in a team with an assertive student, a student who will berespectful but will not allow the aggressive communicator to dominate the group. Passivecommunicators, students who seek to avoid conflict and rarely voice their own opinion, alsobenefit from being placed in a team with an assertive individual who will encourage them totalk and contribute. Since teams will be using web conferencing for some—if not all—oftheir meetings, team members must learn how to listen to, respond to, and collaborate withteam members orally in an online environment.


Whether a course is traditional, blended or online, the chances of web conferencingteams working successfully to produce an excellent, collaborative paper or project are greatlyincreased if time is spent discussing team communication and establishing team charters.Through discussing, designing, and implementing a team charter, members of the team areable to move from the initial forming and storming stages of team development to the pro-ductive team development stages of norming and performing. Team charters lay the ground-work for successful team performance and typically contain broad project goals, measurablepersonal and project goals, team expectations and protocols, as well as contingency plans andconsequences for problematic situations such as missed deadlines and unacceptable work(Wolfe 28–29). Having these guidelines established in advance, not only makes problems lesslikely to occur but also allows groups to quickly resolve problems when they do occur.

Instructors can help teams function smoothly by empowering them and by fully inte-grating team assignments and expectations into the syllabus and grading rubric. At a minimum,the course participation grade should be based in part on the team’s evaluation of each mem-ber’s contribution and performance (see appendix C). The instructor may wish to go further,establishing a separate team participation grade or allowing the team to determine a portionof each team member’s project grade. As with peer review, students must understand at theoutset of the course that their contributions are vital and will be considered when the finalgrade is computed.

Collaborative Web Conferencing Technolog yGiven the benefits of peer review and team writing both of which require a dialogic

exchange, it may seem surprising that web conferencing is not more widely used, particularlyin blended and online classrooms. To be fair, there are good reasons instructors choose notto incorporate this technology. First, web conferencing is not appropriate for all online classes.Web conferencing would be difficult, if not impossible, to use when members of the onlineclass are geographically dispersed across time zones and in some cases continents. Second,incorporating web conferencing into a course can be taxing and time consuming; many instruc-tors simply do not feel up to the challenge given their course loads and service commitments.

While some institutions support web conferencing via a college or university-wide learn-ing management system, many do not, leaving the selection, testing, and implementation ofa web conferencing platform up to the individual instructor. This follows a familiar pattern.In a study of college and university writing centers employing online services such as webconferencing, 90 percent of writing center directors reported that they were chiefly responsiblefor building and maintaining their online center’s presence. The directors also reported thatthey lacked the necessary training and support to develop and maintain their online programs(Shadle 10). A 2009 study found that little had changed and that writing centers offeringonline services received no additional funding for those services (Neaderhiser and Wolfe 61).Instructors seeking to incorporate collaborative web conferencing into their classroom toolboxshould be realistic about the time commitment involved and seek institutional support.

Selecting a Web Conferencing PlatformBefore selecting a web conferencing platform, instructors should first determine how

they will implement web conferencing within their course. Will this be a supplementary tech-nology with students meeting in class as well as online? Will students be using web conferencingfor peer review or for team meetings? Will students be conducting research and editing online?Will instructors attend group and team meetings or will students meet independently of the


instructor? Choosing a web conferencing program with a feature set that aligns with the classassignments, the instructor’s pedagogical approach, and the course’s learning objectives isimportant.

Web conferencing platforms that have been developed exclusively for educational use—such as Elluminate and Wimba—tend to offer an extensive feature set since they have beendesigned for hosting synchronous online classes. A number of web conferencing platformspopular in business and commerce—such as Connect and WebEx—also offer extensive featuresets since companies and organizations use these platforms to host large virtual meetings andto conduct virtual training. There are also free platforms available, such as Skype and BigBlue Button, and while these platforms are not as robust as their more expensive counterparts,they can provide a fully functional collaborative writing environment.

Price, however, should not drive pedagogy. Price is negotiable, the feature set is not.When choosing a web conferencing platform, it is helpful to develop a table that clearlydisplays common web conferencing features and their relative importance in relation to courselearning objectives (see appendix D). An important next step is to look for web conferencingarticles, with an eye toward finding current comparative studies conducted by educationalinstitutions. Studies conducted by unbiased consumer groups can also be helpful as can com-pany websites. Remember, though, while it would be fantastic to have all the “bells and whis-tles” web conferencing platforms offer, only a few features are absolutely essential forcollaborative work.

Cross-platform functionality is one such feature. The web conferencing platform mustpermit both PC and Mac users access. In addition, the conferencing platform should workwell with computers employing hard-wired or wireless internet connections, and with a varietyof internet connections including cable, DSL, satellite, and dial-up. A system’s feature setmay be robust: however, if students are unable to access the system, the system and its featureset are useless.

Application sharing, the ability to view and share a document online, is vital for peerreview and team collaboration. Most web conferencing platforms allow students to share viewsof PDF documents; however, with many web conferencing programs team members must bewilling to share control of the desktop if they want other team members to be able to edit orrevise the document. Since students are often wary of sharing their desktop, a platform thatpermits direct application sharing is desirable.

Another critically important feature is voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP). VoIP enablesgroup and team members to speak with one another using their computer rather than theirphone. This capability is significant since many home computers may be located in a roomwhere no phone is available. In addition, some telephone users have given up their land linesaltogether, opting to use only their cell phones. A phone conference for these users could beexpensive. VoIP that affords simultaneous, hands-free talk among multiple users is preferableto VoIP that requires team members to speak by passing a virtual microphone back and forth.Though web conferencing platforms such as Elluminate, Connect, and Wimba use the familiaricon of a microphone to denote the talk feature, learning to click the icon on when talkingand off when listening is far from natural. Users who are new to synchronous conferencingemploying VoIP frequently forget to click off their microphone, inadvertently blocking othergroup and team members from speaking. Group members can quickly become flustered andfrustrated. Simultaneous talk more closely replicates face-to-face meetings, allowing groupmembers to speak naturally.

Chat is an essential back-up to VoIP. Audio problems are experienced more frequentlyin web conferencing than any other technical problem. Some audio problems originate with


the user: students may have difficulty setting up their audio or may simply enter a meetingwithout the proper equipment. Using a computer’s built-in microphone and speakers ratherthan an audio headset can cause a noticeable, and often distracting, echo. Internet accessspeeds can also be a source of audio problems. Computers accessing the internet at differentrates of speed can create a delay between when an audio signal is sent and when it is received.When VoIP problems become distracting or when VoIP fails to work altogether, chat allowsthe review session or team meeting to continue collaboratively.

Though it is natural to think that video would be essential to successful group collabo-ration and would build community among online team members, many students resent theintrusion of video into the home. Even without visual cues, most students collaborating viaweb conferencing are readily able to judge participant response by listening to auditory cuessuch as tone of voice and hesitations in speech. From a technical standpoint, video takes asubstantial amount of bandwidth, making this feature virtually inaccessible for dial-up usersand slowing application sharing for all group members, regardless of internet connection type:cable, DSL, satellite, or dial-up (Shewmake and Lambert 163). Additional features such asparticipant polling, web browsing, and interactive whiteboards may be helpful for teams con-ducting research collaboratively online but are far less critical than application sharing, chat,and VoIP.

Implementing Web ConferencingInstructors should take responsibility for training their students to use web conferencing

technology and for teaching their students to participate constructively in peer review sessionsand collaborative team meetings. Handouts are helpful but are not a substitute for instructorparticipation. Instructors should attend and participate in each group or team’s initial onlineweb conferencing session. By attending the first meeting, the instructor can train and famil-iarize group participants with the conferencing platform minimizing the need for formal train-ing. Furthermore, the instructor can enforce protocols and model participation, showingstudents how to constructively communicate online. The instructor does not have to attendevery session in its entirety, but it may be wise to attend the first five minutes or so of thesecond session in the event technical problems arise.

Creating groups in which at least one student is technically savvy is also a wise practice.In addition to oral and written communication skills, technical skills should be consideredwhen forming teams. Ask students to identify the computer technologies that they have workedwith previously. Several students will likely have strong computer technology skills, skills thatinclude web conferencing. Placing at least one student with strong computer skills withinevery group or team substantially minimizes problems since the student is usually able totroubleshoot technical problems during the session and develop work-arounds if necessary.While minor technical problems do occur with relative frequency, most students are notdeterred by them. In a study that compared web conferencing writing sessions to face-to-facewriting sessions, students using web conferencing technology were just as satisfied with theirsession as those meeting face-to-face (Hawkinson Melkum 127).

Final ThoughtsIntegrating collaborative writing and web conferencing into the course curriculum takes

time and may seem daunting in the beginning, particularly for those instructors and studentswho, like me, struggle with basic technology; however, this is time and the effort well spent.Yes, there will be problems. When it comes to technology, there always are, but these problems


are not insurmountable; instructors and their students quickly learn to identify the most com-mon causes of problems as well as solutions and work-arounds. Be flexible. The conferenceprotocol may still need to be tweaked. Students may be reluctant to try the technology. Thinkof incentives. Be creative. The first time this technology is used will be a learning experiencesimilar to the first offering of a course. Web conferencing techniques, like courses, improvewith every iteration. As instructors, we expect to continually revise the content and deliveryof our courses. The same process applies to our use of learning technologies. We must observehow these technologies are being used by our students, develop best practices, and continuallyimprove on those practices.

As instructors who value writing, we value collaboration. Web conferencing, unlike dis-cussion boards and even chat rooms, enables students to speak with one another, to voicetheir opinions, to ask questions, and to receive answers. By meeting with one another onlinevia web conferencing, students become members of a discourse community in which “collab-orative talk and questioning helps the writer use language to develop ideas, to test possibilities,to re-see and rethink” their work (Ede and Lundsford 156). Students participating in peerreview groups and collaborative writing teams are not only able to “re-see and rethink” pos-sibilities, they are able to take immediate action in relation to those possibilities; they are ableto play with the text. The ability to rewrite sentences, rework confusing sections, and alterthe visual design of the document fosters metacognition as group members watch, discuss,and participate in the evolution of their individual and collective written work. This type ofinteraction and engagement is rarely found, even within the brick-and-mortar classroom andfor those of us who teach blended or fully online classes, it is even rarer. As we move forwardinto an increasingly online educational environment and digital world, we can expect thatweb conferencing and collaborative work will soon become as prevalent in academia as theyare in business and for the same reasons: collaboration fosters reflection, provides opportunitiesfor professional development, and promotes excellence.

Appendix A

Peer Review Session Handout

Peer Review Session ProtocolYour peer review session will take place online using web conferencing software. Any

group member who has access to the internet will be able to participate in the session, eventhose using dial-up connections; however, if you are using dial-up and this is your first timeconferencing virtually, be sure to allow sufficient time to download the software: downloadingcan take up to 20 minutes the first time but will only take a few minutes for subsequent meet-ing. All members should open and then minimize their drafts on their computers and beforeentering the session. You will be taught how to use the conferencing platform once you arein the session.

Session Overview

Writers:

1. Read your paper aloud twice, slowly. Do not stop, explain, or edit your work duringthe reading.

2. Make sure that you fully understand the comments that are being made. Ask clarifyingquestions if you do not understand a comment. Write down everything that was saidabout your paper, noting who said what.

3. Do not defend what you have written. It is possible that some of the advice you are


given will not be good advice: you must be the judge since you are the author of yourwork and must ultimately take responsibility for it.

4. Turn in your preliminary draft and notes along with the final copy of your paper.

Reviewers

1. Listen attentively during the first reading but resist the urge to take notes. You aretrying to get an overall understanding of the paper during the first reading.

2. Take notes during the second reading on both the positive and negative aspects of thepaper.

3. Read everything that you noted even if the same comment has already been made byanother group member. Writers need to know whether there is agreement on specificpoints.

Appendix B

Small Group Activity, The Drawbridge

As he left for a visit to his outlying district, the jealous Baron warned his pretty wife:“Do not leave the castle while I am gone, or I will punish you severely when I return!” Butas the hours passed, the young Baroness grew lonely, and despite her husband’s warnings,decided to visit her lover who lived in the countryside nearby.

The castle was located on an island in a wide, fast-flowing river, with a drawbridgelinking the island to the land at the narrowest point in the river.

“Surely my husband will not return before dawn,” she thought ... so, she ordered herservants to lower the drawbridge and leave it down until she returned.

After spending several pleasant hours with her lover, the Baroness returned to the drawbridge only to find it blocked by a gateman wildly waving a long and cruel knife. “Donot attempt to cross this bridge, Baroness, or I will have to kill you,” he raved. “The Baronordered me to do so.” Fearing for her life, the Baroness returned to her lover and asked himfor help.

“Our relationship is only a romantic one,” he said. “I will not help.”The Baroness then sought out a boatman on the river, explained her plight to him, and

asked him to take her across the river in his boat. “I will do it, but only if you pay me fivemarks.”

“But I have no money with me!” explained the Baroness. “That is too bad. No money,no ride,” the boatman said flatly. Her fear growing, the Baroness ran crying to the home ofa friend, and after again explaining the situation, begged for enough money to pay the boatmanhis fee.

“If you had not disobeyed your husband, this would not have happened,” said the friend.“I will give you no money.”

With dawn approaching and her last resource exhausted, the Baroness returned to thebridge in desperation, attempted to cross to the castle, and was slain by the gateman.

In “The Drawbridge,” there are six characters. They are listed below in alphabeticalorder. Using the list below, rank the characters (from 1 to 6) in order of their responsibilityfor the death of the Baroness. 1 is the most responsible, and 6 is the least responsible. Useyour values to make this determination.

Source: DeJanasz, Suzanne C., Karen O. Dowd, and Beth Z. Schneider. Interpersonal Skills in Organizatons.3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2009


Appendix C

Team Member Participation Rubric


Research &Gathers Information

Does not collectany informationrelated to topic

Collects very little informationrelated to topic

Collects somebasic informationrelated to topic

Collects a greatdeal of informa-tion related totopic

Poor2

Fair3

Good4

Excellent5

Score

ResponsibilityFulfills TeamRoles and Duties

Does not per-form any dutiesrelated to theteam

Performs verylittle of theduties allocatedto him/her

Performs nearlyall duties allo-cated in an effi-cient manner

Performs all allo-cated duties effi-ciently andpleasantly

Contribution

Shares Information

Does not shareany informationto teammates

Shares very littleinformation,some relates totopic

Shares basicinformation,most related totopic

Shares a greatdeal of informa-tion all related tothe topic

Planning Does not partici-pate in any planning

Participates marginally ingroup planning

Participates ingroup planning

Fully participatesin group plan-ning

Shares WorkEqually

Relies on othersto do the work

Rarely does thework and oftenneeds reminding

Usually does theassigned workand rarely needsreminding

Always does theassigned workwithout needingto be reminded

Attended meetings

Never attendedmeetings in oroutside of class

Rarely attendedmeetings in oroutside of class

Usually attendedmeeting bothinside and out-side of class

Always attendedmeetings

Listening and CommunicationListens to OtherTeammates

Is always talk-ing—neverallows anyoneelse to speak

Usually doesmost of the talk-ing, rarely allow-ing others tospeak

Listens but doesnot contributeactively to theconversation

Listens and con-tributes withoutbeing aggressive

Communicationwith Teammates

Usually argueswith teammatesand often getsloud OR doesnot contributeunless asked,often appears tobe daydreaming

Sometimesargues withteammates ORgenerally nodsapproval butdoes not com-municate

Rarely argues,sticks to issues,and contributesfrequently. Isassertive, but notaggressive.

Never argues,sticks to issues,and activelycontributes in aprofessional,assertive manner

Makes FairDecisions

Usually wants tohave things theirway and will notcompromise

Often sides withfriends ratherthan consideringall views

Usually considersall views

Always helps theteam to reach afair decision bylistening to allviews

Overall impression ofTeammate

I would not wantto work withagain

Have mixed feel-ings about work-ing with again

Would probablywant to workwith again

Would definitelywant to workwith again

Summary Impression

Appendix D

Comparative Web Conferencing Feature Table

Feature Highly Desirable Very Desirable Desirable

VoIP X Text Chat X Multiple Simultaneous Talk X Video X Guided Web Browsing X Interactive Whiteboard X PowerPoint Presentation XPolling and Quizzing XMultimedia Presentation XApplication Sharing X Emoticons XBreakout Rooms XRecord and playback X Password Secured X Cross Platform X

Works CitedChoy, Susan. Nontraditional Students: Findings from the Condition of Education 2002. Washington, D.C.:

Department of Education, 2002. Print.Collier, Loran. “Successes in English Teacher Preparation; Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers—What Are the

Best Practices?” Council Chronicle: The National Council of Teachers of English March 2011: 6–10. Print.Davis, Francine. “Weaving the Web of Meaning: Interaction Patterns in Peer Response Groups.” Resources

in Education August 1982. ERIC. Web.DeJanasz, Suzanne C., Karen O. Dowd, and Beth Z. Schneider. Interpersonal Skills in Organizatons. 3rd ed.

Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2009. Print.Ede, Lisa. S., and Andrea Lundsford. “Why Write ... Together?” Rhetoric Review 1.2 (1983): 150–57. Print.Grogan, Shareen. “Re: [WCenter] State of OWLS. E-mail on WCenter Listserve.” Retrieved from WCenter

ListServe. 20 June 2008.Hawkinson Melkun, Cheryl. Meeting the Needs of the Nontraditional Student: A Study of the Effectiveness of

Synchronous Online Writing Center Tutorials. Diss. University of Maryland, College Park, 2010. UMI, 2010Print.

Inman, James, and Donna Sewell, eds. Taking Flight with OWLs: Examining Electronic Writing Center Work.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000.

Kuh, George, Jillian Kinzie, John Schuh, Elizabeth Whitt, & Associates. Student Success in College: CreatingConditions that Matter. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005. Print.

Neaderhiser, Stephen, and Joanna Wolfe. “Between Technological Endorsement and Resistance: The Stateof Online Writing Centers. The Writing Center Journal 29.1 (2009): 49–77. Print.

Shadle, Mike. “The Spotted OWL: Online Writing Labs as Sites of Diversity, Controversy, and Identity.”Inman and Sewell 3–16. Print.

Shewmake, Jake and Jason Lambert. “The Real(time) World: Synchronous Communications in the OnlineWriting Center.” Inman and Sewell 161–170. Print.

Snyder,Thomas D., Sally A. Dillow, and Charlene M. Hoffman. Digest of Education Statistics, 2008. NationalCenter for Education Statistics. March 2009. Web.

Spooner, Michael. “Some Thoughts about Online Writing Labs.” Writing Lab Newsletter 18.6 (1994): 6–8.Print.

Thurber, Jamie. “Synchronous Internet Tutoring: Bridging the Gap in Distance Education.” Inman andSewell 151–159. Print.

Wolfe, Joanna. Team Writing: A Guide to Working in Groups. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s Press, 2010. Print.


Part IV. Can collaborative learning andwriting work in all writing classes?

Blending Collaboration and Competition: A Model for Small Group

Learning in Business Writing Classes

RANDI BROWNING

Small group collaboration has long been recognized as a beneficial tool to promote learn-ing in various settings and levels of education. Incorporating small group collaborative activitiesand projects in a college-level writing class, however, is complex. Students bring previousexperiences—positive and negative—to the activity, yet, we cannot assume they have devel-oped the skills or attitudes necessary to collaborate productively with their peers, to solveproblems together, or to complete the writing tasks given to them.

Consider that throughout our students’ education, the dominant model has encouragedrewards, praise, and recognition for individual achievement—the child whose hand goes upfirst, the one with the right answer, the one who finishes fastest, etc. When we ask our studentsto collaborate, we are asking them to develop and to use a different set of skills and to considerand balance others’ ideas and concerns with their own while they work to complete the giventask. In college, when some students’ scholarships depend on maintaining a particular gradepoint average, the prospect of other students affecting their grades heightens some students’anxiety. So why should we incorporate small group work in a college writing class? One reasonis that their future success may depend on the skills they use and develop through those activ-ities.

Many of the skills fostered by and needed for successful small group work fall under thecategory of “emotional intelligence.” Emotional intelligence can be characterized by one’s abil-ity to empathize, to be self-aware and self-controlled, to persist and motivate oneself, to com-municate and influence, and to get along with others and work in teams (Goleman 3–5). Inhis book Working with Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman documents how essential emo-tional intelligence is to success in the workplace. Based on his research and on his work withbusinesses, he reports that

[t]he rules for work are changing. We’re being judged by a new yardstick: not justby how smart we are, or by our training and expertise, but also by how well we han-dle ourselves and each other.... [A]cademic abilities are largely irrelevant to this stan-dard. The new measure takes for granted having enough intellectual ability andtechnical know-how to do our jobs; it focuses instead on personal qualities, such asinitiative and empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness [3].

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Citing a study related to IQ conducted at Harvard, Goleman summarizes the findings: “IQtakes second position to emotional intelligence in determining outstanding job performance”(5). The good news is that unlike IQ, our emotional intelligence is not fixed after our teenyears; it continues to increase with experience (7). Small group learning activities can provideexperiences that foster this development, but is simply providing the activity enough to accom-plish this goal?

To help students develop the necessary skills, some researchers have argued that teachersneed to collaborate with students in order to model effective strategies. For instance, Webbet al., based on their research with elementary math classes, argue for teachers probing students’explanations for more detail in order to further develop their reasoning. Overall, however,very little attention has been given to the teacher’s role in the process of small group workand to the instruction teachers need to include along with the collaborative activity. As aresult, students are often left to flounder through the activity, missing the opportunity toexpand much beyond the usual individualistic approach to learning and task completion.Many students may even identify small group work as an exercise in frustration or, perhaps,as a time to socialize more than to work—setting the bar of motivation at the lowest commondenominator. We cannot assume our students come with proficient or even sufficient collab-orative skills to achieve the goals we set for small group learning activities.

We must think about our role in the process and what kind of small group work willhelp our students the most. We have probably all seen small groups in which one or twomembers carry the others, and some members seem content to have a free ride, making littleeffort to assert themselves or to take responsibility for the success of the group work. Thiskind of uneven participation does not yield the kind of growth for all members that we expect.We must have clear purposes for our small group activities, purposes we can share with ourstudents so they can understand the value of the activity and can meet our expectations.

With or without much focus on the teacher’s role in the process, proponents of collab-oration in education—particularly for younger students—focus on the positive outcomessuch as higher achievement, positive peer relationships, and a positive classroom environment.They often frame their arguments in contrast or opposition to competition in the classroom,identifying the negative outcomes of competition such as increased anxiety, repeated margin-alization of some students, and diminished self-concept. Sometimes the value of collaborationis contrasted against what they perceive as the competitive norms of education in the UnitedStates (Napier; Roseth, D. Johnson, and R. Johnson; Self ). These studies help highlight someof the clear benefits of collaboration in the classroom, but is competition always antitheticalto collaboration? What happens when the competition doesn’t focus on individuals but ongroups? Is there a way to combine the benefits of collaboration and the best aspects of com-petition?

In the research that focuses on high school and college learners, we see that collaborationand competition may be more compatible than the studies that focus on children suggest. Forinstance, Fournier, Rayne and Geller report increased participation in classroom discussionswhen students were divided into competing groups, with extra credit as the reward for theteam that participated the most. Adding to the conversation, other researchers—particularlyin science and technical classes—also note some of the positive effects of competition in theclassroom such as increased motivation and creativity (Cheng et al.). A few researchers havefound positive results by combining the best of collaboration and competition (Fu, Wu, andHo; Sabato). Fu, Wu and Ho have even used the term “coopetition” to describe activities thatprovide cooperation within groups and competition between groups. The idea of combiningcollaboration with competition is certainly common in the workplace, and we would serve

144 IV: Can collaborative learning and writing work in all writing classes?

our students well if we would give them opportunities to see the benefits and challenges ofboth approaches in the classroom, especially in the college classroom.

When we combine the strengths of both collaboration and competition, we find anotherway to approach small group work—one that avoids the either/or options. Is there a way inwriting classes to work with the best of both collaboration and competition? Especially forthose students who choose careers in highly competitive fields, is there a way to blend thebenefits of small group collaboration and the stimulation of competition so that our studentsdevelop more fully than they would with only one approach? Business writing classes lendthemselves naturally to such an approach.

Many successful business men and women find themselves with tasks that are larger andmore complex than they can complete alone, and they need to know how to organize, manage,solve problems, and produce outcomes in a collaborative group. In business, however, thesegroups function in high-stakes competitive environments. The collaborators have to workproductively together while they are also competing with other businesses for their work. Isthere a way to help our students learn how to function and even thrive with the complexityof collaboration and competition? I sought to do just that in an upper-division business writingclass as I taught the students proposal writing. I wanted them to understand and experiencethe demands that will be placed on them when their writing matters most, when their writingcan determine the success or failure of their business.

Simulating “Real World” Collaborative and CooperativeWriting: The Writing Consulting Firm Project

The Context: An Upper Division Business Writing Class

Business writing classes have some built-in advantages and unique opportunities for help-ing students develop versatile writing skills. Because students often perceive these classes as,perhaps, more relevant to their futures than a more generic writing class, which usually focuseson academic writing, they come motivated to learn something new and relevant. Little dothey know that an effective business writing class uses the same rhetorical principles found inany credible writing class: primary concern for audience, purpose, and context. However,when the students perceive the theory and instruction to be new, they listen with new ears.Business writing classes emphasize the importance and relevance of writing to the students’future success in the “real world” in a way that seems more tangible to them than an academicwriting course does. However, at the heart of a business writing class are basic rhetorical prin-ciples (not just genre templates). The application of these principles invokes a real-worldcontext even though the principles could be applied to any writing occasion and setting in orout of the academy.

The specific business writing course I designed and taught—at a small liberal arts collegein a ten-week quarter—was open to all juniors and seniors and usually attracted a broad rangeof students and majors. The curriculum included a variety of writing tasks typical of manybusiness writing classes (various types of communications—letters, memos, reports, pressreleases—along with resumes and cover letters, and proposals). All the assignments, however,were designed and sequenced to build skills and knowledge needed for the collaborative andcompetitive simulation activity. The foundation for a successful small group activity beganthe first day even though the students were not aware of the sequencing and of my methods.

The first half of the quarter focused on helping students learn how to adapt to variousaudiences and purposes as they problem solved a variety of business issues and practiced

Blending Collaboration and Competition (Browning) 145

writing their letters, memos, and other specific pieces. Within the first five weeks, studentsoften worked in small groups to generate ideas, to respond to each other’s drafts, and to prob-lem solve various types of ethical and business issues. Through these activities, they weredeveloping collaborative skills: they were learning to share their own perspectives, listen toothers’ ideas, synthesize and build on common ground, question each other, and report con-sensus and dissensus accurately.

The second half of the quarter was devoted to a simulation that resulted in a collabora-tively written proposal and group presentation. In a business context, proposals are persuasivedocuments used for a variety of purposes. Often proposals are the means through which busi-nesses bid for and acquire contracts for their services (or goods). In order to simulate thisdynamic, I wanted the students to feel the importance of what they would produce. So thetwist with this small-group collaborative project was that—as in business where only onegroup wins the contract—in this class, only one group could get the A. I wrote a Request forProposal (RFP) as if it were coming from a company that needed to improve their writingskills and was soliciting writing consulting firms to help them achieve this goal. The students,collaborating and working in small groups, responded to that RFP by writing a proposal andmaking a presentation in order to compete for the contract—the A.

Course Design: Developing Skills Through SequencingAssignments and Small Group Activities

We should not assume students come to our classes as skilled collaborators, nor shouldwe overlook the skill development that could be and should be fostered in the process of smallgroup work and through the tasks we assign them. From the very beginning, I anticipatedthe skills (collaborative and writing) the students would need for the simulation, and I designedthe assignments and class-session activities to help them prepare and develop their abilities.Sometimes, as teachers, we may incorporate small group activities as a way to engage all stu-dents or to vary the activities to keep students interested. Although I do that, too, I also thinkabout the sequence of assignments, the process of accomplishing those assignments, the intro-duction and maintenance of a project, and the conclusion and debriefing of the project asimportant vehicles for skill development. As a result, long before the students knew muchabout the project, they had already laid the groundwork for it through the assignments andsmall group activities integrated into the class from the first day.

First Assignments: Real WorldApplications from the Beginning

One of the first assignments I gave the students was to identify three fields or specificjobs they might pursue after graduation and to locate three people in those fields they couldwrite. Their task was to solicit samples of the most common and important types of writingproduced in that field/job. They had to persuade the recipients to send them actual samplesof their company’s writing. This task threw the students into the deep end from the beginning.Before they knew much about letter writing, they had to persuade someone—a real person,not a hypothetical audience—to take action. From the beginning, they began to understandthat desired outcomes depend on their writing effectively; their writing had real consequences.That challenge exceeded what these students knew how to do on the second day of class, sothey felt the disequilibrium that generates lots of questions and a desire for help.

Creating disequilibrium can stimulate the learning process, but we must also provideeffective scaffolding and support in order for the unsure students to gain their footing. This


is often where group work is especially helpful and productive. I provided a handout to helpthem prepare to write (Appendix A). We worked together as a class and in small groups toclarify the various purposes and tasks embedded in this assignment and to generate a list ofwhat their audience would need in order to accommodate their request. This collaborativeprocess supported their success. Many students received multiple sets of samples, and rarelydid a student come up empty. Writing to someone they knew (family members, family friends,former employers, etc.) or to someone with whom they shared a contact (the career office hada list of alums and friends of the college who had agreed to be contacts for students) washelpful. As a result of the students’ requests, within a few weeks, we had real-life samples ofwriting from a broad section of fields, which we used to analyze style, voice, and effective-ness.

Preparing Students: Giving Them Practice, HelpingThem Develop Common Language, and Providing Them

Occasions to Make Decisions Collaboratively

The students had to analyze their received samples and identify the strengths and weak-nesses of each piece in their own collection in order to write an assessment report (AppendixB). In order to scaffold this process, which was new to them, I gave them an analysis grid(Appendix C). Not only did this handout give them a systematic way of assessing the writing,but it also gave them some common language with which to talk together about writing. Iwas asking novices to act like experts. The handout and our work in class helped bridge thatgap. After drafting their own report, they met in small groups to compare their samples anddetermine which set of samples was the “neediest” (the company that most needed to improvethe effectiveness of their written work).

Because each student had analyzed samples and brought their work to the small group,each had something to contribute, and they had a common language to use when decidingtogether which company most needed to improve their writing. Even though the simulationproject wouldn’t begin until the middle of the quarter, these first assignments helped themdevelop necessary skills: persuading someone—through their writing alone—to take action(the request letter); writing with purpose and audience in mind (their report); identifyingstrengths and weaknesses in writing (their report); sharing their results and coming to a con-sensus by working in small-groups and by collaborating as a whole class.

This process and the resulting selection of a company in need of improved writing notonly set up the simulation and collaborative group project, but it also helped the studentsdevelop and practice essential skills and dispositions for the project. This process helped themlearn how to identify strengths and weaknesses in writing and how to make decisions collab-oratively with a small and a large group. Also, working with the samples from various fieldsand companies and sharing the results of their analysis, the students gained perspective ondiscourse communities in action and noted how conventions, forms, and voice adjust to pur-pose, audience, and profession.

Group Formation: Balancing Strengths andWeaknesses and Leveling the Playing Field

By about the fourth week of the ten-week quarter, I had observed the classroom dynamics,and I had seen enough of their writing to identify individual strengths and needs. With that in mind, I had them each fill out an application for employment in a writing consulting firm (Appendix D). By having them fill out an application, I could set a tone of professional


conduct, and I could make sure no one group had a built-in advantage or disadvantage. Thisstep also eliminated some students staying with friends, with whom they were already com-fortable, and some students feeling “left over” or unwanted. With their applications in hand,I formed the groups, making sure that close friends as well as boyfriends/girlfriends were ondifferent teams and providing each team with a balance of strengths to draw on—writing,interpersonal communication, organization, work-ethic, graphics/visual abilities, verbal facility,etc. Five or six students in each group made the workload manageable although four hardworkers could succeed.

Each group would be a separate writing consulting firm, competing for the job of improv-ing the selected company’s writing. When forming the groups, I had to consider all the varioustasks they would have to accomplish. They would need to assess the strengths and weaknessesof the writing in the context of the business and the field; to design a program for improvingthe company’s writing; to write a proposal, which, in addition to needs assessment and actionplan, included typical “boilerplate” information such as a company history, consultant qual-ifications, and testimonials. They would also have to pitch their program in a sales presentation.By design, this project represented more than any one or even two people could do; theywould have to learn how to work together in order to succeed. So, how do you move fromgrouping individuals to creating a team that can collaborate and succeed? The answer is acritical part of the process, one that is often overlooked.

Chartering and Forming a Group IdentityOften in small groups that are assigned a collaborative task to complete, the members

focus on the task and get to work, ignoring the dynamics of the group and the needs of theindividuals. Other times, the members spend so much time getting to know each other sociallyand ensuring that members feel comfortable with each other that the task gets postponed,and the group struggles to catch up. Building in the structure and instruction in the beginningthat will help students develop essential skills and knowledge so they can balance both taskcompletion and group maintenance is important. Although my students had worked togetherfive weeks prior to this project, they had not talked together regarding their attitudes andconcerns about group work. As juniors and seniors, most students had participated in collab-orative projects in previous classes; however, most of them carried the baggage of unsuccessfulor frustrating experiences. They identified projects in which they dominated the group inorder to get the work done “right;” projects in which they felt dominated by others and, as aresult, they shut down; or projects in which they resentfully picked up the pieces of less-com-mitted members in order to save their grade. With these experiences in the background, theybraced themselves for more of the same. However, this was not business as usual. How youbegin matters.

I wanted to teach students some of the principles of successful group formation, so Ibuilt in an initial process, a kind of chartering process: clarifying for themselves the purposeand expectations of the project, establishing the ground rules; listening to the concerns ofeach other; understanding each other’s strengths, preferences, and communication styles;anticipating problems and ways to solve them, and creating a group identity and a sense ofunity and purpose. Our chartering process did not result in a formal document, as somegroup chartering processes do, but it did address the first stage in group formation.

In 1965, psychologist Bruce Tuckman first published his “Developmental Sequence inSmall Groups,” and his four initial stages of development, known as “Tuckman’s Stages.”These became known as forming, storming, norming, and performing (396). Throughout theyears since then, Tuckman’s Stages have been tested and applied to a variety of settings, including


task-oriented groups. These stages are still a reference point for the process of small groupdevelopment today. In 1977, along with Mary Ann Jensen, Tuckman added an additional,final stage, adjourning (426); this stage refers to the end of a group, when the tasks have beencompleted and the group disbands. Some have also referred to this stage as “mourning.”Although groups rarely follow a perfect linear model, Tuckman’s Stages can provide a usefulstructure and point of reference for teachers as they plan small group projects and for studentsas they move from the initial to the final stages in their group work. These stages remind usthat there is a developmental process in small group work, and they can help students under-stand the various needs at different times of a group project.

To begin this forming or chartering process, each group was given a list of sentence stemsthat they were required to complete orally to each other (Appendix E). At first the studentswere self-conscious about this process, but my confidence in its value and my unwaveringcommitment to the process convinced them to see it through every time. By the end of thisfirst group meeting, they had laid the ground work for successful problem solving, surfacedthe hidden agendas and fears that would have been operating unseen, acknowledged differencesin style, laughed together, and felt hopeful that this could be a different kind of collaborativeexperience. As we debriefed this process, we could collaboratively identify some of the “storm-ing” problems that often interfere with successful group work: unequal commitment and par-ticipation, domination, ineffective communication, problem-solving avoidance, varyingindividual strengths and styles, lack of honesty and trust, etc. This process provided the stu-dents with an opportunity to avoid some of the common problems or at least to lay the ground-work for solving them when/if they arose as well as gave the students perspective and allowedthem to anticipate the norming stage, which often comes as a result of addressing the “storming”issues. Through the simulation of competing writing consultant firms, I held them accountablefor maintenance of the group as well as task completion, which gave them the opportunity todevelop and practice important skills and attitudes, not just focus on the task alone.

Quick Task Completion and Success

This project was very complex, and the fast ten-week quarter was unforgiving in its pace.Few students had experience managing such a complex project on their own and even fewerhad experience collaborating with a group to complete such a project. I had to build in enoughstructure to help them bridge that which they already knew how to do and that which theyneeded to learn how to do. Having spent at least half-an-hour working on group formationand chartering (the ground work for group maintenance), it was then time to address taskcompletion, to create some momentum, and to build in initial success.

I gave them the RFP and a planning worksheet—a graphic way of chartering and organ-izing themselves and of getting started (Appendix F). By working through the worksheettogether, they began to understand the complexity of the project, to consider how they wouldwork together, and to plan for the completion of the whole task. They didn’t have a chanceto get paralyzed and to procrastinate, both of which can happen when groups face a dauntingtask. By tackling the forming and chartering processes along with some initial organizationaltasks and preliminary decisions, they immediately put into practice what they had just learnedabout working with their group and about balancing group maintenance and task completion.In order to give them practice at small group learning and collaboration, I didn’t want todirect their steps from beginning to end, but I did need to give them enough information tosupport their success. The planning worksheet, time to work together in class, and meetingwith me before the class ended gave them support and structure to get started successfully,but there was still a lot of new territory for them to navigate together.


The RFP described some of the required elements. I also showed them some models—professionally-produced proposals and the examples from previous classes. While they couldnot take the samples out of the class, they could look them over during our class working ses-sions throughout the project. These samples provided a quick orientation and encouragedthem to get to work, and the RFP gave them a minimal checklist from their “client” or audi-ence. As a group, they had to decide what they would include, what work they would dotogether, what initial steps they could do individually, and how creatively they would distancethemselves from their competition. Collectively assessing what they knew, what they didn’tknow, and what questions they needed answered was an important initial step, and the planningworksheet helped them do that. After giving them at least a half-hour to work through theplanning worksheet together, I started checking in with each group. I wanted to answer theirquestions and help them get unstuck if necessary so that they could get a jumpstart on theproject and feel the momentum of a good start. Before they left class, they had worked togetherto make some initial decisions and plans, and they had met with me to ask questions that, ifunanswered, might have stalled their progress. They left class set up for success.

Learning and Working Together:The Challenges Between Beginning and Ending

While I formed the groups, gave them the RFP, deadlines, and basic tasks, together theyhad to create a name for their company and invent a history and company ethos before theycame up with their plan and wrote their proposal. As time consuming and relatively insignifi-cant as those create-your-company tasks could be, they served to form a group identity thatdistinguished them from the other groups and moved them from a collection of students toa team. I found over time that I could speed this process up—without losing any of thebenefits—by creating different basic company profiles that they would draw out of a hat. Forexample, one group might be a small but fast-growing young and cutting-edge consultingcompany; another group might become a middle-sized company with a track record of success;and another option would be a well-established consulting firm that included offices in variousstates and offered a variety of consulting services. Each of the profiles could be used for amarketing advantage, and they had to consider their identity when determining their costs.Even with a few time-saving shortcuts such as these, the groups still named their companiesand created a logo for themselves; the company profile just gave them a place to start. Overthe years, as more and more students came with digital and graphic experience, their visualstook less time to produce and became increasingly sophisticated, and, consequently, the stu-dents gained a growing sense of professionalism in what they produced. This project includedmore than enough work for everyone, and the work required a variety of skills—creativework, technical work, graphic/visual work, research and assessment, drafting, editing, etc.Success depended on organizing and using everyone’s varied talents and bringing out the bestin everyone. In order to foster the skills development of everyone—this was a writing classafter all—they couldn’t just assign students to contribute their already-developed strengths.All students had to be involved in some way in the writing.

Aside from the heavy workload of this project, one of the most challenging (and pre-dictable) aspects of the collaborative group project occurred when one or more members didnot pull their weight, follow through with tasks, or meet deadlines. Another challenge occurredwhen one member assumed heavy-handed leadership and dominated others. These were amongthe most common “storming” issues. By talking about these pitfalls before they encounteredthem, the students had a place to begin addressing them, but the undergraduates had to resist


the impulse to ignore the problems, resort to passive-aggressive actions, or split off into back-biting subgroups. These common problems gave us a prime educational moment to addressthe need for communication and ethical problem-solving strategies in small group work.

By situating the problems in a theoretical construct of common group development issues(Tuckman’s Stages for instance), the difficulties seemed less personal than they might have ifthe students thought it was just a faulty group or failing group member. The students couldrefer to the difficulty as the “storming” process and take a certain amount of pride that theyhad identified the problem correctly. I was always grateful for the problems that surfacedbecause of the educational value. If we can give our students practice addressing the pitfallsthey might encounter in collaborative groups after college, they will be better equipped tosucceed when they face them in the workplace. Whenever we incorporate small-group workin our classes, we must realize that it involves developing their collaborative and communicationabilities—their emotional intelligence—not just completing the given task. The challengesto small-group work provide opportunities for instruction and learning.

I advised the students not to be thrown if problems occurred but to take responsibilityfor solving them. The educational benefit comes from facing problems and attempting tosolve them more than from a problem-free experience. However, students are not always expe-rienced or skilled at problem-solving the issues that arise in small group work, so we need tocoach, model, and incorporate ways to help them learn to address their peers honestly, directly,and constructively. In that first project-kick-off class, I shared what other groups had donethat worked and did not work to address the problems in their groups. I also modeled waysthat were constructive and destructive to the well-being of the group and ultimately to theirtask. I reminded them that their grade was determined by what they produced AND by howthey worked as a group. Because we were simulating work groups and consulting firms, Icould easily link their behavior in this small group to what might happen if the same behaviors(positive and negative) occurred in the workplace. The instances of conflict or “storming”represent a natural phase of group development rather than a sign of failure. How the studentsmove through this stage leads quickly (or slowly) to “norming” and “performing.”

The forming and chartering process at the beginning usually surfaced individual needsas students communicated to their fellow group members what their strengths, weaknesses,and needs were. Added demands were made on groups that had members with special needs,but that, once again, created a very teachable moment and allowed the group members tounderstand the strengths that resided right along with something they might have considereda disadvantage. The advantage of collaborative projects is that no one person has to be every-thing the group needs. The success of these groups comes from learning to build off of indi-vidual strengths and to minimize the effects of weaknesses.1

The demand on those group members who had peers with identifiable limitations wasto determine the strengths while helping each individual develop new skills. If you hold thegroups accountable for building and demonstrating collaborative skills and you create as evena playing field as possible, you can minimize the stress on every one, and you can help studentsavoid marginalizing those who have various kinds of limitations. Differing levels of learning,writing and literacy skills, however, are not the only challenging aspects to successful smallgroup projects.

As we were simulating competing businesses, the groups needed a safety valve if theyencountered a dysfunctional group member who refused to change despite all their efforts tosolve the problem. As a last resort, each group had the ability to fire anyone who was not per-forming. However, there had to be due process and a paper trail of efforts made to help thegroup member improve. The paper trail took different iterations over the time I taught this


course. Early on, I had them keep minutes of their group meetings—to give each memberpractice at synthesizing and organizing the information covered, work completed, problemsaddressed, and next steps. While this additional assignment did help them structure theirmeetings and give them valuable writing practice with another genre, it also created morework for them during a very heavy-workload project. Ultimately, the stress of the additionalassignment outweighed the benefit, and I dropped it. I did, however, build in a mid-wayprogress report (more about that later). The paper trail for personnel issues turned into an as-needed memo to their boss or supervisor (sent to me) that included a statement of the problem,with concrete, specific examples, and it included a description of their actions taken to solvethe problem and the response of the dysfunctional member. The document needed to besigned by all group members, including the dysfunctional member. I, in turn, either wroteback to them or met with them to discuss next steps. If they reached an impasse, they couldrecommend termination. If a student were terminated, he/she would have received an F forthe project. In twenty years of teaching this class, no one was ever fired. This option, however,did serve as a point of realism that brought home the lessons of accountability, cooperation,and individual responsibility. I was available to consult with them, but up to the point of rec-ommending termination, they operated autonomously.

Structural Support: The Need forCommunication and Problem-solving

To continue to support their skill development, I built in a mid-way assessment to checkon their individual and collective progress and to provide additional coaching while there wasstill time to correct their course if needed. Half-way through the project, each member hadto write up a status report (sent to their boss—me), accounting for work completed (indi-vidually and collectively); problems encountered, solved, and remaining; plans for completingthe remaining work; evaluation of the group and work so far; and recommendations (AppendixG). This progress report allowed each one of them to reflect on the tasks as well as on thecollaboration, take stock and refocus if necessary, and it allowed me to note consistencies andinconsistencies within the groups.

I wrote back to each group, and I usually met with them, especially to help them reconcilethe discrepancies among group members’ reports. In this case, I was able to model and facilitateproblem solving while there was still time to rectify misperceptions, misunderstandings, and/orconflicts. I usually reflected on what I saw and heard and asked the same of them. Because Iwas devoting class time for their group meetings, I was also able to observe the groups inaction—noting the dynamics and individual participation, which helped me give effectivemidway feedback. Rather than solving the problems for them, I tried to facilitate their solvingthe problem(s). I reported my observations and sometimes reminded them of deadlines orrequired tasks and responsibilities—always followed by questions as to how they were goingto make adjustments or solve the problem(s) that had emerged. I gave them feedback on theadvantages and disadvantages of their choices, but ultimately, the choices were theirs to make.In making these choices, they established their norms.

In addition to collaboratively producing a written proposal, each group had to plan anddeliver a presentation as part of the bidding process. By the time they came to this task, theywere often stretched thin, but it was also the part of the project in which they collaboratedmost effectively, the part that showed their “performing” stage most clearly. For instance, thosewho were not the most skilled editors could pick up the work on the presentation. Sometimesthe students who had the hardest times contributing to the polished writing had the most to


offer when it came to the presentation. The groups had to use everyone’s skills and trust eachother to bring everything in on time in order to accomplish the task. To relieve some of thestress of both tasks, I learned to set the deadline for the proposal submission a few days (atleast a weekend) before the presentations. That gave me an opportunity to look over theirproposals ahead of time, and it gave the students a chance to regroup, prepare, and practicefor the presentations. Everyone benefited from this pace. Perhaps if I were not teaching on afast-paced ten-week quarter, I could have given them a week in between.

Evaluating and Grading: A Collaborative andMulti-faceted Experience and a Final Stage of Development

I used several methods of evaluation. As I mentioned earlier, I devoted class time for thestudents to meet and work in groups, so my first method of evaluation was my own observa-tions. As they worked together during our class time, I observed and made notes of individualbehaviors and group dynamics. If I saw a negative pattern emerging, I would often find a wayto describe what I was observing to the individual or to the group and ask them if my per-ceptions were accurate or if the portions of their group work that I had noticed were somehownot indicative of their overall work together; they had a chance to confirm or counter my per-ceptions at various times throughout the project. Second, I considered the status reports andconferences I had midway through the project and gave them credit for making adjustmentsand solving problems. Third, I assigned each student to write a summative report that askedthem to provide specific information that I needed in order to grade them. This report alsoasked for their metacognitive reflections and their recommendations (Appendix H). After Iread the summative reports, I met with each group so we could debrief the process togetherand reconcile any discrepancies in the reports. This meeting also allowed me to provide addi-tional instruction and feedback where needed.

Several members of the Business Administration faculty role played the clients duringthe presentations to give the students a more realistic feel than they would have by presentingto the class alone; the BA faculty each read the proposals, attended the presentations, andfilled out evaluation forms for both the presentations and proposals. Even though I consideredtheir feedback, when it came to grading the written work and presentations, ultimately, Iassigned the grades.

For the part of the grade that was determined by the proposal, the whole group receivedthe same grade—regardless of the individual contribution; it was the “business” that won orlost the contract. In an actual business situation, when one group wins the contract (the equiv-alent of the A), the other groups get nothing (the equivalent of an F). In my class, only onegroup could earn the A, but the other groups could earn as high as an A- for their writtenwork and for their presentations.

Even though each member of the group received the same grade for the written work,their presentation grades were a combination of the grade assigned to the group as a wholeand to their individual performance. Each student also received an individual grade for his/hercontribution to the group. The contribution was not simply equivalent to the amount of workdone. In fact, in instances in which an overachiever dominated and controlled the group,his/her grade might be lower than someone who demonstrated more collaborative and coop-erative behavior, even if that person had not done as much of the work as the overachiever.If we value and want to teach the skills of collaboration, communication, and cooperation,then we must weigh those aspects along with the tasks the groups complete. The grades wegive are a kind of currency, and—through time, instruction, and feedback—we must invest


in the skills of collaborative group work as well as the writing we ask them to produce. Oth-erwise, we continue to tell them the product is all that matters, and the ends can justify themeans. I held students accountable for both the task and for their collaborative skills andbehaviors.2

Victories and Defeats: Winning and Losing Togetherand Moving on to the Last Stage of Small Group Development

As a result of the combination of collaboration and competition, most of the studentsachieved together the best work any of them had ever produced. They worked incrediblyhard, often attending to details that they hoped would push them ahead of their competition.They consistently told me that this push, this commitment to excellence, was greater thanwhat they would normally do working alone. As a result, they all entered the presentationswith a heightened sense of accomplishment. Because they had not seen the work of their com-petition, they were all convinced they would be the best and would win. Except for one group,the winning team, the drop from anticipated victory to defeat was rapid and left them dis-appointed and sometimes a bit confused. Some would wonder, “what more could we havedone?” Others would initially retreat to “why did we bother to work so hard?” And still otherswould look to place blame on someone in the group who got too nervous in the presentationor who did not come through in those last hours. So, why would a teacher want to set somestudents up for this disappointment?

Although the competitive aspect of this project—especially at the point when one groupwins—created a complex experience, it also created a critical educational threshold moment,one I wouldn’t want to avoid simply because it was hard. Keep in mind that the “losing”groups did not get F’s for their work. In fact, they often received noteworthy grades for whatthey accomplished and for how they worked together. Nevertheless, the competitive aspectof this project brought to the surface the issues of winning and losing, of how we measurethe value and worth of an experience and of our work, of the importance of teamwork, andof appreciating growth and excellence and learning from it. Our students will certainly facecompetition in the workplace, competition that will lead to both victories and defeats, thusit is productive and constructive for them to be able to process and debrief that experiencetogether in an educational setting and to gain insight and appreciation for the lessons learned.We serve them better when we make room for these complex issues and guide them throughthe process.

After I received their summative reports, I met with each group to discuss the most pro-ductive reflections on their experiences. They could surface unresolved issues, ask unansweredquestions, articulate their insights and discomfort, reason together about what worked anddidn’t work, and clarify what had been learned and gained. This was an essential part of theproject. By the time we finished talking in small groups and then with the whole class, wehad come full circle, and the sense of defeat was gone. I find it telling that I never had astudent who recommended that I drop the competitive aspect. They all acknowledged that itpushed them harder than they would have pushed themselves, and they all had a sense ofpride in the limitations they broke through and in all that they accomplished—individuallyand collectively.

So that you can hear some of their voices, here are a few typical samples of what theywrote when I asked them for their assessment and recommendations for the next time I taughtthe class:

“I think this project is a good tool for learning. All students seemed involved and inspired


to do the project well. I would keep it competitive as long as you can find a way to rewardall students for their efforts. A real sense of accomplishment is a good feeling, and we all expe-rienced it.”

“Overall, I really enjoyed the project. It was a lot of work, but so what—that’s life. Donot decrease the workload. And keep it competitive—that is how life is too. I thought it wasa brilliantly constructed project, and I would do it again in a moment!”

“I strongly recommend that you continue with this project for the future classes. It helpsstudents to develop qualities of working closely with a team, develop writing skills, planning,organization, patience, determination, etc.”

“The benefits far outweigh the costs. I gained a better sense of team work. I learned totrust the ability of others and not take on all the responsibility. I learned how to give a businesspresentation, and I gained a more professional outlook on my written work. This project actsas a stepping stone for so much growth. I enjoyed the challenge and think that the projectserves as a wonderful guide to the professional world we will soon enter. I definitely think itshould continue, and I do not see any major problems. One slight difficulty is not feeling letdown after such a big undertaking. That just may be personal though. Overall, the projectbenefited me greatly.”

“Overall, I benefited a lot from the project, more so, because I am thinking about startingmy own business when I graduate. The project offered opportunities to explore different waysto write proposals. Another benefit is the experience of working with people in a group. Thegroup was made up of different types of people with different values, different orientation anddedication to work, and different perspectives of the work that needs to be done. At the end,we were all relieved and happy to have finished the work, and we remain good friends.”

“I learned so much about myself, my writing, working with others, group projects, timemanagement, and the presentation of my work. I really enjoyed exploring the details thatwould make our work stand out.”

How we conclude small group work, especially when our students have worked togetherto produce a significant project, is as important as how we begin the work. Through writingand discussing, we need to help our students reflect on what they learned, address unresolvedissues if possible, understand how and why they earned their grades, appreciate each other’sstrengths, possibly provide constructive feedback to each other that will help each studentgrow, and help each other come to a graceful closure. Small group work provides an oppor-tunity for developing communication skills unlike what students experience when they workalone and their interaction is only with the teacher. That is one of the strengths of incorporatingsmall group learning in our classes. The self-reflection and skillful communication, especiallyat the end, helps students realize the value of small group, further develops their emotionalintelligence, reinforces what they learned, sets them up for future growth, and helps themadjourn positively. This closing step is one you don’t want to cut short.

Conclusions

Small group collaboration has great potential for helping our students learn and grow insignificant ways. Synergistically, they can accomplish more together than they could alone,which builds confidence, pride, and a sense of accomplishment. For some students—partic-ularly those who have been identified as underachievers—small group collaboration might bethe first time they have such a successful experience and learn, from their peers, how to achievetheir goals and feel accomplished. Looking back on the project, you can see the range ofwriting and communication experience the students gained: they had to analyze the writing


needs of the client company, create a plan for improving the writing produced in that company,create a vision and marketing strategy for their writing consulting firm, and, through theirwritten proposals and presentations, persuade the client that they could improve the client’seffectiveness through improved writing. Together—as a result of their collaboration—theyassumed the role of expert even though individually, they lacked the confidence and abilitiesto accomplish as much.

Collaborative small group activities can also help the teachers exceed what they couldaccomplish by keeping themselves at the center of the learning activity. To have my studentslearn to assess the writing needs of a company, to consider how to help professionals developtheir writing abilities, to connect improved writing with workplace benefits, and to commu-nicate all of this knowledge clearly, persuasively, and confidently was more than I could haveaccomplished without this small-group activity and without this type of simulation. This isnot to say that we step aside and simply watch our students teach themselves. We have anactive and essential role to play throughout the process in order to help students build theskills and practice the abilities that will lead to their success. The way we structure the devel-opmental sequence of activities and assignments is our first step in supporting our students’success. When we subsequently share with students our goals and expectations for the activityand the benefits of learning to work in groups, we give our students a reason to take theactivity seriously. When we clarify their responsibilities and when we grade or assess theirabilities to collaborate—not just their completion of the task—then we reduce the free-loadersand the dominators, and we encourage them to learn and practice skills that will transfer toeach collaborative experience they have in the future. If we are serious about helping our stu-dents improve their abilities to work with others, then we must assess more than the productthey produce in groups (you can see a sample of one way I did this in the grading sheet Appen-dix I). Students rarely come to us with collaborative skills fully developed. They need ourhelp to learn how and why to work effectively in groups. We need to look carefully at ourresponsibility to teach our students how to succeed in collaborative small group activities bysequencing our assignments and activities carefully and deliberatively. This includes developingmaterials that provide scaffolding and that support their skill development, modeling newapproaches and coaching them as they work, providing the bigger picture (theory and research)so that they understand the importance and process of the activity, and giving them construc-tive and honest feedback that will encourage new abilities and skills. Just providing smallgroup activities is not enough to ensure our students’ development or their success.

So with all the benefits of small group collaboration, did the element of competitionreally matter? According to my students, yes. Given that they could have lost the contract andstill received an A-, I was continually surprised at how much winning the imaginary contractmotivated the students to work together to achieve success. Through the simulation, the stu-dents learned that writing is not just something they do to complete an assignment for theteacher. Writing matters to their success in the workplace, and it matters to the success oftheir employers. They experienced that fact first hand—they felt it—and they learned what ittakes to strive for excellence. They learned what is required of their writing when the stakesare high. They learned the necessity for working together to achieve their goals.

The competition cultivated a work ethic some of the students had never demonstratedpreviously. Their commitment to their peers encouraged them to work harder than they wouldhave alone; they did not want to let their group members down or be the one who caused theteam to fall short of the prize. The competition helped them realize that their individualbehavior and work affected others in tangible ways. Unanimously, quarter after quarter, stu-dents—overachievers, underachievers, and everyone in between—told me that they would


not have worked as hard without the element of competition. They would not have pushedthemselves or each other—for as much creativity, attention to detail, or “perfection”—if theproject had not been competitive.

In this project collaboration was combined with competition, so it is hard to know pre-cisely what we could have accomplished without the element of competition. I do know, how-ever, from my observations and from student feedback that with competition, they tookthemselves and each other seriously in ways they had not done with collaboration alone. Theyfelt an urgency to use and develop their skills, to acknowledge their strengths and work tominimize or eliminate their weaknesses. Through sharing the responsibility to produce “thebest” plan and proposal, they regularly read and responded to each other’s drafts. In doingso, they gained a purposeful and constructive way of giving and receiving feedback on writing.Because the feedback and resulting revision could help them all win, students rarely tookoffense at criticism and suggestions. In fact, they sought their peers’ responses and thoughtfullyconsidered them—much the way professional do. As they shared their writing with eachother, they could also see and appreciate the choices that other writers—perhaps the mostskilled writers — made; they learned naturally from each other’s best practices. Studentsreported that they revised and closely edited more than they ever had before—and more thanthey would have without the element of competition. They approached all this writing activityas a way to accomplish their collective goal—their purpose—not just to please a teacher orto complete a disconnected activity. They set their own bar high.

In addition to what they learned about writing through this collaborative/competitiveproject, most of the students took seriously their need to work effectively with others: settingand accomplishing their shared goals, communicating, solving problems, respecting differences,building consensus, listening, and sharing responsibility for success. Even when they wereunsuccessful in their group work or made mistakes, the structure and process that was builtinto this project supported their growth. The varied skills cultivated by both the collaborativeand competitive elements of this project not only supported their academic success but alsotheir success after college.

Competition alone might have caused the less-confident individuals to shy away fromeven trying to produce something that was “the best,” but combining competition and collaboration promoted motivation, growth, and the possibility to succeed, thus creating an environment that was energetic. Each quarter, when I would show the new class the pro-posals that previous classes had produced, their first response was that of awe at what theirpredecessors had produced. Very quickly after that initial response, however, a wave of prideand a burst of creative energy moved through the groups as they vowed to surpass what the previous classes had achieved. They were not competing in any real way with previousgroups, but the competitive element inspired them to reach for new heights in their own proj-ects. Working together, they imagined possibilities they would have been intimidated to con-sider alone. The synergy of the groups enabled an energetic response to the competition. Andthe challenge of the competition encouraged them to expect the best from themselves andfrom each other.

Small-group collaboration/competition brings real-life issues and lessons to the surface—additional educational opportunities we need to embrace and use. This small group learningand writing experience gave us opportunities to discuss related ethical issues. Would they tryto win at all costs? For instance, if one team left their fee structure in the printer in thecomputer lab and one of the competing team members found it, what would they do? Wouldthey deliberately try to spy on each other? Did the ends justify the means? The discussions ofcollaboration, competition, and ethics were always fascinating and productive, and those


discussions would have stayed at a hypothetical level without the competitive project. Thestudents consistently reported that they learned more about themselves, each other, writing,and the benefits of collaboration than they would have without the simulation that incorporatedboth collaboration and competition. Often when we are challenged, we learn the most aboutwho we are and what we can do, and this simulation seemed to create those moments for thestudents.

Appendix A

Business Writing

Persuasive Letter: Acquiring “Real World” Samples of Writing

[For homework the previous night, the students had to identify three specific people infields of interest and bring their contact information (snail mail and/or email) to class.]

Your first task: to collect samples (at least five from each source) of the most common andimportant types of writing in various professions of interest. You will write to three differentsources. Remember, as with all writing tasks, you should start by considering your purposeand your audience.

Purpose(s): Ultimately, your purpose is to receive some samples, but to fulfill that purposeyou have to accomplish smaller purposes in relation to your audience. What will you need todo/write in order to persuade your audience to comply with your request?

Audience analysis (consider the following factors for each of your audiences before decidingwhat and how to write your letters):

• Relationships (to you, to his/her company, to the college?...);• Context (what is his/her life like, especially on the job—not much time? could/not

delegate? new to the job? the boss?)• Values and commitments (do you know what matters to this person on/off the job?)?• Concerns (what would get in the way of the reader granting your request)?• Needs in general and needs in relation to what you’re asking?• Questions (what will this reader wonder or need to know)?

What will it take to accomplish your purpose with each audience?

• After analyzing each of your contacts, then work in groups of three to get additionalideas of what you might need to consider or what methods of persuasion you mightuse in each letter. What other factors could/should shape the way you write the letterand the specific information you include? (work through this stage together)

• Means of persuasion:ethos: appeal based on characterpathos: appeal to the reader’s emotions and most basic or deeply held valueslogos: appeal to the evidence and reasoning process

Advertisers often consider some of the following emotions to appeal to: ego, guilt, obligation,fear, altruism, love, greed.... What might be an effective persuasive strategy for your audience?

[Use The Business Writer’s Handbook for information about formatting your letter.]Common organizational strategy for persuasive letters:

• Attention getter (you have 10 seconds max to get their attention and persuade themto read further)


• Background information followed by your request• Specifics—what action are you requesting and by when?• Good-will closing

What can you do to create a letter that is oriented toward your audience instead of toward you?Assignment specifics:

• You will need to receive at least five samples by April 16• The samples need to be writing generated by that company, not received by the company• You must persuade them through your writing, not through a phone call. If you are

convinced an email would be more appropriate than a letter for your audience, see me.

What are your questions now?After you have done your initial planning then write a zero draft in 15 minutesBring both your zero draft and a revision to our next class.

Appendix B

Business Writing

Report on Writing Samples

Assume you are part of a writing consulting firm. You have just received samples of writingfrom a prospective client. The client wants to know if she/he should hire you to improve thequality of writing produced in this company.

As your boss, I have asked you to analyze the samples and report back to me with your rec-ommendations.

Your written report, which will include headings for easy access, should provide the followinginformation although not necessarily in this order:

• Background information on the company• Scope of this report : an overview of the pieces you analyzed• Your criteria for evaluation (what did you look for or consider in your analysis?)• Strengths of the writing (use specific examples to illustrate if appropriate)• Weaknesses of the writing• Overall characteristics of the style• Your conclusions and recommendations (synthesis of your findings and a clear statement

of next steps—pursue them as a client or ...)

This report will probably be two pages, but it should be no more than three pages.Bring a draft to class on Monday, April 29.


Appendix C

Analysis Grid for Client SamplesCriteria Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3 Sample 4 Sample 5Purpose:Clear, unified?

Sense of Audience:Appropriate for the needs, interests, background, and profile of the reader?

Reader Orientation:Oriented toward “you” orthe reader’s point of view?

Organization:Direct or indirect? Appropriate for the purposeand audience?

Completeness, use ofspecifics: Answers all/mostof the reader’s questionsor needs?

Concision:Economical wording? Are all the details necessary?

Clarity:Precise word choice? Well-chosen subjects and verbs?

Tone/Voice:Appropriate for the purpose and audience? Consistent?

Rhythm/sentence variety:Mix of sentence typeand length?

Mechanics/Proof Reading:Free of errors (spelling,word choice, grammar...)?

Originality:Fresh expressions, freeof clichés?

Format/Visual Effect:Centered? Effective spacing?Comprehension help? Font?

Readability:

Appendix D

Consulting Team Application

Name: Cum GPA:

Major:

Writing Information1. What are your strengths as a writer?


2. What are your weaknesses as a writer?3. What type of writing and what aspects of writing most interest you?

Group Work Information1. Generally, do you prefer to work alone or with others? Please explain why you prefer

one over the other.2. Based on your experience, what are the advantages and disadvantages of working with

a team?3. What are your strengths and weaknesses with group work?4. Effective group work usually involves two areas of concern: group maintenance and

task completion. Indicate your orientation on the scale below. Are you more inclinedto get the task accomplished no matter what, or are you more inclined to make surethat the relationships and effective communication within the group are maintained?

___________________________________________________________grp. maintenance task completion

Artistic/Creative InformationList below any artistic experience or talent you have (graphics layout, digital art, PowerPoint,desktop publishing, etc.):

LogisticsWhat scheduled commitments do you have this quarter that might affect group meetings out-side of class?

Appendix E

Business Writing

Team Building

Effective collaboration doesn’t just happen. It is important at the beginning of a project toconstitute and form the group so that it functions effectively. Surfacing assumptions, prefer-ences, and concerns right away can eliminate later problems or at least lay the groundworkfor solving them. The following exercise will facilitate that communication.

Orally complete the sentence stems in order below. Each member should give a response tothe same sentence stem before you move on to the next one. You may stop to ask brief clarifyingquestions or probe for further explanation, but you should not take too much time on anyone question. Move through the questions, gathering impressions and forming ideas; after-wards, bring those up in an open discussion as you work together to form your group.

1. When I’m in a new group I ...2. I like to take the role of leader/follower when ...3. What is hardest for me in group work is ...4. What I think you should know (about me) is ...5. The animal that best describes me in a work group is (tiger, dove, snake, mule, ox, dog,

beaver or...) BECAUSE ...6. What I want from you, as a group, is ...7. What you can expect from me is ...8. The strengths I bring to this group are ...9. I think my weaknesses in this group might be ...


10. One way you can support me is ...11. In order for me to trust you ...12. If you are ever dissatisfied with my contribution, what I need in order to improve is ...13. I’m usually motivated by ...

What I like about this group at this point is ...

My biggest question about this group is ...

Because of what I’ve heard today, I’ve discovered ...

Appendix F

Business Writing

Proposal Planning Worksheet

Name of our group (our company):

1. Our purpose:2. Our audience (sketch out a profile from what you know now):3. Possible strategies we can use to persuade:4. What will we need to do before we write?5. Pieces we will need to write (and tentative personnel commitments):6. Tentative timeline for the planning stage, drafting, revising, editing, printing, and

presentation preparation (be specific with tasks and dates, not just stages):7. What resources will we need, and what resources do we have (include personnel

strengths and areas of expertise)?8. Our questions (about the process, the end product, the presentation, our options, the

client... ):

Appendix G

Business Writing

TO: (I filled in each student’s name and gave them each their own memo) DATE:FROM: Randi BrowningRE: Status Report________________________________________________________________As we head into midpoint of this project, it is time to check in and assess your progress. Whathave you accomplished so far, and what will you need to do to finish this project successfully?

By next Wednesday, May 1, please hand in a status report. A status report provides a writtenpicture of an on-going project; I realize you are in the middle and have a long ways to go,but it is helpful to check in now. I am interested in the status of your work and the progressof your group. For this status report consider the following organization and questions:

• Work Completed: What have you done so far, and how would you assess your workat this point?

• Problems Encountered, Solved and Remaining: Identify the stumbling blocks youhave encountered and the steps you have taken to overcome them.

• Current Status: Summarize where you are now in relation to your goals, organization,and deadlines.


• Plans for completion: How and when will you accomplish the work that remains?What problems remain, and how/when will you solve them?

• Evaluation: What is your overall assessment of this project so far?• Recommendations: What additional resources might you need? What changes or

action would help you finish this project successfully? Do you recommend any mod-ifications (of your goals, plans, your group’s process...)?

In your one-to-two page report, you do not have to use the above headings, but you do needto consider the questions. Format your report as a memo and include headings that highlightthe point of each section.

Appendix H

Business Writing

Summative Report on the Proposal Writing Project

By 5:00, Wednesday, May 26, submit a final report of your group project. To cover the scopeof this assignment adequately and to answer the questions below thoughtfully, you shouldanticipate a length of approximately two to three pages. You may organize your answers tothe questions below into any order that makes sense to you. You should include meaningfulsubheadings for the various sections of your report.

• What did each person, including you, actually do to complete the proposal and to pre-pare for the presentation?

• What problems did you encounter (individually and collectively)?• What did you do to try to solve these problems (individually and collectively)?• In retrospect, were your efforts to solve your problems successful or the most appro-

priate approach? What would you do differently now?• Do you (individually or collectively) have any unresolved issues or problems?• What did you learn or gain from this project (about writing, about collaborating,

about competing, about yourself or about anything else)?• Do you have any recommendations for the next time I assign this project? (Should I

continue to combine the aspects of collaboration and competition? Anything else youwant me to consider?)

I need your report before I meet with your group to debrief the project and before I assigngrades. However, I also want to see what you have learned about report writing, so be sureyour report is appropriately formatted, carefully crafted, and polished.

Appendix I

Sample grade/feedback form, which I gave to each student after I had met with theirteam to debrief the project and their reports. This sample was given to a student whohad taken over his group at the end; his actions had an adverse effect on everyone, buthe thought he had saved the group through his hard work. I omitted the grades but leftthe comments for you to see. In the debriefing meeting, it was clear that even thoughhe (the only male in the group) had taken over the group, the other members chose toquit trying to communicate their discomfort with him. They became passive and merelyvoiced their displeasure to each other.)


Business Writing

Project Grades and FeedbackProposal (15%): ____________Clearly you worked hard on this—maybe too hard individually. In terms of what you wrote,I can see that you have wonderful potential for writing effectively in the workplace. Keepdeveloping what you have started this quarter.

Presentation (5%) grp/indiv: ____________,You also have great potential as a presenter. As you go forward now, you will need to preparemore thoroughly to realize that potential. You maintained eye contact with the audience, andyou avoided looking at the screen—that’s important. With greater preparation, you couldhave used the PowerPoint slides more effectively, and you could have generated more energy,confidence, comfort, and connection with your audience.

Group Work (10%): ____________,Dear ____________,This grade represents your commitment to the project but also the way in which you workedwith the rest of the group. There’s no need to reiterate here the factors that affected yourgroup work. I understand that these were blind spots and that you didn’t understand theissues sufficiently in order to improve. The grade would have been higher had you demonstratedgreater willingness to collaborate, to communicate honestly with your group, and to listencarefully to their concerns. I raised the grade a bit after our debriefing session when I couldsee how everyone contributed to both the successes and the difficulties.

You are very capable intellectually. The intellect, however, is only part of what will determineyour success—in college and in the workplace. This project surfaced both your already-devel-oped talents as well as your under-developed abilities. I encourage you to take action to strengthen these under-developed areas. According to a report cited by the Dean of Facultyin a recent meeting (sorry, I don’t have the source at my fingertips just now), of the peoplewho lose their jobs, many (an estimated 80%) do so because of their inability to work effectivelywith others (male and female). It is in your best interest to continue to develop your abilityto work effectively with others. Consideration for the process and for the well-being of your team is not a waste of time; it will often determine your success. I wish you well in thefuture.

Notes1. I have had students with hearing limitations, but the group members found ways to maximize what

those students could contribute. I think some of the behaviors that seemed annoying or distracting to groupmembers could have been caused by ADHD, but none of those students ever identified that particular dis-ability. The more common challenge, however, came from international students and non-native speakerswhose English language facility was not as developed or fluent as the native speakers/writers. This is wherebalancing the groups as I formed them mattered most. I also often worked with the groups to help themmove beyond their initial assessment of what those international students could and could not contribute.While the English language learners might not yet be able to take responsibility for final proofreading andediting tasks, they had many other talents and skills to contribute, and there were many writing tasks thathad to be accomplished before the groups were ready to edit and polish their proposals.

2. This project was worth 30 percent of their final grade for the course. Of the 30 percent, 15 percent wasgiven to the written proposal they produced, 5 percent was given to the presentation (an average between thegroup’s grade and their individual performance), and 10 percent was given to their group work. Althoughthis project accounted for over 30 percent of the work they devoted to this class, when it came to their overallcourse grade, I chose to weigh more heavily the aspects of the class they had control over (the other elements


of their final grade included 45 percent to their end-of-the-quarter portfolio, 10 percent to homework andin-class participation, and 15 percent to their final). The fact that this project was only 30 percent of theirfinal grade did not seem to diminish their work ethic at all, due especially to the element of competition.

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Revisiting Collaborative Writingand Electronic Dialogues in

Business Communication

FLORENCE ELIZABETH BACABAC

How do we integrate collaborative learning techniques into electronic environments ina business and technical writing class? Does incorporating technology during prewriting, forinstance, affect student output when this process is done collaboratively using content man-agement forums, such as computer-mediated communication (CMC)? In this digital age,composition scholars claim that the use of CMC during invention or prewriting promotescollaborative learning (Blythe 122–25; Eldred and Toner 37; Yancey 108). Student dialoguesbecome more productive in electronic environments as physical and social barriers are reducedto a minimum. If used in conjunction with face-to-face discussions, CMC would serve itspurpose of taking the process of discovery to a higher level. Through the use of CMC whenprewriting, student input prior to drafting a technical document is thus maximized.

Philip Kolin in his book Successful Writing at Work enumerates the advantages of collab-orative writing. Five out of Kolin’s eight advantages are achieved through the use of CMC’sDiscussion Board and Chat forums in a recent Business Communication course, namely:

• Allows for productive feedback and critique• Increases productivity and saves time• Ensures overall writing effectiveness• Accelerates decision-making time• Increases morale and confidence while decreasing stress [Kolin 78]

Selected student transcripts follow each item above to illustrate the effectiveness of electronicdialogues in engaging students to share preliminary ideas within groups before drafting theirdocuments. A description of two collaborative writing assignments and tasks are also providedthat supports the importance of the dialogue in the process of discovery and invention thathave become more enhanced electronically in this respect.

BackgroundThe role of the dialogue in composition can be traced back to the history of rhetoric.

During the ancient period, philosophical inquiry in search for truth was expressed in dialogues.Plato believed that truth is inherent and accessible to human beings because we “knew” it

166

before our birth (Bizzell and Herzberg 81). Since we exist in the flesh, finding truth can bedifficult as we are susceptible to attrition. Only through the process of inquiry or verbalexchange can we can recognize truth and gain understanding of knowledge.

Another aspect of the dialogue was theoretically conceived by the Russian philosopherMikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) whose idea of the dialogue is determined in his philosophy oflanguage. For him, utterance as a speech unit contains a dialogic nature and exists as a rejoinderin dialogue (Bonetskaia 19). Both Bakhtin and Plato seem to promote the idea that it is onlythrough dialogue and verbal exchange that an utterance finds meaning [Bakhtin] or for truthto come out [Plato].

On the other hand, Kay Halasek frames her interpretation of the dialogue within anapproach that values multiplicity of voices and recognize knowledge making as a collectiveendeavor. She argues in A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studiesthat applying dialogic principles to composition studies is “timely, even crucial, given therenewed interest in social learning theory, collaborative learning, the concept of knowledgeas socially constructed, and the problematic relationship between speaking and writing”(Halasek 3). A philosophy of writing instruction based on Bakhtinian precepts affirms thateducated language users recognize and respond to the ideological implication of their ownand other discourses (Halasek 7). Students’ initial attempt to join the conversation in theirdisciplines must understand the ideological framework of the discourse of their field. Andthey can only gain such familiarity by actively reading and absorbing both the language andmode of thinking demonstrated in these discipline-specific texts.

Therefore, every writing assignment teachers give to students, regardless of the type ofwriting they do, encapsulates the dialogic method. Constant interaction with disciplinarytexts and other texts before and after it, as well as engagement in class discussions, reinforcethe nature of Bakhtin’s verbal exchange until students are fully initiated to the language oftheir disciplines.

Business Communication and Electronic Dialogues

Nowadays, the use of CMC enables electronic dialogues to model collaboration in writingclasses, but especially in business communication courses. To realize pedagogical approachesthat value the concept of the dialogue, utilizing electronic discussion forums provides a morecollaborative, equitable space for students to negotiate meanings with one another for specificrhetorical situations. In fact, most business and technical writing courses that require workplacedocument projects aim to initiate students into the professional discourse community. Allowingelectronic discussions to take place before drafting a technical document supports dialogismand opens up diverse opinions among participants, thereby helping student-writers to becomeeffective business and technical communicators.

One way to integrate collaborative writing techniques into electronic environments is byasking students to combine their efforts online when preparing technical documents. Thismethodology necessitates course access to a campus content-management tool (e.g., BlackboardVista, Moodle, etc.) and requires students to use either asynchronous Discussion Board or syn-chronous Chat forums for prewriting, drafting, peer-reviewing, or revising tasks. These plat-forms would allow students to read and respond to online posts at any time during the conceptionof an assigned technical or business document until it has been drafted and revised. Sharedauthorship and participants working together for the common good are some benefits of suchcollaborative online invention activities. Students are forced to combine their efforts, not onlyto earn better grades but also to improve team-building skills necessary in the workplace.

Revisiting Collaborative Writing and Electronic Dialogues (Bacabac) 167

Teaching ApproachBusiness writing teachers may assign various assignments that focus on the production

of professional and technical documents. Because business communication courses usuallyprovide student-writers with necessary skills to effectively recognize and model diverse pro-fessional writing styles, writing teachers should provide writing assignments addressed to aspecific audience within a workplace setting (e.g., a direct supervisor or employer, customer,company, etc.). This shift in audience perspective will encourage students to go beyond pro-ducing typical academic writing projects and compose real-world documents instead. Simu-lated assignments such as these will also provide a meaningful context for both the learnersand course objectives. Most of all, utilizing online collaboration among team-members in theclassroom throughout the writing process will allow enhanced opportunities for dialoguingas student-participants express themselves and exchange preliminary ideas more frequentlyprior to submitting the finished product.

With regard to assigning group projects, the teacher should emphasize the importanceof practicing division of labor among participants for ethical considerations. This means thateach group must recognize the need for group consensus early on as to who will lead and del-egate the tasks to all members. They should also decide who will write which part of theassignment to avoid future conflicts due to lack of group management. Each member shouldcollaborate with the whole group for the success of their project. Individual projects, on theother hand, seldom encounter any of these managerial issues so division of labor is not relevantin this case.

Examples of Pedagogical Techniques

The following is a description of two collaborative writing tasks that require students tocollaborate online throughout the composing process:

SAMPLE ASSIGNMENT #1: MEMORANDUM (GROUP PROJECT)Description

As employees working for the corporate communications department of a regional bank,students will write two separate memos to the head of the company analyzing the use ofgraphics from two published reports, respectively—one printed (to which their group isassigned) and one online (their group’s choice). The rhetorical purpose of this exercise is forthem to recommend graphic design techniques for their company’s print and online manualby the end of the quarter. The chosen online report should present information in a visualand interesting way, which might involve using images—photographs and drawings—orgraphs, diagrams, maps, or tables. Or it might make special use of text, by setting off withcolumns, or color, as pull quotes, or boxed sidebars, etc. Some possible websites for thesereports where students can explore are Yahoo, MSN, CNN, and so on. By making explicitwhat is often implicit, this rhetorical analysis “can provide [future] business communicationpractitioners valuable insights for their own communication practices” (King 320).

Collaborative E-Dialogue Process: DiscussionBoard Prewriting Activity

To discuss the effects of visual elements of each report, students will post their preliminarythoughts about the printed/online report in the Discussion Board and respond to at least acouple of their peer’s posts.


[This prewriting activity may be done outside the classroom within a couple days]I. Instructions for Online Procedure1. Instruct students to log in to the content-management course shell, click on the Dis-

cussion Board forum, click on their assigned group.2. To get them started, students will consider the effects of the visual elements of each

report by posting their answers to these prompts:• Is it easy for the audience to find the information they need based on the layout

of the page or screen?• If there are graphics, what messages (and attitude) do they convey?• How relevant are the figures or tables used in the document?

3. Ask students to brainstorm and write down essential points they have noted from thereport in the Discussion Board forum. Require them to respond to at least 3–4 onlineposts of their peers to get the discussion going.

II. Instructions for Face-to-Face Procedure4. For whole-class discussion after the prewriting activity, ask students face-to-face to

follow the conventions of writing memos discussed previously in class. Students shouldalso note the proper elements and parts of an effective memo and study the examplesfrom the book chapter on important inter-office technical documents.

5. Before students collaborate and draft the analysis in a memo, ask them to determinehow the visual effects are created. Students must explain in the document how thevisual elements create a particular effect and how they add to the impressions depictedin the report’s verbal reference: Are the visuals effective, carefully placed, clearly iden-tified, and so on? This rhetorical analysis will be the basis for their recommendationsat the last paragraph of the memo.

6. Instruct students that they are free to refer back to their previous Discussion Boardthreads for relevant ideas as they draft their document.

AssessmentSince grading for a collaborative assignment poses difficulties (some students may have

done more work than others), the teacher should emphasize that certain grading procedureswill be followed. Even if each group will get a total grade for each report’s visual analysis,below is a suggested set of criteria for assessment:

• 25 percent of collaborative grade is based on student contribution ‡ After submissionof the group project, ask students to write self-evaluations outlining their responsibil-ities for researching, drafting, revising, etc. and grade themselves based on their owncontribution in the Discussion Board activity; they may identify the visual analysismemo they were responsible for (i.e., for print or online report?)

• 25 percent on the quality of peer evaluations ‡ Require students to write evaluations,with suggested grades, of the other member/s of the group they worked with for thisproject

• 50 percent on the quality of the project

SAMPLE ASSIGNMENT #2: COMPLAINT LETTER (INDIVIDUAL PROJECT)Description

After discussing the types of business letters in class, the teacher distributes two differentsamples of adjustment letter (possibly a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ adjustment sample) for students to readand analyze. Then each of them will choose only one adjustment letter and write a complaintletter to which the chosen adjustment letter responds.


Collaborative E-Dialogue Process:Chat Prewriting Activity

To share their preliminary ideas about the complaint letter they plan to compose in real-time, the teacher sets up a chat forum for each group member to join. Chat groups will bedivided according to the adjustment letter of the students’ choice. Each group should onlyhave at least 4–5 students to increase the probability of a more focused synchronous dia-logue—for instance, if ten (10) students chose to write a complaint letter based on a ‘yes’adjustment letter, the teacher should create two (2) chat groups for that letter. Students shouldbe instructed to make this prewriting chat activity productive by posting their initial thoughts,responding to one another’s post, and following proper e-decorum (e.g. off-tangent remarksand online flaming should be avoided).[This prewriting activity should be done inside the classroom after students have read bothadjustment letters]

I. Instructions for Online Procedure1. Instruct students to log in to the content-management course shell, click on the Chat

forum, and click on the chat group assigned to them based on their choice of adjust-ment letter.

2. Each member begins by politely greeting one another in the chat room and startsbouncing off ideas with other members through the following prompts:

• What was the request of the customer in the adjustment letter?• Why did the problem occur and how has it been resolved?• What was the response of the company in the adjustment letter?• Were there any alternatives with financial incentives given to the customer in that letter?• What possible idea/s might be included in the complaint letter in order to persuade

the company to grant the claim?3. Require students to respond to at least 3–4 online posts of their peers to get the dis-

cussion going.4. Because synchronous chat is more fluid, monitor the chat room and occasionally join

group dialogues especially if discussions get off-tangent.5. After around 20 minutes of online chatting, ask them to thank everyone in their groups

and say goodbye before they leave the chat room. Then archive their chat conversations.II. Instructions for Face-to-Face Procedure6. Review the principles of writing complaint letters face-to-face before students start

drafting the complaint letter.7. Instruct students that they are free to refer back to their previous conversations archived

in the Chat room for relevant ideas as they draft the document.

Assessment

Because this is an individual project, assessment will primarily be based on the qualityof the claim letter each student wrote. Students may be asked to evaluate their group chatdialogues and assess the effectiveness of this preliminary activity to their composition of thedocument. If desired, a few points may be allotted to this assessment and the quality of onlinedialogues to give credit to the collaborative prewriting activity.

The Effects of Collaboration and Electronic DialoguesLimitations and Possible Solutions


Both asynchronous and synchronous electronic dialogues have positive and negativeeffects on composing business and technical documents. Teachers should be aware of the neg-ative effects of these collaborative prewriting activities, however, in order to properly navigatearound these issues. Such strategic accommodations will diminish the disadvantages andstrengthen the advantages of online communication at certain collaborative contexts.

For instance, in terms of maintaining focus, the spontaneous interchange of ideas in Chatmay easily propel discussions into random, off-tangent points caused either by computing speed,familiarity, or comfort in using the platform. Therefore, the use of synchronous Chat needscareful teacher-student attention due to its limitations: “Unfortunately, the more people join ina ‘chat,’ the more disjointed the discussion is. In addition, the contributions to the discussion areoften short and people tend to use abbreviations, and make a lot of typing mistakes” (Windeatt,Hardisty, and Eastment 113). For this reason, the teacher must create smaller groups in the chatroom to maintain a more focused dialogue. Aside from assigning smaller groups, student-par-ticipants should have a common set of information to work on. Otherwise, with the fluidity ofchat room conversations, more time will be wasted on useless explanation of individual topicsinstead of producing meaningful feedback. The uniformity of assignment preparations and theteacher’s strong online presence are vital in keeping conversations under control. As a result, thespirit of collaboration will remain where “two or more people work in concert on a common textproject in an environment supportive of their text and idea sharing” (Bonk and King 7). Thiseffect is evidently a desired learning outcome of the collaborative prewriting activity.

The formal appearance of the Discussion Board, on the other hand, encourages morefocused dialogues among participants who are placed in a structured mindset. Thus, off-tangent conversations are rare due to the presence of highly organized threads and categoriesfor students to read and respond to at anytime. Within these threads are relevant questions,answers, follow-up questions, and final responses (Simonson 32), all of which closely approx-imate the collaborative aspect of invention in promoting an active construction of knowledge.In line with this, students can act as “meaning makers who actively select, organize, and inte-grate their experiences with existing knowledge” (Hacker and Niederhauser 54), as they tryto find the best place to post ideas among a variety of subject threads.

However, the responses in the Discussion Board may be either delayed or not guaranteedunlike the immediacy brought about by Chat or face-to-face communication. Granted, theteacher can control such limitation by closely monitoring student posts under discussionthreads and providing clear instructions for them to respond to at least a couple online postsby their peers. Through this guideline, getting more in-depth responses is still probable becausemore spaces are opened up to accommodate other voices. Thus, more students become activereaders and legitimate contributors of a community that is best represented by the interactionsand resources of its members (Inman 1).

Strengths

As mentioned earlier, the advantages of the composing process through collaborativewriting far exceeds solitary writing. If used purposefully, business communication studentswriting collaborative documents tend to gain more team-building skills necessary in workplacesettings. The use of online forums to foster electronic dialogues positively engages each par-ticipant for the success of the assigned project. Jane Mathison Fife claims that this forum“merges the writing-to-learn benefits of a response journal with the convenience of an elec-tronic format, allowing maximum idea exchange with minimal effort or expense” (39). Studentsare more comfortable negotiating with one another in electronic forums than face-to-face


settings because of its online communication feature. Janet Eldred agrees by pointing out its con-venience as “all members of a group can read the posted messages” (241) and social value or “senseof community [...] gives individuals a stronger sense of their place in a group” (241). Moreover,both the Chat and Discussion Board’s archived electronic discussions are “source[s] of enrichment”(Yancey 108) that provide impetus for students to get into the habit of reading and writing.

In conclusion, out of Kolin’s eight advantages of collaborative writing, five advantagesare described here with regard to the use of electronic dialogue for prewriting (Kolin 78).Snippets of Discussion Board and Chat forum dialogues from a recent business communicationcourse accompany each item below to illustrate the strengths of both collaborative onlineprewriting activities:

[Selected transcript lines were in bold and italics for emphasis; also, student names werechanged for anonymity]

STRENGTH #1: Allows productive feedback and critique.Group members get involved by writing down their initial thoughts about the memo in

the Discussion Board prewriting activity, as well as the claim letter assignment in Chat, express-ing agreements or critiques for the success of the project.Discussion Board Prewriting Activity on the Memo Assignment (Group Project):__________________________________________________________________________Subject: Driver Electronic Device Use in 2008 Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Jason Date: October 23, 2009 12:39 P.M.

The deeper I get into my analysis of the article that we have chosen, the more I realizethat the article would not be complete, nor would it be as understandable without thecharts and graphs that the author included. I am beginning to understand the importanceof understandable and clear graphic representations of important concepts in a piece of writing.I feel like we deserve an “A” on the collaborative part of this assignment. I’m just saying thatI think we have done a good job so far.___________________________________________________________________________

Subject: Re: Driver Electronic Device Use in 2008 Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Kyle Date: October 23, 2009 2:18 P.M.

I agree on all the points that you bring up. The visual texts are more than half of theinformation of the report. Without it the report would be too difficult to understand.Keep up the good work and see you on Monday. We can review the analysis that we puttogether.___________________________________________________________________________GROUP 1Kevin > I am definitely choosing to write about the Phantom Hawk GT.Rebecca > Me tooRobert > Yeah so am IRebecca> It seems like something I understand more than the second oneRebecca> Pretty exciting. :)Kevin > I think it would apply more to life after this course than the HealthAir letter.Robert> For real!!! What are ya’ll going to include in yours?Rebecca > I am going to explain that I am confused about things being charged to me thatare under warranty


Kevin > I think that it would be a good idea to remember to include accurate warrantydetails in addition to your being confused. Good idea Rebecca.Rebecca > So are you just going to make up warranty details?Kevin> Yes. Yes I am.Robert > That is really about it huh? The warranty and the billKevin> However, a base for the details can be found in the first paragraph towards the end.Rebecca> Then I will probably say that I would like that taken care of.Rebecca> yes. that is true.Kevin > Yes Robin, it seems to be simple.Rebecca > I will probably say that I am enjoying my car, however, I don’t like the charges... something like thatKevin > Perhaps we could use the whiteboard to create an attachment to the letter illustratingthe parts of the car that are defective...Kevin > I like that idea Rebecca.

Chat Prewriting Activity on the Claim Letter Assignment (Individual Project):STRENGTH #2: Increases productivity and saves time.

Online collaboration cuts down on the number of face-to-face meetings and conferencesof group members, reducing travel time, and so on, as reflected in the Discussion Boardforum’s group project. On the other hand, the Chat room electronic dialogue geared towardsan individual project also shows productive exchange of inquiry and responses especially aboutthe assignment due date.Discussion Board Prewriting Activity on the Memo Assignment (Group Project):____________________________________________________________________________Subject: Re: Pre-Writing Post Topic: GROUP 1—Memo Assignment Author: Becky Date: October 24, 2009 11:29 A.M.I actually can’t meet Monday night in person. I was thinking that we should post the roughdrafts to this and each of us peer review the others and make suggestions in red ink, sincewe can’t write on the paper ...

Does that sound good? I am going to post my rough draft regardless.___________________________________________________________________________Subject: Re: Pre-Writing Post Topic: GROUP 1—Memo Assignment Author: Tim Date: October 24, 2009 8:15 P.M.I think that is a great idea Becky. Having it done by Monday will be great to make sure weget everything done by Wednesday night.___________________________________________________________________________Chat Prewriting Activity on the Claim Letter Assignment (Individual Project):

GROUP 2Lane > what r u guys going to write aboutColby > i am going to write about why i was charged for the servicesLane> i hate brunelli motorsColby > yeah they seemed like they screwed up pretty badJoel> maybe something about it being a new car and already needing service?Matt > I am having a hard time organizing our thoughtsJoel > great thoughts guysJoel > maybe we should think out loud and write at the same time so we can be exposed toone another’s thoughts twice


Colby > that way we can remember them so all of our letters will be the sameColby > i think if somebody charged me when i had a warranty i would be upset tooMatt> Is this assignment due next weekColby > the draftMatt > Or just a draftColby > draftMatt > Ok greatColby > awesome blossom

STRENGTH #3: Ensures overall writing effectiveness.Because more people are involved in thinking about the document and talking about it

online right from the start, chances are that the final project would be more thorough andcoherent. Snippets of realizations about the writing assignments are evident in the conversationsfrom the Discussion Board and Chat forums.

Discussion Board Prewriting Activity on the Memo Assignment (Group Project):________________________________________________________________________Subject: Here are a few of my ideas/observations. Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Brett Date: October 23, 2009 9:14 A.M.

I feel that the effects the visual report created were in line with the purpose of the article.Each visual is in the correct positions in relation to the text. The locations are good, and eachserves a purpose to help those readers who understand more from visuals. I found that Icould understand the main points of the article from observing the visuals without thetext.

Most of the diagrams or drawings depict scientific data explaining with pictures infor-mation that can be confusing to most who aren’t familiar with what a dirty bomb or radioactivematerial is. I don’t feel that the pictures contain extraneous info. Unfortunately we are unableto see colors from the article, but we can assume that the colors give a serious, informativevoice.... Ultimately, I felt that the images used in the article were used effectively and con-tribute to the credibility of the report. They support the topic, and are very relevant andappropriate. This is my quick summary prewrite.____________________________________________________________________________

Subject: Re: Here are a few of my ideas/observations. Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Jordan Date: October 23, 2009 11:20 A.M.

Nice observations. Mine were similar, but i didn’t put it in paragraph form yet.___________________________________________________________________________

Subject: Re:Here are a few of my ideas/observations. Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Tammie Date: October 23, 2009 4:44 P.M.

I had similar thoughts, but just typed out the questions we are supposed to answer and putmy thoughts after. I will combine yours and Jordan’s with mine and post a rough draft onSunday, if not sooner. Thanks.


Subject: Pre-write Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Jordan Date: October 23, 2009 11:14 A.M.Verbal dominates ... There are headings that separates information—makes it organized....There is only one pull quote type thing—good point.... The text size is very uniform exceptfor the pull quote—which serves as a key point.... It’s only a 2 column article—a little lessthan a newsletter—- good for this type of report.... Pictures are all really descriptive, theyare more like diagrams ... shows in detail what the article wants you to know ... serves a pur-pose.... Viewing angle is shown as if you are looking up ... looks important ... stands out....Colors ???

Shaped into boxes.... Each photo either has a caption or text within the image to explain....Each visual was informative and relevant.... Helps visual learners understand____________________________________________________________________________Subject: Re: Pre-write Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Tammie Date: October 23, 2009 4:45 P.M.You, Brett and I seem to be thinking a lot alike. I did mine as question and answer but weall pretty much had the same thoughts. I will put the three together and have a rough draftposted by Sunday night. Thanks.____________________________________________________________________________Subject: Better late than never Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Brett Date: October 23, 2009 10:24 P.M.I guess the reason why our observations are so alike is because the article was very welllaid out. Can’t add much more to your report. Good work.____________________________________________________________________________Chat Prewriting Activity on the Claim Letter Assignment (Individual Project):

GROUP 2Joel > cool sunset we could include that sunset picture in the letter heading to show brunellimotors that we are grateful for the car and serviceMatt > Brunelli was willing to fix the problemColby > yeah i guess the complaint letter is just that they got billed for the servicesMatt > why didnt they just come forth and approach the client about the overcharges whenthey discovered themJoel > maybe i will include a complaint about how they do their billing clearerKyle > Whats up everyone?Colby > hey guys welcomeColby > do you guys like our pictureJordan> It has nothing to do with complaint lettersJordan > So noColby > yes it doesColby > it puts us in a good mood so we aren’t too meanJoel > yeah it does scroll up in the conversation and see how we included itKyle > Are you complaining the sun is going down?Jordan > I can’t see your previous conversationsMatt> how long does this need to beColby> a couple paragraphs i believeColby > make money moneyJordan > Long enough to get the point across


Matt > An auto repair company is all about loyalty, so we should talk about how we wantto stay with themColby > you are a great artistJoel > peace outLane > bye byeMatt> byeKyle > ttylJordan> Buh byeColby > bye guysMatt> that was funKyle > that was extra fun

STRENGTH #4: Accelerates decision-making time.Both online groups—the Discussion Board and Chat forums—investigate problems and

offer solutions initially to save more time in the long run when preparing the actual docu-ment.Discussion Board Prewriting Activity on the Memo Assignment (Group Project):________________________________________________________________________[continuation of GROUP 3’s previous Discussion Board forum extracted from Strength #3]:

Subject: Re: Prewrite Topic: Group 3—Memo Assignment Author: Tammie Date: October 23, 2009 4:46 P.M.

You guys are great! I have Jordan, Brett, and my pre-writes and I am going to combinethem this weekend and get a rough draft to them to help finalize. Do you think you canget me what you guys have by Tuesday so I can put them all together?____________________________________________________________________________

Chat Prewriting Activity on the Claim Letter Assignment (Individual Project):

GROUP 4John > Greetings fellow chat roomers, I will act today as both a collaborator and moderatorin this session in hopes of keeping all you hooligans on task!!Trevor> i’m excited to make up a story about what happened with my PHANTOMJohn> I like the artwork, very niceJohn> If you do the first one, what is left to do ... just say thank you?Jeremy> What are you going to say about it?Trevor> hmmm well not sureTrevor> what are some creative things that can happen to a phantomJeremy> we should google what it looks likeTrevor> i found a picture of a phantom hawkTrevor> i wish i could post it it looks coolTrevor> so anyway,Trevor> I think i will write a story that includes being billed incorrectly. i think that iswhat the letters resolution to the problem is. I think i would also like to include somerequests for action that include a resolution to the problems with the billing , and incon-sistencyTrevor> oh oh i know


Jeremy> The Ventilator looks like an ugly robot. I change mine to the PHANTOMTrevor> i could complain about being passed around on the phone and having to struggleand being frustrated to the point of writing a letterJohn> okTrevor> i bet they outsource their billingTrevor> i could comment on that in the complaint letterJohn> I have no good ideasTrevor> hey don’t self discourage like thatJeremy> what is the high-volume PAO-2 alarm circuit?Trevor> we are all full of good ideas, you just have to find them within yourself

STRENGTH #5: Increases morale and confidence while decreasing stress.Both asynchronous Discussion Board and synchronous Chat provide assurance of help

from the whole team who is collaboratively responsible right from the start.Discussion Board Prewriting Activity on the Memo Assignment (Group Project):________________________________________________________________________Subject: new group assignment. Topic: Group 2—Memo Assignment Author: Joel Date: October 21, 2009 7:32 P.M.Colby, so it is you and i doing the online portion of the assignment. lets get together soonand knock this thing out. i have the papers with the instructions. we can check yahoo orgoogle to get our article we just have to choose one. ok peace i will talk call you soon.

Subject: Re: new group assignment Topic: Group 2—Memo AssignmentAuthor: Colby Date: October 23, 2009 3:13 P.M.Alright that sounds good. Just let me know when you want to do it. Any time is good for me.

Chat Prewriting Activity on the Claim Letter Assignment (Individual Project):

GROUP 1Kevin > What do you guys think about asking to have the charges removed?Rebecca> Do you mean a diagram on the whiteboard?Rebecca> yes. I would definitely ask that.Rebecca> The product is under warrantyKevin> That is what I thought too.Rebecca> Maybe state clearly that the warranty does cover those charges and name them.Kevin > Be specific, I like it.Kevin > Should we ask for any sort of compensation?Kevin Lindquist > Robin?Robert> I love compensation. A free upgrade.Kevin> That was fast...Matt> Yo what upKevin> Who should we address the letter to? The salutation?Rebecca> I am thinking to say something like I want to work with your company in the futureRebecca> Just to the manager on the adjustment letterKevin> Or how about this, “I will soon be looking at some of your other models as my teenagedaughter prepares for her first car?”Robert> Susan Chee-Saafir ... I just wanted to spell her name. Definitely couldn’t pro-nounce it


Robert> But not if the problem isn’t resolvedKevin> Will we have access to this chat after it ends?Robert> I hope so!!!Kevin > Goodbye.Rebecca> Thanks for all the great ideas!Rebecca> That was fun!Rebecca> Bye!

The Role of Electronic Dialogue andCollaborative Online Forums

Based on the online dialogue transcripts, Discussion Board forums produce structuredconversations due to its neatly organized threads and topic categories. The formal settings put students in an equally structured mindset as they were able to respond to previous posts without difficulty. The platform capabilities also promote diversity and meaningful conversations within a non-threatening environment. Indeed, many students working on a team project that requires collaboration no longer exchange email addresses or cell phonenumbers nowadays because of the availability of technology-mediated communication (Worley432). And the positive number of focused responses from asynchronous CMC demonstratesthis social act of invention and knowledge construction necessary for effective collabora-tion.

Transcripts from Chat forums exhibit fluidity and dynamic conversations and realignswith previous scholarship on Internet Relay Chat (IRC): “IRC can be useful for discussionamong a small number of people, especially as the discussion can be ‘logged,’ i.e. a copy canbe saved on disk, to look at more carefully later” (Windeatt, Hardisty, and Eastment 113).And because immediate responses are possible through Chat, students may have felt a strongersense of belonging perfect for online collaboration. Unlike frequent delays characteristic ofasynchronous forums, synchronous Chat modalities “provide teachers and learners with aforum for an immediate and dynamic interchange of ideas ... an exciting asset to collaborativelearning environments” (Cooney 263).

In retrospect, the process of discovery and invention expressed in dialogues becomesmore potent electronically. When students collaborate and prewrite, draft, peer-review, andrevise an assigned technical document online, their initiation to the professional discoursecommunity is significantly enhanced (see Appendix A to C for more samples of electronicdialogue activities on peer-reviewing technical documents). Thus, business communicationand composition instructors need to select proper CMC forums and design purposeful writingactivities that promote electronic dialogues to support the concept of collaboration so valuedin contemporary workplace settings.

Appendix A

Sample Electronic Dialogue Activity on Peer-Reviewing an Informational ProposalProfessional and Technical Writing Course:

Writing for Interactive Media

Peer-Reviews for Informational Proposal

(Time limit: 25–30 minutes)

Assignment: Write critiques on the informational proposals your fellow students have posted.


Instruction: Go to the Discussion Board and open the discussion thread for the InformationalProposal assignment. One at a time, open and read the informational proposals posted by atleast TWO (2) of your classmates. Write a CRITIQUE of at least 2 paragraphs on eachproposal and post it as part of the same thread as the assignment. Please read other commentsand post your response. Be sure to include in your critiques the concepts we have been dis-cussing in class.

Note especially the following plans:

Design Objective

Target Audienceetc.Both critiques need to be completed within the time limit.If you write more than 2 critiques, you will get additional points on this assignment.

Appendix BSample Electronic Dialogue Activity on Peer-Reviewing an

Informational Design Document or Web Site OutlineProfessional and Technical Writing Course:


Peer-Reviews for Informational Design Document or Web Site Outline

(Time: 35–40 minutes)

Assignment: Submit critiques on the informational design document or web site outline yourfellow students have posted.

Instruction: Go to the Discussion Board for last week and open the discussion topics for theassignment, “Informational Design Document or Web Site Outline.” One at a time, openand read the informational design document or web site outline posted by everyone in yourgroup (at least 2 people). Write a CRITIQUE of at least 2 paragraphs on each proposaland post it as part of the same thread as the assignment. Please read other comments andpost your response. Be sure to include in your critiques the concepts we have been discussingin class.Note especially the following plans:

Design ObjectiveCreative TreatmentNavigation / Flowchart, etc.

Both critiques need to be completed within the time limit. If you write more than 2 cri-tiques, you will get additional points on this assignment.

Appendix CSample Electronic Dialogue Activity on Peer-Reviewing

an Informational Script and Sitemap Professional and Technical Writing Course:


Peer-Reviews for Informational Script and Sitemap

(Time: 40–45 minutes)


Assignment: Submit critiques on the informational script and sitemap your fellow studentshave posted.

Instruction: Go to the Discussion Board for last week and open the discussion topics for the assignment, “Informational Script and Sitemap.” One at a time, open and read the in-formational script and sitemaps posted by at least TWO (2) of your classmates. Write aCRITIQUE of at least 2 paragraphs on each script and post it as part of the same threadas the assignment. Please read other comments and post your response. Be sure to includein your critiques the concepts we have been discussing in class.

Both critiques need to be completed within the time limit.

If you write more than 2 critiques, you will get additional points on this assignment.

Works CitedBizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg, eds. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present.

2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001. Print.Blythe, Stuart. “Meeting the Paradox of Computer-Mediated Communication in Writing Instruction.” In

Takayoshi and Huot, 118–127. Print.Bonetskaia, Natal’ia Konstantinova. “Mikhail Bakhtin’s Life and Philosophical Idea.” Russian Studies in Phi-

losophy 43.1 (2004): 5–34. Print.Bonk, Curtis Jay, and Kira S. King. “Computer Conferencing and Collaborative Writing Tools: Starting a

Dialogue about Student Dialogue.” Bonk and King Electronic 3–23. Print._____, eds. Electronic Collaborators: Learner-Centered Technologies for Literacy, Apprenticeship, and Discourse.

Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998. Print.Cooney, Deborah H. “Sharing Aspects Within Aspects: Real-Time Collaboration in the High School English

Classroom.” In Bonk and King Electronic 263–287. Print.Eldred, Janet M. “Pedagogy in the Computer-networked Classroom.” Computers in the Composition Classroom:

A Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Michelle Sidler, Richard Morris, and Elizabeth Overman Smith. Boston: Bed-ford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 239–50. Print.

Eldred, Janet Carey, and Lisa Toner. “Technology as Teacher: Augmenting (Transforming) Writing Instruc-tion.” Takayoshi and Huot 33–54. Print.

Fife, Jane Mathison. “Enhancing Face-to-Face Class Discussion through Electronic Discussion Forums.”Writing and the iGeneration: Composition in the Computer-Mediated Classroom. Ed. Terry Carter and MariaA. Clayton. Southlake, Fountainhead Press, 2008. 37–47. Print.

Halasek, Kay. A Pedagog y of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Carbondale andEdwardsville : Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. Print.

Hacker, Douglas J., and Dale S. Niederhauser. “Promoting Deep and Durable Learning in the Online Class-room.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 84 (2000): 53–63. Print.

Inman, James. Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,2004. Print.

King, Cynthia. “Introduction to the Rhetoric of Layoff Memos.” Business Communication Quarterly 73.3(2010): 320–322. Print.

Kolin, Philip C. Successful Writing at Work. 9th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. Print.Simonson, Michael. “Making Decisions: The Use of Electronic Technology in Online Classrooms.” New

Directions for Teaching and Learning 84 (2000): 29–34. Print.Takayoshi, Pamela and Brian Huot, eds. Teaching Writing with Computers: An Introduction. Boston: Houghton

Mifflin Co., 2003. Print.Windeatt, Scott, David Hardisty, and David Eastment. The Internet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Print.Worley, Rebecca B. “Business Communication and New Media.” Business Communication Quarterly 73.4

(2010): 432–434. Print.Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “The Pleasures of Digital Discussions: Lessons, Challenges, Recommendations, and

Reflections.” In Takayoshi and Huot, 105–117. Print.


Collaborative Composing: Practices andStrategies for Implementing TeamProjects into Writing Classrooms

KARA POE ALEXANDER

Teamwork and collaborative writing are important practices in professional contexts.Benefits of these practices in industry include increased creativity and productivity (Allen etal. 84–5; Walker 16–8), multiple perspectives (Dale x-xi; Rose 88–9), and greater diversityin technical fields for women and minorities (Natishan, Schmidt, and Mead 269).1 Becauseof the increased emphasis on collaboration in workplace settings, students in fields rangingfrom engineering and business to technical writing and the sciences must possess strong teamand collaboration skills (Barker, Gilbreath, and Stone 226–7; Roever and Mullen 463–4;Wolfe, Team Writing 5). Workplace expectations have also led more professors to implementteam projects into their classes. For instance, in technical and professional writing courses, itis now commonplace for students to work as a team to produce complex, collaboratively-written texts. Ideally, these classroom collaboration experiences will help students make thetransition from classroom to workplace smoother by preparing them to face workplace com-plexities and personalities (Rehling “Is It Theirs” 42–3; Natishan et al. 269).2 Scholars alsoargue that classroom collaborative experiences can generate reflection and growth in students(Barker and Franzak 303) and improve thinking processes and interpersonal skills (Bruffee644). Other benefits of collaboration in the classroom include better writing and opportunitiesto learn from peers and share expertise (Schrage 20; Wolfe, Team Writing 5).

In spite of the popularity of pedagogical approaches emphasizing teamwork and collab-orative writing, implementing team projects in writing classrooms remains difficult. For one,instructors often assign team projects without explicit instruction on teamwork and then givelimited or no support to student teams during the process (Barker and Franzak 305; Vik 112;Wolfe and Alexander 163–4). What often results is a gendered division of labor where menperform the highly visible and valued technical work and women complete the less visibleand selectively recognized writing tasks often or writing is minimalized, done poorly, or neg-lected entirely (Stygall 257; Wolfe and Alexander 135, 144, 154, 161).3 In addition, the writingin such cases is minimized, done poorly, or neglected entirely.

Another concern is that students have varying definitions of how collaboration shouldfunction in a team. For instance, Scott L. Jones finds that students often disagree on whetherto follow the contextual, hierarchical, or group category of collaborative interaction in their

181

team (451), which creates tension and communication problems.4 In addition to this issue ofhow collaboration should work in a team, students also tend to overemphasize efficiency ratherthan creativity, understanding, or dialogue (Kittleson and Southerland 284, 288). When stu-dents are more concerned with merely completing a project rather than doing it well, the endquality is poor and students are often indifferent. One final concern is that many students,such as those from engineering or the hard sciences, may underestimate the importance ofwriting to their professions and not view such a skill as important or even relevant to theirsuccess (Burnett, “Some People” 135, 139; Newcomer, Kitto, and Sylvester 8; Winsor 6–7,12). Such a view of writing tends to decrease student investment and involvement in all stagesof the team project. Together, these issues can make implementing collaborative assignmentstedious and difficult.

Collaborative writing projects, however, do not have to produce such negative results.With careful strategic planning, team projects can actually be quite enjoyable and beneficialfor students from all backgrounds. In this chapter, I use my experiences researching andassigning collaborative writing to argue that in order for collaboration to work successfully inthe classroom, instructors should structure and support team projects by planning in advance,having specific guidelines for teams to follow, and giving feedback to teams throughout theproject.5 When instructors place such emphases on the collaborative process, student anxietydecreases, positive attitudes emerge, and students transition from academy to workplace withgreater confidence in their collaborative skills and writing abilities.

Teamwork Workshop

Before beginning a major team project, I introduce students to theories of teamwork andcollaborative writing and give explicit instruction on how these practices should function inmy classes through what I like to call a “Teamwork Workshop.” Together, the content we dis-cuss and the guidelines I give students during this training lead to positive attitudes and expe-riences, well-written documents, and skill development that can then be transferred toworkplace settings. The workshop usually lasts for two one-and-a-half hour class periods (or3 classes for 50 minutes) and is generally appropriate for longer, more complex team projects(i.e., report, research paper, grant proposal) that last from 4–6 weeks or an entire semester.This workshop can, however, be adapted to any writing course where a team project is assigned,including composition, rhetoric, argument, and English Studies, and abbreviated for shorterprojects. What I outline here is thus meant to serve as a springboard for you to design andimplement your own collaborative writing assignments in the contexts where you work.

In preparation for the first day of the workshop, I ask students to read background essayson teamwork and collaborative writing. These articles range from Rebecca Burnett’s “Conflictin Collaborative Decision-Making” and Louise Rehling’s “Writing Together: Gender’s Effecton Collaboration” to Kenneth Bruffee’s “Collaborative Learning and the Conversation ofMankind” and several chapters from Joanna Wolfe’s textbook Team Writing (2010).6 Thesereadings provide students with important background on theories and practices of collaborativewriting before the team projects begin and, hopefully, decrease student anxiety toward theimpending team project.

When the students first come to class after having read the articles, we enter into a dis-cussion on their past experiences with teamwork and collaboration. Although students havea great variety of experiences (positive, negative, apathetic), the general sentiment is that theywould rather not collaborate. In fact, they would rather write alone because they perceivebeing in a group as more time-consuming, complex, frustrating, and stressful. Other common


responses about collaboration by students include one person typically doing all the work,scheduling meeting times is a hassle, and personality conflicts inhibit constructive collabora-tion. I affirm their observations by revealing some of my own experiences collaborating withothers when I worked in a college recruitment office, many of which were negative, unpro-ductive, and sexist. My goal through this initial discussion about past collaboration experiencesis for students to speak freely so that they feel validated and also to lessen their anxieties aboutthe process.

Videos of Student TeamsThis initial discussion about past team experiences leads us immediately into watching

videos of student teams collaborating.7 Many of the teams in these videos are quite dysfunc-tional, and students are quick to point out problems with the team interactions. We analyzethe videos in detail, typically addressing the following issues:

• Planning. How does the student team plan and structure the project?• Drafting, Revising, and Editing. How does the team write as a group? What is their

process? Are they productive? Unproductive?• Collaboration Model. How does the team produce content? Do they write individually

and then meet? Does one person dictate while the other types? Something else?• Document Control. How does the team manage a document when more than one

person is contributing to it? Who maintains control of the document? How does oneperson know when it’s their turn to respond?

• Conflict. How does the team address conflict? Unproductively? Productively? Howare disagreements settled and resolved?

• Collaboration Styles. How do different genders, races, or cultural groups collaborate?What are their characteristics? What does someone’s nonverbal communication convey?

• Other Observations Students Have about the Videos. What other elements do stu-dents find elements to comment on?

Students respond quite strongly to these videos and express shock at how some students workwith others in such negative ways. They are especially vocal about those team members inthe videos who treat others so poorly, perhaps by pointing a pen at them, shouting, actingdomineering, or making blatantly sexist comments. Overall, these videos prepare students forthe collaboration project by allowing them to observe firsthand the ways in which team projectscan fail or be successful. By watching other teams experience and deal with unproductiveconflict, inefficient drafting processes, and sexism, students come to understand how successfulteamwork takes mindfulness and reflection, as well as forethought and planning. Ideally, thesevideos make students more aware of their own behavior as they collaborate, which can leadto better team collaborations.

Models of Collaborative WritingAfter watching the videos, we move on to a discussion of collaborative writing. I invite

students to brainstorm how they think collaborative writing might work in a classroom settingby asking them about the processes student teams might use to produce a single document.How might a group draft a document, for instance? Students typically respond by giving thethree predominant models of collaborative writing commonly used in student collaboration.These models—outlined in Wolfe’s book—include face-to-face, divided, and layered. Wediscuss these models in detail so that student teams understand the advantages and disadvan-

Collaborative Composing (Alexander) 183

tages of each model, when the model might be appropriate for use, and which model we willbe using for our project (see Table 1).

Table 1: Pros and Cons of the Three Models of Collaborative Writing8


Collaborative Model Advantages Drawbacks

Divided/HorizontalThe team divides the docu-ment into sections and assignseach team member a sectionto write.

This model is appropriatewhen speed is more importantthan quality (because thequality tends to be very low).

Quick for gettingstarted and complet-ing the work in theleast amount oftime.

Perceived as fair dis-tribution of labor.

Minimal collaboration. Teams rarely communi-cate beyond the initial planning. No checks andbalances or discussion of competing ideas.

No vision of or responsibility for the wholedocument. Quality control is nonexistent. Writ-ing is inconsistent and has gaps. Does not mirrorworkplace writing (Rehling, “Is It Theirs” 45).

Produces a poor quality document.Finally, the quality of a document produced inthe divided model is typically very low. In fact,material is often duplicated or inconsistent, thewriting is incoherent, and the writing style andquality varies between sections.

Face-to-Face.The team meets in person todraft, revise, and edit thedocument. One person typi-cally dictates while anothertypes.

This model is most appropri-ate in planning stages (brain-storming, assigning tasks,planning revisions, etc.) orwhen discussing highly visualdocuments (i.e., fliers,brochures, or Web pages)

(Wolfe, Team Writing 8).

Ideas can be sharedand decisions can bemade quickly andefficiently.

Ineffective and inefficient. Wastes time and canproduce unnecessary conflict(Lowry and Nunamaker 277–8).

Scheduling problems. The team must find atime to meet together, which is inefficient, andtime-consuming.

Unequal input by team members. Moreassertive team members tend to dominate theprocess, and others feel shut out, excluded, orignored. Good ideas don’t always get heard.

Produces a poor quality document.

Impossible in the workplace (where team mem-bers may be geographically distant).

Layered.Each person is assigned a pri-mary role, and all team mem-bers have overlapping layersof responsibility.

This method is most appro-priate when drafting andrevising longer documentsand most closely workplacecollaboration.

Expectations,responsibilities, androles are clear.

Divides students upaccording to theirexpertise, whichmaximizes contribu-tions.

Produces a high-quality document.Emphasizes writing asa process, documentcycling, and checksand balances. It moti-vates students (Paradis,Dobrin, and Miller300; Rehling “Is ItTheirs” 45; Wolfe,Team Writing 8).

Takes more up-front effort and planning sothat each person knows what tasks they areassigned.

Workload may be different for various roles.

In my classes, I require students to implement the layered model for all written work sothat the writing for a project is done by individuals working alone. However, this solitarywork is alternated with face -to-face meetings in which the team discusses revisions and makesnew plans based on the progress and obstacles encountered by individuals. I make sure toemphasize, however, that when students are given class time to meet in person, they shouldnot be drafting content. Drafting is done outside of class by individuals, not together withthe team.

In sum, examining these three models of collaborative writing allows students to under-stand that successful writing is always tied to audience, purpose, and situation, and, whendeciding which model they should use in future settings, they should always assess the rhetoricalsituation.

Document Control and the Teamwork Database

Another topic we discuss during the Teamwork Workshop is “document control,” or theway collaborative writing should function when multiple writers are working on one document.To get students thinking about this issue, I ask them to brainstorm ways they think collabo-rative writing might work. I ask such questions as: What is the most efficient way to controla document with multiple writers? Who has primary responsibility for the entire document,and does this change at various stages of the project? How should team members providefeedback to their teammates on a collaborative document? How does revision and editingwork?

Student responses to these questions lead me into a discussion of the three primary meth-ods of document control: centralized, segmented, and relay.

• The centralized method gives one person central control over the document. Thisperson drafts the document, receives feedback from other group members, and revisesthe document based upon this feedback. He or she is always in “control” of the doc-ument and no one else makes changes to the central document. This method is mostoften used when teams implement a face-to-face collaborative writing model.

• The segmented approach is where individual team members assigned to write a specificsection (i.e., divided model) maintain control over their part until the very end of theproject when all team members send their section to one person who compiles every-thing together into a single document. In this case, each team member maintains con-trol over a segment of the text until the very end when one person compiles it alltogether.

• The relay method entails multiple team members sharing control of the document byadding changes and comments and then passing it back and forth (corresponds to lay-ered model). Revision-tracking tools in Word, such as Track Changes, the “Comments”feature, or the highlighting tool, are used.

In my classes, I require students to use the relay method because of its emphasis on processwriting and increased collaboration between individuals.

Although the relay method has many advantages, one disadvantage is that students canbecome confused by not knowing which document is the most recent one that needs feedbackand/or revision. One solution to this problem is to have a centralized place to store all teamdocuments so that students know they are working on the most recent version of the project.Many universities use course management systems like Blackboard that can foster collaborationby providing email and a central place for teams to store documents. While Blackboard does


contain some features that facilitate document control, I have not found it to support the typeor level of collaborative writing I require in my classes. For one, Blackboard is not necessarilyuser-friendly. Although it does have email, students must leave their team thread and go toa different screen to send one. Also, Blackboard keeps no record of the email communicationbetween teams, which can prove problematic. Furthermore, Blackboard is not always reliable(at least at my school where it might be down or in the process of being updated). Someteachers are now using Google Docs or Web 2.0 technologies, such as wikis, Facebook,YouTube, and Delicious for team collaboration.9 These technologies are fast evolving to becomeuseful tools for collaborating, but because they do not yet keep track of individual contributionsor email communication, I have not yet used them.

Instead of these tools, I use a “Teamwork Database” (TWDB) created by Joanna Wolfeexplicitly for facilitating and supporting group collaboration.10 Student teams use the TWDBto share drafts, respond to each other’s work, and communicate outside of class. They canupload, download, and store their files, make posts, have asynchronous chats, and send emailsthrough this site. Students also have the option of including the length of time they spent onthe material so that others (teammates or instructor) will see what and how much each indi-vidual is contributing. Student posts are tracked in reverse chronological order so that themost recent one is at the top, which helps students find and locate the most recent work addedto the database. Finally, each student post is a different color so that students (and instructor)can scroll easily and see at a glance who has contributed what.

The Teamwork Database offers several advantages. First, it aids and even fosters teamcollaboration by encouraging the team to stay on track and hold each other accountable forwhat was assigned, said, or documented. Second, it allows students to upload drafts, meetingminutes, and other material for class so the problem of not bringing the appropriate materialto class or not knowing what tasks were assigned to you disappears. Furthermore, the TWDBalso allows students to work at their convenience, perhaps even when they can do their bestwork rather than when they may not be the most productive. Finally, the database also providesa single repository for student collaboration and is accessible from anywhere.

Perhaps the best quality of this database is that all team communication is documented.During the Teamwork Workshop, specifically when I introduce the Teamwork Database, Iemphasize with students the importance of documenting work. I even give students them anexample from my personal experience as a professor who is required to keep and maintain atenure notebook that documents the work I do for my job. If I do not document my teaching,research, and service and show what I have done, then I may as well not have done it at allbecause no one is going to recognize it if it is not written down and document. Lack of doc-umentation, therefore, works against me in tenure and promotion, as well as my chair’s per-ception of me. In addition, one finding by Wolfe and Alexander was that individual writingtasks were often not recognized or recorded during a project, which led teammates to forgetwhat other teammates had contributed when it came time to submit the final report (161).Documenting work, on the contrary, ensures that teammates are aware of individual effortsand the work individuals have completed. In fact, team members and the instructor can actu-ally see what other team members have done, especially when it comes to writing and revisingefforts. Emphasizing the importance of documentation teaches students how to be organizedand prepared for workplace collaboration.

In addition to the documentation, the database also facilitates communication betweeninstructor and students. Instructors can choose to view a team’s thread and then read andcomment on the contributions, thus directing the team in productive ways. The usable inter-face even gives instructors the ability to glance quickly through the contributions to see


which student may not be doing their fair share of the work and send them an email throughthe site. In the end, the documentation afforded by the TWDB leads to more substantial gradeassessments by instructors because instructors can assess the quality and quantity of contribu-tions.

In sum, this discussion of document control and the Teamwork Database is meant toprepare students for the expectations I have for their collaborative writing projects and todemonstrate the value of written documentation. Although a few students remark that theTeamwork Database was “a little too much,” most students claim it was the key to a successfulproject. Student Hilary, for instance, commented, “The database allowed us to keep track ofthe work we did and to keep it organized in one area for everyone to access.” Another studentChristine wrote, “The database was super helpful because it showed what other people haddone. I found it really useful for collaboration.” John also stated, “The database was a helpfulresource to track all the activity for our project and let us know what other teammates weredoing.”11

Team Roles and Project ManagementOne question facing instructors who assign collaborative work is how to make sure that

all students on the team are contributing equally to the project. One answer to this questionis to assign students a specific role they perform throughout the project. Rehling argues forclear roles because of the nature of academic culture where individual competition is emphasizedover common goals: when students have clear roles, they know how they can add to the commongoal (“Is It Theirs” 46). Wolfe maintains that clearly defined roles allow work to be distributedmore equally (Team Writing 42–3). Thus, in my classes, students are assigned a specific role.

The most important role on a team is the project manager. We spend a great deal of timediscussing this role during the workshop, mainly because students often misconstrue this roleas equal to a “leader” who takes charge of the project by being domineering and demandingand/or who does all the work. The project manager, however, is not a “leader” per se, at leastas students typically envision one. Rather, the project manager actually manages the projectby maintaining and facilitating communication with both the team and the instructor. Saiddifferently, a project manager manages the team through written documentation.12 Writtendocumentation, in fact, is essential to the project manager’s role because of the importantfunction documentation plays in keeping the team on track and avoiding problems. Thespecific documents project managers are responsible for include meeting agendas, meetingminutes, a task schedule, and a team charter. Project managers are also responsible for sendingemails to team members reminding them of deadlines, checking in with someone who wasabsent, asking about the status of a draft, and maintaining communication with the instructor.Project managers might also produce progress reports or a project plan for the instructor.When a teacher assigns the important written documentation to the project manager insteadof a “secretary” for the group, Wolfe argues, “[T]he teacher sends a message that internalwritten documentation is an essential, managerial task” (“Role” 5). In this section, I will lookspecifically at four of the primary documents maintained by project managers: meeting agen-das, meeting minutes, a task schedule, and a team charter.

Project Manager Responsibilities1. Meeting AgendasProject managers are responsible for creating agendas for each team meeting. Meeting

agendas include a written list of topics, issues, or concerns to be discussed. Having a set agenda


helps guide the face-to-face meeting, ensures that nothing gets left out, and keeps the teamon track.

2. Meeting MinutesThe project manager is also responsible for taking meeting minutes and posting them to

the Teamwork Database within 24 hours of the team meeting. Meeting minutes are, contraryto popular belief, managerial documents, not secretarial ones, that direct and push the projectforward. In “The Role of Writing in Effective Team Projects: Students and ProfessionalsDiffer,” Wolfe found that in the workplace, those with expertise rather than secretaries arethe ones who take the notes during meetings, and, therefore, in our classes, we should alsorecognize the managerial potential of meeting notes (3). Meeting minutes are essential tokeeping the team on task, building consensus between team members, and holding teammembers accountable for deadlines and responsibilities. During the workshop, we explicitlydiscuss both the content and form of meeting minutes, including what they should and shouldnot contain. One point I emphasize is that meeting minutes should not be mere transcriptionsof everything that was said by whom. On the contrary, notes should provide a record of teamdecisions, action items, and due dates, all the while emphasizing and anticipating what is tocome. I stress the importance of posting minutes soon after the meeting. If they are not postedand sent out to the team, then they are ineffective and useless. I also ask team members toread through the meeting minutes as soon as they are posted and to let the project managerknow if anything needs to be revised or amended. Finally, I remind students that meetingminutes should not take the role of individual note-taking during the meeting.

3. Task ScheduleAnother document the project manager maintains is the task schedule. Wolfe argues that

the task schedule is “the most important document a team produces for managing itself ”because it documents who does what by when (Team Writing 40). I have been using the taskschedule since I first observed student teams who did not know what was expected of themor what they were supposed to be doing at any given time as they proceeded through the teamproject. I find this document especially useful for keeping students aware of what they needto be doing and when that item is due.

Before students can create a task schedule, students first need to determine what tasksare required of the project. With the help of the instructor, students should brainstorm themajor tasks the team will need to complete. They can use the instructor’s assignment sheet(it might identify tasks, expectations, or deadlines), as well as the textbook to generate these.They can also brainstorm with their team the specific parts of the projects that need to becompleted, as pertaining to planning, researching, analyzing, writing, drafting, revising, andediting.

Once major tasks are identified, students can then generate the actual task schedule (SeeAppendix A for a sample). Students create a table (in Word or Excel) and add columns withthe following items: (1) major tasks (column 1); (2) the point value for difficulty of task,ranked 1–3 (column 2); (3) the time value of task, ranked 1–3 (column 3); (4) the total valueof difficulty times task (column 4), (5) individual responsibilities per task (column 5), and(6) deadlines (column 6). Each student must also place an asterisk beside at least one itemthat reflects a new skill they will learn. I want to make sure that students are completing atleast one task they have never done before, with hopes that some peer sharing will occur andthat students will challenge themselves rather than just take the tasks that they already knowhow to complete.

The numeric scores students must assign for difficulty of task (column 2) and time oftask (column 3) are intended to make task assignments fairer. The lower number (1) means


that the task is not very difficult or does not require much time, and the higher number (3)means that the task is difficult and the time commitment is high. When students are decidingwhat task equals a 1, 2, or 3, they typically underestimate the amount of time and difficultylevel of writing, while they overestimate the difficulty level and time of technical tasks or oralpresentations. Therefore, instructors should instruct students that writing tasks (particularlywhen it concerns content for a report, proposal, or essay) typically takes longer and is moredifficult than they may think. I typically have my students assign writing tasks that are partof the content of the project a “3” in terms of difficulty and a “2” or “3” in terms of time.For instance, in a technical report, the following tasks might be assigned: write introduction,write methods, write results, and write discussion. Each task should be a 3 in terms of difficultyand a 2 or 3 in terms of time.). Other writing tasks, like taking meeting minutes, sendingemails, or writing meeting agendas, should be marked a 1 in terms of both time and difficulty.

After students have assigned each task a difficulty and time score, students then multiplydifficulty by time to get a numerical value, which is then written as the “Total” (column 4).After each task is totaled, students should then add up each individual team member’s con-tribution score (from column 4) and write this overall number at the bottom of the task sched-ule. The closer the numbers are together per student indicates a fairer distribution of tasksbetween students. When someone’s number is too low, as in the case of Evan on the sampletask schedule provided here in Appendix A, I do one of two things: I either require the teamto revise the task schedule and give the person with fewer points more tasks, or I give teamsthe option of leaving the task schedule the way it is and, when new tasks emerge, assigningthem to the person with the fewest points so that this team member is given equal responsibilityto others. Overall, the task schedule balances the workload, leads to a fairer distribution ofwork amongst the team, and keeps the team on track.

After the team has drafted and posted the initial team schedule, the instructor shouldlook carefully through it to make sure that students have not overlooked any major or minortasks, teams have not mistakenly assigned less or more value to a certain task, work is dividedevenly, and students are going to learn new skills. As the instructor sees problems, she shouldpoint them out to the team, and students should revise the task schedule immediately.

Although the task schedule is “finished” at this point, it should be continually updatedas work is reassigned, deadlines change, or new tasks are identified. When changes are made,the project manager should then repost the revised schedule to the TWDB. Creating andmaintaining a written task schedule holds people accountable for the tasks they are to completeand helps students avoid procrastination. Furthermore, the task schedule also allows theinstructor to intervene when tasks are not being completed by assigned team members.

4. Team CharterProject managers are also responsible for guiding their team to draft a team contract,

known as a “Team Charter” (Wolfe, Team Writing 28). The purposes of this contract are toset the goals, rules, and guidelines for team conduct and behavior, to hold team membersaccountable, and to provide a reference for the Project Manager (or instructor) when issuessuch as group conflict or attendance arises. I have found that when teams plan ahead by settinggoals and making decisions up front, they save time and frustration later on in the process.At a minimum, I ask students to include the following in their contract :

1. List of team goals—both broad and specific—for the project.2. List of team members, their individual team roles, their personal goals for the project

(i.e., what they would like to learn), and their level of commitment (high, medium, low).3. Norms to guide group behavior, including the following: how often individuals will


check email and the TWDB; guidelines for attendance, peer feedback, revision, andcommunication; and statements of how the team will resolve conflicts,13 handle misseddeadlines, and deal with unacceptable work.

4. List of personal commitments that might make team members unavailable during aparticular time frame and/or dates that someone will be absent.

After the team drafts the Charter, I then require all team members to upload the documentto the TWDB. This individual posting serves as their signature on the document.

Additional Team Roles and ResponsibilitiesIn addition to the Project Manager, other individual roles are assigned to each team

member. At this point, I have already emphasized to students the reasons why each studentwill have clearly defined roles, and now we discuss the specific roles we will be using for theproject. Listed below are some typical roles that I use in my classes. I do not use all of theseroles for every project, but I list several here so that you can decide which ones are appropriatefor your specific context (consider the assignment, project task, number of students you wanton a team, and other similar issues).

• Subject Matter Expert. The Subject Matter Expert (SME) becomes an expert on thesubject matter for the project (the research area, the non-profit organization, an outsideclient, etc.) and contributes the core content to the documents. The SME leads andfacilitates the research needing to be done, including locating and evaluating infor-mation and providing access to source materials and reference items. The SME is ulti-mately responsible for reviewing the final documents for accuracy of information andcontent.

• Graphic Designer. The Graphic Designer offers visual expertise to documents bydesigning and drafting layouts, creating templates, illustrations, illustrations, visuals,charts, and tables, and formatting documents for consistency. The Graphic Designeralso formats, labels, titles, and captions the visuals and formats the entire report accord-ing to required documentation style.

• Editor. The Editor analyzes and edits all documents for content, style, tone, and con-sistency, as well as clarity, fluency, and concision. The Editor makes sure paragraphsand sentences are organized with transitions, subordinators, and coordinators, and healso proofreads and edits the final document.

• Lead Writer. The Lead Writer compiles the information and is in charge of delegatingand assigning tasks for the writing portion of the project. She does not write the entiredocument but rather delegates and oversees the drafting, revising, and editing process.She also compiles the document, implements feedback, and edits the document.

• Liaison. The Liaison is used when a service-learning component exists in the courseand provides the connection between the team and the community partner by main-taining communication with the client. The liaison also sets up meetings with theclient and communicates needs and concerns of the client to the Project Manager andthe team.

The roles an instructor uses in a class depends, of course, on individual course needs, instructorgoals, and the purpose of the assignment, and the instructor should take liberty decidingwhich roles will be needed for their specific contexts. Students often express how much theylike having clearly defined roles. Jim wrote, “Clearly defined roles allowed us to focus on ourresponsibilities.” Shannon similarly notes, “I thought having pre-designated jobs and roles


was very effective. Each person came into the project with a job that they liked and knew howto do well. This made it a lot easier to divide up tasks and get quality work from each indi-vidual.” Importantly, I always remind students that even though they have one role, eachindividual is still expected to draft, revise, and edit the document.

Project Roles Sheet

Another issue an instructor faces when implementing team projects is how to divide stu-dents into teams. Students can self-select their teammates, which gives students more of avoice in deciding who their teammates will be. This option might even encourage positiveattitudes and increase motivation. Some disadvantages of this self-selection are that studentsmay be grouped with others who have different interests, one team may all be good writerswhile another is not, or one group may be full of too many “leader” types, which might leadto unnecessary conflict. A second option is for instructors to divide students into teams. Aninstructor can choose these teams randomly or based on certain criteria, such as schedules,personalities, interests, the type of role the student wants to perform, or individual strengths.

After experimenting with how to divide students up, I have finally settled on dividingstudents into teams based on the roles they want to perform during the team project. Todetermine which role students want to perform, I distribute to them a “Project Roles Sheet,”which I then use to divide students into teams (See Appendix B). Students are, by this point,familiar with the roles we will be using in the team project, and now they are ready to fill outthe form. The “Project Roles Sheet” first lists each of the roles we will be using on the projectand briefly explains the basic skills and responsibilities of that role. Students then rank theseroles according to their interests and the duties they want to perform, from “1” (top choice)to “4” (last choice). Student responses are kept confidential, and I use this sheet to assign indi-vidual roles and place students on teams.

The Project Roles Sheet can be adapted and revised according to instructor goals andpurposes. Sometimes, for instance, when my students are working with outside clients orcommunity partners, in addition to the roles ranking, I also have students rank areas in whichthey would be interested in working (health, education, arts, culture, music, etc.). I then useboth the project roles ranking and the areas of interest ranking to divide students into teams.Other times, I add a question on this sheet asking students to name one person with whomthey would (or would not) like to work. Or, I ask them to list one specific thing that theywould like to learn from this project. Not only do the responses help me divide students intoteams, but they also help me better know the students in my classes (their strengths, weaknesses,and goals).

Once the results come in, I typically have an overflow of females who want to be projectmanager and writer, while most of the men choose roles that are more technical and appearto involve less writing, such as the subject matter expert or graphic designer. This tendencymay not be surprising considering that the tasks and skills associated with these roles are tra-ditionally divided by gender. However, I do not want all female project managers in myclasses, nor do I want all male SMEs and graphic designers. In addition, in the workplace avariety of genders perform a variety of roles, and I want them to be prepared for that. Itherefore attempt to have a balance of male and females in each of the roles (even if studentshave to be assigned their second choice). I consider it essential for students to see both maleand females taking on a variety of roles so that our class can challenge and question genderstereotyping. In the end, I think this choice benefits the entire collaboration process.

In addition to the above, I also discuss with students what my role will be during the


project. I do not want student teams to assume that they are on their own until the day theysubmit their final drafts because team projects often fall apart when instructors have a hands-off approach. Therefore, I explain to students that they should view me as a distant teammember, a supervisor so to speak—someone who has access to their communication andprogress but who does not participate in every team meeting. I also emphasize that individualsand teams should use me as a resource and that they should come to me immediately if issuessuch as discrimination, harassment, or other problems arise.

In sum, the Teamwork Workshop is meant to introduce students working on collaborativeprojects to theories, examples, and practices of successful collaboration. This overview givesstudents the tools they need to successfully complete a team project involving collaborativewriting. The Teamwork Workshop outlined here typically takes two or three class sessions,but it can be adapted to a variety of contexts and situations. The workshop can be shortedor lengthened depending on the type of project an instructor assigns, and it can be adaptedto other courses where teams and collaborative writing is used, including composition, rhetoric,English, and argument courses. Overall, structuring student teams in advance and supportingstudents throughout the project will make the team experience a positive one for all. Thisprocess also gives students the skills they need to become successful workplace collaborators.

Guidelines for the Team Project

After the Teamwork Workshop, I distribute the assignment sheet for our specific project.In the past, I have assigned a great many types of collaborative assignments, including reportsand proposals based on original research (questionnaires, usability tests, interviews, or think-aloud protocols), engineering analysis, rhetorical analysis, or bibliographic research. Theassignment sheet I distribute details some specific guidelines I have for the team project. Thesepolicies are meant to protect student teams from some of the pitfalls that scholars and prac-titioners observe in team projects and improve student attitudes toward collaboration.14 Ded-icating class time to discussing teamwork and setting specific guidelines as to how it can worksuccessfully is important because students realize that team skills can be learned and that theyneed to possess them if they are to be successful in this class and in their careers. In thissection, I list the specific policies I give to students at the beginning of the team project.

1. Each team member is expected to draft, revise, and edit the written report.This policy is in place for several reasons. First, asking every team member to write high-

lights the importance of writing. Writing becomes more visible, more shared, and more collab-orative rather than less visible and selectively recognized, as Wolfe and Alexander found (135).Second, this policy aligns with the layered model of collaborative writing where writing tasksoverlap and are shared by team members. Ideally, such layering produces a higher quality doc-ument because more people are revising and editing the draft throughout the process and thedocument goes through numerous revisions, unlike in other models. Third, this guideline givesevery student a vision of the whole document, which creates a more consistent text in style,tone, and content (unlike what the divided model tends to create). Fourth, this policy emphasizeswriting as a process. Students can see how the quality of the project increases when the documentis revised as a result of feedback from others. They can also notice how each team memberbrings different skills to the revision process. Next, when everyone is expected to draft, revise,and edit, the tendency towards a gendered division of labor decreases. Writing emerges as anindispensable task and is no longer viewed as “secretarial.” Perhaps most importantly, requiringeveryone to make substantive written contributions ensures that all students share an equalresponsibility for the document and gain skills in drafting, revising, and editing.


2. Teams should communicate primarily through electronic means outside of classand should not meet outside of class unless prior approval has been given by me.At least half of every class period is reserved for face-to-face meetings, so yourteam should not need to meet outside of class.

This policy emphasizing electronic communication is intended to protect busy studentsfrom their tendency toward inefficient out-of-class meetings. In my observations of studentteams on Wolfe’s study, I found that when student teams do get together outside of class,much of their time is wasted deciding when they can meet again, arguing over small stylisticdetails, or jointly completing work that should be done individually when time would havebeen better spent brainstorming ideas or producing content for the project. Thus, I requirestudents to use electronic communication as their primary way to maintain team communi-cation. The policy is intended to introduce students to collaborative technologies, even simpletools like email, Word, texting, and the Teamwork Database. Electronic communication pro-vides for the easy exchange of feedback and drafts, and I encourage students to take advantageof it. Communicating through electronic means also allows students to work on the materialat their own pace and in their own time. Better ideas often emerge as a result of electroniccollaboration.

Although students are expected to use electronic means to communicate with their teamwhen they are not in class, I do encourage face-to-face time for brainstorming and planning.I reserve at least half of every class day for teams to meet to discuss ideas and plan the writing.If a student team wants to meet outside of class, I ask them to get permission from me inadvance. In fact, they must persuade me that this meeting is necessary and worth their time.

After completing his team project, student Lee commented, “Our emphasis on electroniccommunication was our key to success.” Sean likewise noted, “The database and an emphasison email communication allowed us to communicate clearly and instantly with one another.Using these tools, anything not covered in a meeting was easily made up for and progress wasboth efficient and steady.” Another student wrote, “No out of class meetings forced us to useour class time to its full potential.” Overall, students really appreciate this policy.

3. All individual and group work on the project, including emails, must be docu-mented in writing on the Teamwork Database to receive credit.

Students are required to upload all documents produced, including meeting minutes,task schedules, memos, drafts, peer reviews, and other items to the Teamwork Database. Ialso ask them to send emails through the TWDB so that a record of the communication exists.Students tend to view teamwork almost exclusively in terms of verbal communication withoutwriting down team decisions and action items (Wolfe, “Role of Writing” 1), which contrastswith professionals who view written documentation as essential to success. Team projects pro-vide a nice opportunity for students to learn this value as well. Documenting work also showsthe team (and instructor) what each individual is working on at any given moment. If onestudent is falling behind and not posting anything, the instructor can easily notice and addressit. Overall, this policy protects hard-working students from irresponsible teammates and keepsthe team up-to-date on the collaborative process. Students often mention how the writtendocumentation, particularly the meeting minutes and task schedule maintained by the projectmanager, were the most helpful aspects of keeping the team on track and fostering good com-munication.

4. Teams should divvy up activities so that each person gets to perform at least onetask that allows them to learn a new skill.

When team roles are assigned based on interests or skills, students are assigned roles inwhich they already have expertise. While this division certainly makes sense in terms of effi-


ciency, it also limits team members’ opportunities to gain skills in areas they may be weak.Therefore, I require students to step out of their comfort zones and volunteer for one taskthey do not already know how to do. Maybe this task is to write a literature review or to drafttables, figures, and illustrations. Perhaps the task involves interviewing or data analysis. What-ever they choose, they mark it on the task schedule. This emphasis on learning a new skillcommunicates to students that the instructor values learning and equips students for fulfillingtasks with which they do not have prior experience.

One idea for fostering the learning of a new skill is for instructors to dedicate one ormore days to sharing skills within teams. For instance, if one student knows how to create aweb site, then she might share this skill with another team member. Or, if one student isespecially good at editing, this student might share his strategies with someone else. This kindof peer sharing can be especially meaningful for students and the collaborative process.

5. Students will receive two grades on this project: The project quality grade assessesthe quality of the written report and is the same for all team members. The col-laboration grade is based on individual contributions and varies between teammembers.

I assign two grades for the team project, primarily because students see both an individualand a team grade fairer than only assigning one single group grade (Beard, Rymer, and Williams37–9) and because it leads students to have greater agency and purpose in their collaborations(Rose 97). The majority of the grade goes toward the final written document the team col-laborates on together (60–75 percent of overall grade). This “project quality grade” is thesame for all team members and is especially important in showing students that the team doc-ument is shared by all. This grade also gives value to the collaborative process and placesimportance on a team working together to produce a single document. The collaborationgrade, on the contrary, varies by each student’s individual contributions and efforts (25–40percent of overall grade) and communicates to students that the quality and quantity of indi-vidual contributions matters to the team project, just as the final written product does (Wolfeand Alexander 165–6).

To determine individual collaboration grades, at the end of the collaborative process, Iask students to complete a “Collaboration Feedback Form” (see Appendix C). This form eval-uates several aspects of the team project, including level of satisfaction of the collaborativeprocess, new skill(s) learned, strengths and weaknesses of teammates, contributions by team-mates, and the collaborative process in general. Students can refer to the task schedule andTeamwork Database to complete this form, and when they do, the situation where technicalwork is valued more than writing does not present itself.

6. Attendance on class group days is absolutely critical. A student who misses aclass period dedicated to working on the team project will be penalized 10 pointsoff the collaboration grade.

Because student teams do not meet outside of class, coming to class is extremely impor-tant. Not only are students getting new information about the project from me, but class peri-ods are also dedicated to in-class team meetings and peer review workshops over the teamproject. I frame this policy by comparing these meetings to the workplace where professionalscannot miss meetings. Absences greatly affect the progress and morale of the group by causingextra work and anxiety for the other team members. I therefore take 10 points off the collab-oration grade of a student who misses class. The collaboration grade of the other team membersdoes not suffer, only the student who has missed class.

7. Articulate problems to the Project Manager or to me.I encourage students to speak to their Project Manager or to me any time they foresee a


problem. Whether the problem is related to the team project or involves individual issues, Iwant students to communicate their concerns to before they become unmanageable. Both theproject manager and I have access to the written communication between team members andcan of course talk to individual students who miss deadlines or fall behind. However, I alsoencourage students to anticipate problems arising and take the initiative to talk with one ofus before the problem gets out of control (See Rehling, “Foregrounding”).

To sum up the potential impact these guidelines have on student collaboration, I includea comment from Amanda: “I believe that all the collaboration guidelines implemented duringthe team project were tremendously helpful. I do not think the project would have run assmoothly if any one of them were deleted. This team project was the smoothest one I’ve everbeen a part of.”

ConclusionOverall, the pragmatic collaborative writing pedagogy outlined here provides students

with many opportunities to learn successful, practical ways to collaborate that will allow themto them transition to the workplace with greater confidence and more skills. They gain abetter understanding of different and effective ways to collaborate, and they learn when certainmethods might be more appropriate than others. Since workplaces are becoming increasinglyfocused on team projects, teaching students collaborative writing skills and supporting studentteams as they learn how to become successful collaborators seems like these practices, too,should be an important of the writing curriculum.

This workshop also leads students to recognize how gender plays a part in collaboration.The videos and Teamwork Workshop helps them recognize how delegating others to specificstereotypical tasks is inappropriate. Instead of automatically settling into conventional genderroles, they are challenged to look beyond those to see how writing is an integral part of a suc-cessful team project. In fact, many who are in the role of Project Manager come to recognizethat note-taking and meeting minutes are actually managerial tasks, attached to leadership,thus forming different understandings of how writing can be used to lead and guide projectssuccessfully.

This method also shows how collaborative writing is a social process of negotiation.Learning how to work successfully in teams is essential for students who will be asked to col-laborate in the workplace and beyond, where texts, processes, genres, and cultures can all beextremely different. Using these principles to demonstrate to students that teamwork is alearnable skill can increase their confidence as they transition from academy to work. In addi-tion, students gain experience and practical skills by collaborating on a complex written doc-ument. Of course we can never forget that collaborative writing is highly contextualized andwill need to be adjusted according to what works for the need of any given class, but I hopethat the techniques outlined here will leave you room to apply what works for you to yourpedagogical and organizational contexts.


Appendix ASample Task Schedule

1: Task 2: Difficulty 3: Time 4: Total 5: Assigned 6: (D) (T) Points to Deadline (D*T)

Task Schedule 1 3 3 Carla 2/21Find three scholarly articlesand summarize 1 2 2 All 2/26

Proposal Draft 1 2 2 Christine* 3/4Revise and edit the proposal 1 2 2 All 3/10Final draft of project proposal 1 2 2 Carla 3/14Research Topic 2 3 6 Evan 3/17Collect Data 2 3 6 Carla 3/1–3/20Draft Methods 2 2 4 Christine 3/25Come up with plan for draftof Results and Discussion 1 2 2 Matt 3/25

Introduction 2 2 4 Christine 3/28Literature Review 3 3 9 Evan* 3/28Meeting Minutes 1 1 1 Carla OngoingDraft of Results and Discussion 3 3 9 Matt* 4/1Revise Results and Discussion 2 2 4 Matt and 4/1Revise and post complete draft Carlaof report 2 2 4 Matt and 4/6

Christine Revise and edit Report 1 1 1 All 4/6Draft front and end matter 2 3 6 Christine 4/7Divvy up revisionsfor workshop 1 1 1 Carla 4/6

Revise draft 2 3 6 All Draft of everything duefor workshop 1 2 2 Matt 4/8

Final report workshop 1 1 1 All 4/8Revise final draft basedon feedback 2 3 6 Carla* 4/13

Complete Collaboration 1 1 1 All 4/13Report

Totals per Team Member (column 4 added up per person):Carla: 36 Christine: 33 Evan: 28 Matt: 34

Appendix BProject Roles Sheet

Your Name: _____________________________________Each team member will be assigned one of the following four roles. Look through these rolesto determine which one best match your strengths and the duties you would like to perform.


Role Desirable Skills Basic DutiesProject Manager Visionary who understands “big

picture.”Strong managerial and organizational skills.

Strong writer.Reliable and attentive.Effective problem solver.Motivator and advocate.

Prepares agenda for meetings.Takes and posts meeting minutes.Maintains and updates task schedule.Facilitates communication with teamand instructor.

Coordinates group communication through emails, memos, and other documents.

1. Rank the following roles from 1–4, where “1” best matches your strengths and the role youwould like for this project to “4” least matching your strengths and the role you want.

_____ Project Manager_____ Subject Matter Expert_____ Writer_____ Graphic Designer

2. Place a check mark beside any area you are willing to work. If you do not want to workin a certain area, leave line blank.

_____ Health and/or Nutrition _____ Mothers, Children, Families_____ Elderly Care_____ Animal Care_____ Environment_____ Education and Literacy_____ Arts and Culture

3. Is there anyone in this class with whom you do not want to work? List their name here.

Appendix C

Collaboration Feedback Form

1. How satisfied were you with the collaborative process?Extremely Satisfied Satisfied Not Satisfied

2. What is the most important thing you learned from drafting the written academic report?3. Name at least one new skill that you learned and briefly reflect on learning this skill.4. What were some positive experiences you had collaborating on this document?5. What aspects of the collaboration process proved to be most helpful in terms of keeping

the team on track? Why?


SubjectMatter Expert

Can find and sift throughinformation quickly andaccurately.

Good knowledge of subject.Thorough.Strong facilitator.

Coordinates research phase of project.Becomes subject-matter expert andcontributes core content to documents.

Provides access to source materials andreference items.

Reviews final documents for accuracy ofinformation and content.

Liaison Reliable and responsible.Good communicator.Keen understanding of audience’sneeds.

Attentive eye to detail.Personable.

Provides connection between team andclient by maintaining regular communication with client.

Sets up meetings with client.Communicates client’s needs and concernsto team.

Graphic Designer Good artistic eye.Good computer skills.Good grasp of visual and pagedesign feature.

Ability to predict and respondto the needs of the team.

Attentive eye to detail.

Creates, labels, and formats visuals (graphs, tables, images, etc.).

Compiles and formats document forconsistency and visual effectiveness.

6. What aspects of the collaboration process aided in you having a more positive experience? Why or how?

7. What proved to be the most challenging part of the collaboration part of this process?Do you have any suggestions on how this aspect might be improved (or not prove to beso challenging)?

8. Describe a point during this project when you and/or your partners constructively disagreed.How did you work through and use this disagreement to your advantage? If your groupdid not experience any constructive controversy, why do you think this was the case?

9. List all the contributions you made to this project. Be as thorough and specific as possible.10. List all the contributions each of your partners made to this project. Be as thorough and

specific as possible for each team member.11. Mark an asterisk in the question above (#10) next to the single-most important contri-

bution each of your partners made to this project.12. What were each of your partners’ strengths as collaborators? List several strengths for

each partner.13. Name some aspects in which each of your partners could improve his/her collaboration skills.

(Note that just because you list something here does not necessarily mean their collaborationgrade will be effected. This question is meant to help them grow as collaborators.)

14. Rank yourself and your team members where 1 is the “most work” to 4 being “least work”in the amount of work each team member contributed to the team project. If some teammembers contributed equally, then mark them as the same number.

15. What letter grade (use plus/minus) would you give each team member based on thequality of their work?

16 What letter grade (use plus/minus) would you give each team member based on their col-laboration?

17. What are some things you would have done differently looking back on the research proj-ect? What would you advise other students?

Notes

1. The following works provide thorough discussions on collaborative writing in the workplace: Anderson’s“What Survey Research Teaches Us about Writing at Work”; Lay and Karis’s Collaborative Writing in Industry:Investigations in Theory and Practice; and Lunsford and Ede’s Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Col-laborative Writing.

2. See Leonard et al. and Beach et al. for discussions on how experience collaborating in the classroomcan make students better prepared for workplace expectations.

3. This propensity to divide tasks by gender is at least somewhat due to a culture that tends to associatetechnology with men and language skills with women (Rehling, “Writing Together” 170-2; Natishan et al.271; Wolfe, Team Writing 43).

4. Jones describes each of these team models: In contextual interaction, the organizational context is usedduring collaboration, particularly by borrowing older documents from the organization (451-2). Hierarchicalcollaboration typically involves passing a document from one writer to the next in a sequential fashion or asingle author doing most of the writing and only engaging in collaboration when advice is needed (452-53).In group collaboration, a collection of people plan, draft, and revise together (454-55).

5. During graduate school, I had the opportunity to serve as a research assistant to Dr. Joanna Wolfe whohad received a National Science Foundation grant to study collaboration in technical writing classrooms.This research resulted in numerous published articles for Wolfe, as well as a recently published guidebookfor use in the classroom titled, Team Writing: A Guide to Working in Groups.

6. Other readings we discuss include: Burnett’s “‘Some People Weren’t Able to Contribute Anything ButTheir Technical Knowledge’ : The Anatomy of a Dysfunctional Team”; Jones’ “From Writers to InformationCoordinators: Technology and the Changing Face of Collaboration” ; and Rehling’s “‘Is It Theirs, Mine, orOurs?’”: Ownership, Collaboration, and Cultures” (1994). Joanna Wolfe’s book Team Writing is also an excel-


lent resource for an instructor looking to integrate a collaborative writing assignment into the classroom, andI highly recommend it as a textbook in classes where collaborative writing will be assigned.

7. These videos are available for viewing online at Bedford/St. Martin’s companion site for Wolfe’s TeamWriting.

8. This table is adapted from the following sources: Debs’s “Collaborative Writing in Industry,” Jones’s“From Writers to Information Coordinators,” Rehling’s “‘Is It Theirs, Mine, or Ours?’: Ownership, Collab-oration, and Cultures,” Rogers and Horton’s “Exploring the Value of Face-to-Face Collaborative Writing,”and Wolfe’s Team Writing.

9. See J. A. Rice’s “Devising Collective Knowledges for the Technical Writing Classroom” (2009) for adiscussion of the advantages of Web 2.0 technologies for collaborative writing. Also, see Joanna Wolfe’s TeamWriting for a section on Google Docs and Wikis, as well as other technology available for collaborative revising(74-78)

10. The Teamwork Database is located at : http://coldfusion.louisville.edu/jlwolf02/teamwork/. If youwould like access to the site it for viewing or use in your classes, please email Dr. Joanna Wolfe at :[email protected].

11. Student comments are from the collaboration reports submitted at the end of the project. 12. See Chapter Two of Wolfe’s Team Writing for a detailed chapter on project management.13. I ask students to address the type of conflict they will try to engage in. They have already learned

about productive and unproductive conflict after reading Burnett’s article, “Conflict in Collaborative DecisionMaking” in which she argues that the team process will be more productive if the team engages in “substantiveconflict,” where consensus is deferred and alternative solutions are voiced (144-6). On the contrary, affectiveconflict that focuses on interpersonal disagreements and procedural conflict, which concerns disagreementsabout how the team should work together, are unproductive and detrimental to collaboration (145). Whenwriting the team charter, I therefore ask them to focus on “substantive conflict.”

14. See the following texts for descriptions of problems with team projects: Anson and Forsberg’s “Movingbeyond the Academic Community: Transitional Stages in Professional Writing”; Odell’s “Beyond the Text:Relations between Writing and Social Context”; and Rehling’s “Writing Together: Gender’s Effect on Col-laboration.”

Works CitedAllen, Nancy, Dianne Atkinson, Meg Morgan, Teresa Moore, and Craig Snow. “What Experienced Collab-

orators Say about Collaborative Writing.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 1.2 (1987): 70–90. Print.

Anderson, Paul V. “What Survey Research Tells Us about Writing at Work.” In Odell and Goswami, 3–83. Print.Anson, Chris M., and L. Lee Forsberg. “Moving beyond the Academic Community: Transitional Stages in

Professional Writing.” Written Communication 7.2 (1987): 200–31. Print.Barker, Randolph T., and Frank J. Franzak. “Team Building in the Classroom: Preparing Students for Their

Organizational Culture.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 27.3 (1997): 303–15. Print.Barker, Randolph T., Glenn H. Gilbreath, and Warren S. Stone. “The Interdisciplinary Needs of Organiza-

tions: Are New Employees Adequately Equipped?” The Journal of Management Development 17.3 (1997):219–32. Web. ProQuest. 26 June 2010.

Beach, Richard, Chris Anson, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and Thom Swiss. Teaching Writing Using Blogs,Wikis, and Other Digital Tools. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon Pub, 2009. Print.

Beard, John D., Jone Rymer, and David L. Williams. “An Assessment System for Collaborative-WritingGroups: Theory and Empirical Evaluation.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 3.2 (1989):29–51. Print.

Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind.” College English 46.7 (1984):635–52. Web. JSTOR. 12 May 2010.

Burnett, Rebecca. “Conflict in Collaborative Decision-Making.” Professional Communication: The Social Per-spective. Ed. Nancy Roundy Blyler and Charlotte Thralls. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Pub., 1993. 144–62.Print.

_____. “‘Some People Weren’t Able to Contribute Anything But Their Technical Knowledge’: The Anatomyof a Dysfunctional Team.” Nonacademic Writing: Social Theory and Technolog y. Ed. Ann Hill Duin andCraig J. Hansen. Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum, 1996. 123–56. Print.

Dale, Helen. Co-Authoring in the Classroom: Creating an Environment for Effective Collaboration. Urbana, IL:NCTE, 1997. Print.

Debs, Mary Beth. “Collaborative Writing in Industry.” Technical Writing: Theory and Practice. Ed. Bertie E.Fearing and W. Keats Sparrow. New York: MLA, 1989. 33–42. Print.


Jones, Scott L. “From Writers to Information Coordinators: Technology and the Changing Face of Collab-oration.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 19.4 (2005): 449–67. Web. Sage Journals Online.22 June 2010.

Kittleson, Julie M., and Sherry A. Southerland. “The Role of Discourse in Group Knowledge Construction:A Case Study of Engineering Students.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41.3(2004): 267–93. Web.EBSCO. 24 June 2010.

Lay, Mary M., and William M. Karis, eds. Collaborative Writing in Industry: Investigations in Theory and Prac-tice. Amityville, NY: Baywood, 1991. Print.

Leonard, James S., Christine E. Wharton, Robert Murray Davis, and Jeanette Harris, eds. Author-ity andTextuality: Current Views of Collaborative Writing. West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 1994. Print.

Lowry, Paul Benjamin, and Jan F. Nunamaker, Jr. “Using Internet-Based, Distributed Collaborative WritingTools to Improve Coordination and Group Awareness in Writing Teams.” IEEE Transactions on ProfessionalCommunication 46.4 (2003): 277–97. Web. IEEE Electronic Library Online. 22 June 2010.

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Part V. Can special populations benefit from collaborative activities?

Working Together Towards Greatness:The Cumulative Writing Modeland English Language Learners

ROBB MARK MCCOLLUM

As an instructor of composition both to native English speaking and English as a secondlanguage learners, I am constantly striving to develop a model for academic writing that helpsstudents learn the skills and language that will prepare them to be successful with writtenassignments in their future courses and careers. This article details the learning strategies,classroom activities, and teaching techniques that I have synthesized from my experienceswith students and fellow teachers. I propose a model for academic writing that helps studentsfocus on learning the language of academic research while participating in a collaborativeresearch community. This model, the Cumulative Writing Model, demonstrates how collab-oration is not just a supplemental feature to the writing classroom; instead, this approachshows how collaboration is essential to helping students become effective consumers and cre-ators of research-based writing.

Collaboration and the Cumulative Writing ModelDeveloping proficiency in argumentative academic writing is an important skill for uni-

versity success (Pennycook; Wolfersberger). This ability requires multiple subskills includingthe ability to analyze, synthesize, summarize, paraphrase, and cite (Britt and Aglinkas;Chapelle, Enright, and Jamieson; Singh) and, as Harklau and Howard, Serviss, and Rodriguehave pointed out, this ability is not readily achieved by all college-age students. Both Keckand Yu and have observed that this struggle to attain advanced literacy is even more difficultfor second language writers. In addition to grappling with the modes and standards of uni-versity-level academic writing, studies suggest that non-native writers are also faced with lin-guistic and cultural challenges that impede their ability to write from sources (AscensionDelaney; Campbell; Hyland; Wheeler).

This article outlines how a collaborative classroom approach to composition can addressthe challenges facing college-age writers. Over the past several years, I have refined a modelfor teaching research writing that encourages students to work together as they learn the essen-tial skills of academic writing. I have used this model with a variety of student groups, and Ihave found that it is especially beneficial to English as a Second Language learners. Myapproach is based on models of research writing as proposed by Bullock and Goggin. They

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suggest that research writing can be broken down into a sequences of smaller tasks including1) finding sources, 2) annotating sources, 3) synthesizing sources, 4) developing an argument,5) creating an outline, 6) drafting, and 7) revising. The model I use, the Cumulative WritingModel (CWM), follows this basic procedure, yet instead of proceeding through these stepsonly once, the CWM repeats the research writing process multiple times in a single semester.With each iteration, collaboration is key to helping students improve their ability to accomplisheach step and increase their confidence in research writing.

Two elements differentiate the CWM the most from other approaches to first-year writing:the model’s focus on a single rhetorical pattern and its collaborative nature. First, the CWMreduces the number of organizational patterns that students must learn during the course ofone semester. In a typical first-year writing class, students may be asked to learn three or fourdifferent genres such as critique, personal narrative, argumentative essay, and research report.Although teaching multiple writing genres is a valid consideration in a composition course,there are other goals that may deserve priority in a research-writing class for English languagelearners; researchers have suggested that lexical, grammatical, and anti-plagiarism concernsare especially relevant to non-native English language writers (Evans, Hartshorn, McCollum,and Wolfersberger; Lee and Chen; Plankans; Nakamura; Storch). These learners would benefitmore from explicit English language instruction that helps them to appropriately integratesources into their research writing. This is why the CWM limits the types of writing requiredof students in order to help them hone the skills necessary to complete a research paper writingassignment. Because of this, the CWM is most effective in a writing program that 1) requiresstudents to develop research writing from sources, 2) provides opportunities for students tolearn other writing genres in other courses, and 3) understands that some students, such asnon-native English language users, benefit from explicit instruction in the language of academiccommunication.

The second characteristic that separates the CWM from common writing frameworks isthat the CWM thrives on collaboration among course participants. The CWM is designed toencourage students to learn from one another as they read and share source material, prepareoutlines, revise drafts, and offer their own writing as background reading to their peers. Thesecollaborative activities help students to develop both written and oral communication skillsas they share their writing process and products with one another. Through the CWM’s col-laborative activities, students increase their audience awareness and the realization that theirresearch writing involves participating in a wider community of learning.

A Basic Outline for the Cumulative Writing Model

As started earlier, the CWM is based on accepted approaches to research writing. But,true to its name, the Cumulative Writing Model repeats this process multiple times during acourse, increasing the complexity with each iteration. This approach helps students to teachand learn from their peers as they collaborate more deeply with each iteration.

Students begin by writing a simple problem definition paper on their first topic. Then,when students submit their problem paper to their instructor, they also share their writ-ing with peers who can use that paper as a source document for the next assignment. Thesecond paper is a causes paper that summarizes a problem and then investigates possible causes. Students can use peers’ first papers in helping to write the synthesis of the problem,but then the students must add to the issue by focusing on the causes. Once again, in additionto submitting their assignment to the instructor, students also share their causes paper withtheir classmates. In the final iteration, students will have both problem papers and causes

202 V: Can special populations benefit from collaborative activities?

papers, authored by their peers, as background source materials for writing the final assignment.The solutions paper requires students to go beyond describing a problem and its causes toinvestigating potential solutions. Because students rely on both the bibliographies and theresearch writing of their peers, students provide one another with feedback on their researchwriting. This collaboration can lead to improved communication skills and better researchpapers.

A visual summary of this process can be seen in Figure 1. A student, Kimberly, is assignedTopic A for her first paper. She and other students who are also writing about Topic A sharerelevant sources with one another but write their own problem papers on that topic. (At the same time, other students are writing about Topic B and Topic C.) For the second assign-ment, Kimberly is assigned to Topic B. She has access to all the sources that Topic B studentsused for the first assignment, and she also has a copy of each of their problem papers. She can use all of these materials to help her summarize the problem, but she will need to collab-orate with other Topic B students in order to find sources to help her write the causes aspectof the second assignment. Once she has completed the causes paper, she will move onto the final assignment: the solutions paper. Now she is writing about Topic C, and she will have several problem and causes papers as background sources. She will also have an extensivecollaborative bibliography from peers who previously wrote about this topic. However, she and her Topic C peers will need to find additional sources that will help them write the solutions part of this final assignment. By the end of the course, she will have written three research papers of increasing complexity on three different topics: see Figure 1below.

Figure 1. The CWM Process

Working Together Towards Greatness (McCollum) 203

In the section that follows, I provide a more detailed description of each stage of the CWMand how collaboration increases with each iteration.

Determine Research Topics andCollaborative Groups

Whether your course follows a pre-specified theme or whether you allow students to selecttheir own research topics, the CWM works best when students write from a limited numberof research topics because fewer research topics foster an increased sense of community. Withfewer options, students are more likely to take an interest into peers’ papers, and fewer topicsmeans that more students are working on any given topic and can share resources with others.

I recommend selecting three or four topics: one topic for the practice paper, and thenthree others for the cumulative assignments. As the instructor, I select the topic of the practicepaper, generally something related to study skills or university life. For example, one semesterour class wrote the practice problem paper about university general education requirements;another semester, we investigated the problem of online civility. These topics were of interestto all class members since they already had experiences and opinions about these issues. Thishelped raise their interest in the assignment and motivated them to seek out what others hadto write about these issues.

Although I decide the practice paper topic on my own, I invite the class to propose pos-sible topic areas for the following papers. We begin this discussion as students are completingtheir practice papers. As we begin evaluating topics, I notice that students sometimes needhelp determining appropriate topics, and the following steps can help. First, I ask them tobrainstorm a list of current events or news stories. I then model how a news event can serveas a catalyst for developing a research topic. For example, a prominent news story one semesterinvolved a devastating earthquake. In discussing this news event in class, I helped the studentssee that many possible research topics could stem from that story: How effective were emer-gency services in responding to the crisis? How did government officials coordinate reliefefforts? How could construction efforts have been improved in order to minimize the impactof the quake? With each question, one or more possible problem papers exist.

My students and I have found that browsing the front page of a major newspaper or viewing the news media web homepages can help identify current events that would translateto appropriate research topics. Once we have a good list of potential topics, the students vote to determine the three official topics. Each student gets three votes from among theapproved list (voting can take place in class by raised hands, or online by survey or email mes-sages to the instructor), and the three most popular topics become the official course topics.Figure 2 displays an example of brainstormed topics and student votes (from a class of 15 students); the highlighted topics have the most votes and were the topics students wrote onthat semester.

Figure 2: List of potential research topicsTopic Votes

Culture shock and international students 2Equality issues for women in the workplace 8Earthquake emergency preparedness 6Economic recovery from recession 3Food shortages in developing nations 5Internet freedom and censorship 9Civil unrest and political defiance 12


I inform students that they will probably get to write about at least one of their preferredtopics, but that they probably will have to write about at least one topic that they dislike.Still, I tell them that I will try to show them how to develop an interest for all three topicsby participating in collaborative research writing. I assure them that writing about a topicthat does not interest them is actually an important research skill since during their universitystudy, and in their careers, it is likely that they will be assigned to work on projects that donot match their personal preferences. If they can learn to enjoy writing about a topic that itof little initial interest to them, they will increase their chance of success with similar expe-riences in the future. I have found that the collaborative nature of the CWM helps studentsto discover previously unknown interest in an assigned topic as they explore the issue throughsmall group discussions.

When I first used the CWM, I allowed students to select any topic from a list of ten foreach of their papers. However, I quickly found that this resulted in some students who werethe lone researchers for some topics, and other large research groups for more popular topics.Neither option was particularly effectives for collaboration learning and participation: lonestudents lost out on collaborative feedback, and large groups had too many students to allowfor individualized feedback for all participants during a single group session. So, in subsequentsemesters, I have evenly assigned students among the three most popular topics to ensure thatthere are reasonably-sized research groups at each stage of the semester. Students rotate amongthe three topics so that each student writes about all three topics by the end of the course,which means that there is a relatively equal number of source papers in any given topic forassigned students in the next iteration.

Model the Research Writing Processwith the Practice Paper

Some students in my first-year writing courses have never written an academic paperbefore, let alone a research paper in their second language. Before assigning them to work ontheir own papers, I take the first few weeks of the course to model the research writing process.During this time, I select a topic that is general interest to my students (such as The DebatedValue of General Education Programs) and together we read a variety of related articles. Idemonstrate in class how I found the sources, and we even take time to discuss less-than-worthy sources and why they might not be relevant to our research. For example, I encouragestudents to consider criteria in evaluating their sources such as academic merit, timeliness,expertise of author, evidence of bias, and so forth. I have found that it is useful to ask studentsto generate a list of source types that they might use for a research paper, and then as a classwe evaluate their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Figure 3 (p. 206) shows a source mapping grid that I use to help students understandthe appropriateness of particular sources.

As students brainstorm possible research sources, for example, an encyclopedia article or a newspaper report, we discuss the evaluation criteria and then place it on the grid. I explainthat over the course of their academic study, they want to become comfortable relying primarilyon sources from the upper-left quadrant; however, I explain that these sources contain the most challenging and esoteric language of all possible source texts. I encourage studentsto try using one or two sources from this quadrant, and then to use other more approachabletexts (such as news articles or the writing of other students) for their other sources. The grid mapping and discussion proves to be an effective method of helping student understandwhy popular internet sources (such as Wikipedia or personal webpages/blogs) may not be


appropriate sources for academic research writing, though such sources may function as aspringboard to other sources if they contain bibliographies.

Once we have a foundation of articles on the topic (usually four or five), we then readand summarize them as a class. I try to model effective strategies for creating an annotatedbibliography: in addition to a reference citation and short summary, each entry also includesan explanation of the source’s relevance to the research topic along with at least one quote orparaphrase that could be used in the paper. The completed annotated bibliography is thenposted to a shared location (such as a course management system or a class wiki) so that allclass members can access the entries and articles.

Following our creation of an annotated bibliography, we spend time exploring effectivewriting processes. The first-year writing program at my institution takes an argument-basedapproach to research writing, and I model pre-writing strategies using a synthesis matrix (seeFigure 3) in order to demonstrate how to collect relevant evidence for an argument paper.The matrix can help students analyze relevant information from numerous articles into anorganized set of notes that they can use to 1) determine a thesis statement, and 2) generatean outline for their paper. A synthesis matrix can also help students to visualize their depend-ence on source documents as see whether their research suffers from bias or a lack of perspective;in other words, if a student’s research relies too heavily on one author or even one type ofsource, this will be reflected in the research matrix and so the student (or a peer or instructor)can consult the matrix to determine whether additional research is necessary in order to gatheradditional evidence.


Figure 3. Source Mapping Grid

After I have completed a research matrix with my students, I then model how I woulduse the information in the matrix to determine a thesis statement and an outline. For mostsupporting claims in the outline, I reference at least one of the articles from our matrix. Thishelps students to see how claims are strongest when supported by appropriate sources. Figure4 demonstrates how a student can adapt an outline from a problem paper research matrix.

Figure 4—A Research Matrix and anOutline for a Problem Paper

Synthesis Matrix for Practice Problem Paper

Topic: Online Civility

Practice Problem Paper Rough Outline

1. Introductiona. Hook (story about online bullying—Hampson et al.)b. Identification of issuec. emphasize seriousness of problemd. Thesis statement: The decline of online civility effects not only our online inter-

actions, but has extended to real world interactions and has negative consequencesfor individuals, businesses, and communities.


Source Problem Effecte/Consequences Other commentsHampson, R., Leinward,D., & Marcus, M. B.(2010, October 2). Suicideshows need for civility, pri-vacy online. USA Today.Retrieved fromhttp://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010–09–30-rutgers-suicide-sex-video_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Invasion of privacy,lack of respectDangers of internet(cyber-bullying andonline humiliation)

Harassment, suicide/death(para.6)Stricter laws regarding privacy and internet use?(para. 26)More sensitivity and internet safety training(para. 27)

Raises awareness ofonline civility prob-lems to mainstreamAmerica (esp problemswith youth)

Shirky, C. (2011, January-February). Cleaning uponline conversation. Har-vard Business Review.Retrieved from http://hbr.org/web/extras/hbr-agenda-2011/clay-shirky

Bad online interac-tions, lack of civil con-versation

Businesses are troubled bybad public discourse andthe potential effect on busi-ness image (para. 4)

This article focusesmostly on causes andsolutions, with only abit about the effects

Snell, G. F. (2010, February6). Much ado about com-menting. HighTalk.Retrieved from http://hightalk.net/2010/02/10/much-ado-about-commenting/

Backlash against com-menting and Web 2.0interactions

Many businesses are con-sidering removing com-menting features from theirsites due to offensive com-ments from users (para. 5)

Another article fromthe business perspec-tive on the problem

West, R. (2010, Fall).Improving online civility.McKay Today. Retrievedfrom http://education.byu.edu/news/magazine/civilityonline/

Online civility hasdeclined with theadvancement of Web2.0 technologies thatallow user interaction

Most citizens feel that civildiscourse has declined(para. 3)Internet users publishoffensive statement behindthe “shroud of anonymity”(para. 4)

Also focuses mostly oncauses and solutions.Takes the perspectiveof social responsibility

2. Interactive, participatory nature of Interneta. Web 2.0 technologies (Shirky, Snell, and West articles)b. Anonymity online (Shirky, Snell, and West articles)

3. Effects on businessesa. Commenting sites (Shirky and Snell)b. Good versus bad web design for social participation

4. Effects on individuals and familiesa. Spending too much time online distracts from healthy interactions (West)b. Users exposed to uncivil language (Shirky, Snell, West, and Hampton et al.)c. Harassment and cyber bullying (Hampton et al.)

i. suicide and criminal actions5. Effects on communities

a. New laws and policies (Snell, Hampton et al.)b. Increased awareness of the dangers of online use (West, Hampton et al.)

6. Conclusiona. Summarize main effects and restate thesisb. Suggest the need to learn more about source of problem in order to solve it

At this point, students are now ready to do some independent work. I instruct them towrite a draft based on our shared outline. During this drafting phase, we spend class time dis-cussing sentence and paragraph formation including ways to introduce sources and effectivetopic sentences. In a matter of days, students will have produced a short research paper (about3–4 pages in length) based on three or four source documents. I conclude the modeling processby discussing a citation page and proper research paper formatting. In all, I only take the firsttwo weeks of a typical fifteen-week semester course for the practice paper modeling. This leavesabout thirteen weeks for students to repeat the process with three different topics.

Begin with the Problem Paper

Now that students are familiar with the basic process of writing a research paper, theyare now ready to experiment with the process in small groups. Each student is randomlyassigned one of the course topics and begins locating sources. I usually serve as a coach, helpingstudents conduct library and internet research as modeled earlier. Each student is required tofind at least two relevant sources and then add them to the group’s shared annotated bibliog-raphy. This means that in a group of four students working on the same topic, each studentwill eventually have access to eight potential sources. I provide students with class time topresent summaries of their sources to their group members, and students often use this timeto help one another understand the issue and the position that various authors take.

Each students is then required to select at least five texts from the group’s bibliographyfor analysis in that student’s synthesis matrix. After reading and analyzing those sources, stu-dents use their matrix to develop their thesis statement and outline. For the problem paper,a typical thesis statement involves persuading the reader that the chosen issue is a pertinentproblem that deserves attention. The outline will contain supporting evidence that indicateswhy the issue is a concern and what is currently happening (or will happen in the future) ifnothing is done to address the problem (the negative effects or consequences).

During the drafting process, I continue to discuss principles of good writing and effectiveresearch methods, but I also reserve a portion of each class for small group discussion. Studentsmeet in research teams and discuss sources and arguments with their peers. Inevitably, students


diverge in their approach to the assigned topic due to their personal interests, experiences,and selected sources; however, group collaboration helps students to receive feedback frompeers who are studying the same general topic, and so these sessions prove useful in helpingstudents understand the articles they read and improve the quality of their arguments. Othertimes, I place students into partnerships with representatives from the other topic areas. Thisprovides them with an opportunity to present the most current version of their outline ordraft to a classmate who is less familiar with the topic and will help them see whether theirexplanations are sufficient in communicating their ideas.

These small group meetings not only provide students with feedback that will influencetheir writing, but these interactions also help English language learners to practice their oralcommunication skills. In this way, the CWM helps students develop their presentation andargumentative skills in print and in speech. At the conclusion of the problem paper, studentswill have written a paper that is about 5–6 pages in length based on research from five or sixsources. When students submit their final draft to the instructor, they also make a copy avail-able to their classmates.

Build Onward with the Causes Paper

With the second assignment, students move onto a new topic. Their classmates whowrote about this topic for the problem paper have left them with several valuable documents:a list of annotated sources and several problem papers. The new group can begin by skimmingthrough their classmate’s papers. I then provide class time for students to ask the authorsquestions about their papers. Readers frequently ask for clarification of the authors’ statements,and very quickly authors learn the importance of good writing since their audience is physicallyin front of them demanding clarification for any confusing aspects of the paper. Through thisnegotiation students learn that academic writing really is about building upon the work ofothers and joining in on the academic conversation (Graff and Birkenstein).

Once students have a good background on the problem, it is now their responsibility toresearch the causes of the problem. Just as they did with the problem paper, students arerequired to contribute at least two entries to the shared group bibliography. Then, each studentselects a total of seven or eight sources to synthesize; a few of these will probably be referencesfrom the problem bibliography, but the remainder will be used to analyze the causes aspectof the paper. A thesis for this paper aims to convince the reader which causes have had thegreatest influence in creating the identified problem. In general, the causes paper will includea short summary of the problem and then expound on possible causes. The final draft is typ-ically about seven or eight pages long.

With the second iteration of the CWM, I spend even more time discussing proper citationpractices. Now that students are potentially citing their classmates’ problem papers in theircauses papers, they are more attuned to the rights and responsibilities of appropriate refer-encing. Students are now more attentive to summarizing and paraphrasing strategies, and theyare more diligent with quotation procedures since they expect their classmates to quote themcorrectly as well. As a class we evaluate examples of paraphrasing, summary, and quotationin order to point out good, bad, and best practices. Oftentimes, students learn at least as muchfrom an example of poor source use than they do from a model exemplar. By this point inthe CWM, students are learning that research writing is more than just summarizing whatothers have said; instead, they begin to see that synthesis allows them to create a new argumentthat builds upon the work of other writers. Because students have the opportunity to discusstheir drafts with their peer groups and with those who wrote problem papers on the same


topic, they begin to better understand how academic writing is akin to participating in anacademic discussion where authors debate and issues through analysis of evidence.

Complete the Process with the Solutions Paper

The final assignment is the culmination of several iterations with research writing. Stu-dents move onto a third research topic and now have a collection of both problem papers and causes papers related to their topic. They also have more than a dozen annotated bibli-ographic references related to their issue. As with the previous iteration, they first take timeto peruse the literature that their predecessors have produced, and they take time to interviewthe authors. Then, they add to the bibliography through the addition of sources that provideinformation about potential solutions to the problem. With the inclusion of their own entries,students will select 9–10 sources to help them analyze the issue with their synthesis ma-trix.

During this reading and analysis stage, students are apt to note questions about theirtopic that they want to ask their peer predecessors. Fortunately, the matrix can become a pow-erful tool for peer collaboration, especially in the later iterations of the CWM. Figure 5 displaysa work-in-progress research matrix for a student named Samuel. He has begun research hissolutions paper on the topic of Plagiarism among ESL Students. He has indicated that twoof this current sources come from his classmates’ previous papers (Lin and Hernandez) andthree others were sources that classmates had used when writing those assignments. Samuelhas also noted that he is still looking for a few more sources since his current sources do notprovide enough information about solutions to the problem. His notes (in the far right column)include questions he will ask his classmates when he goes to class next week. He hopes thatthey will be able to provide him with the suggestions for additional sources. He may alsolearn a few sources from peers who are also writing a solutions paper on this topic. As agraphic organizer, not only does the research matrix help Samuel to organize his notes, butit also helps him know what information he needs to ask his classmates during collaborativesessions.

Figure 5–A Work-in-Progress Research Matrix

Synthesis Matrix for Samuel’s Solution Paper

Topic: Plagiarism in ESL WritingThesis statement: Punishment is not an effective way to stop plagiarism among ESL students; instead,administrators and instructors need to do a better job of teaching students how to properly use sourcematerials.


SourceWhy is thisa problem?

What are thecauses?

What are thesolutions?

OtherComments

Crane (2007)*This was one ofPing’s sources

Students are getting expelled

Bad references Expulsion, but noteffective since it’snot stopping therate of plagiarism

This is not a goodsolution. Does Pingread about any bet-ter solutions?

Heller (2008)*I got this sourcefrom Danny’s paper

Students are failingclasses; teachers arefrustrated

Copied passagesand plagiarism misunderstandings

Failing grades—butjust leaves everyonewith a bad attitude

Also a bad solution.Does Danny haveany other ideas?

Lin (2011)*This is Ping’s Problem Paper

Students fail, getexpelled, drop out

_____ _____ I should ask Pingmore about herpaper.

The thesis statement for a solutions paper will likely argue that one solution (or a com-bination of solutions) is the best resolution to the identified problem. The paper will includea summary of the problem and an explanation of it primary causes, but the bulk of the assign-ment will focus on evaluating possible solutions and making a final recommendation thataddresses the problem that was first introduced in a classmate’s paper, several weeks ago. Thefinal draft of the solutions paper is typically about 9–10 pages in length.

By this point in the CWM, students have repeated the research process multiple times.However, the change in topic and the added complexity of each iteration keeps studentsengaged and motivated to finish the final paper. Additionally, because they have used the samekinds of academic language (i.e., verbs to introduce sources, and transition and summaryphrases) with all three iterations, they have had many opportunities to demonstrate theirgrowing command of academic English in a variety of topic areas. Students have also increasedtheir ability to use effective research writing strategies, and they have learned how to tackle alarge research assignment by approaching it as a series of steps. I always find it encouragingto see that students who, at the beginning of the course, were intimidated at the prospect ofwriting ten-page research paper, have the confidence and the skill to write an effective researchpaper from sources.

Moreover, the CMW has effected valuable changes in student ability due to the model’scollaborative nature. As expected, students will improve their ability to write convincing andclear arguments thanks to the feedback of peers who will challenge weak evidence or vaguestatements. Additionally, students will improve their ability to communicate orally, given thatthe CMW uses class time for group discussion and author-reader interviews. Writers will gainexperience defending their work in spoken English as they discuss their sources and their ownpapers. The collaboration also helps students to better conceptualize the goal of academic andresearch writing: shared knowledge. As students work in subsequent research groups, theypass on their research to peer groups who build on that work and eventually offer solutionsto the original research problems. In the CMW, collaboration is not simply a convenient tech-nique to make learning more enjoyable; rather, it is an essential component to developingbetter writing and better writers.

Solicit Feedback from Your Students

Throughout the CWM, but especially at the end of the process, instructors shouldencourage their students to share their thoughts about the learning process. Encourage studentsto evaluate the strategies that you model and decide which techniques work best for them. Ilet my students know that they do not have to adopt any strategy that they do not like; how-ever, I require them to employ my suggested strategies throughout the semester in order to


Hernandez (2011)*This is Danny’sProblem Paper

Percentage of ESLstudents in U.S.universities isincreasing, so pla-giarism willincrease unlessproblem is solved

Different expecta-tions between students and professors aboutwhat is acceptable

_____ I need to ask Dannymore about these“expectations.”What kind ofthings did they notagree about?.

Naimova (2009)*This article camefrom Rini’s CausesPaper

_____ Linguistic limita-tions (poor para-phrasing) andcultural differences(citation rules)

Better education.More practice. Dis-cuss good and badexamples

Ask Rini how shefound this article.Maybe she can helpme find at least onemore article.

determine their effectiveness. Then, if they still do not like it at the end of the semester, theynever have to use it again.

At the same time, I respect students’ opinions and have improved the quality of theCWM based on student feedback—both the positive and the negative. For example, one year,student midterm feedback helped me realize that students loved vocabulary building exercises(and they wanted more of them), but students also let me know that they would like theirpeers’ papers posted to a shared internet folder so that they could access the files from theirown computers outside of class time. I was able to adapt the remainder of the semester (andsubsequent offerings of the course) to this feedback and tailor class sessions to my studentsinterest, needs, and goals. As instructors seek out the opinions of their students, not only dothey show that they value their students’ experiences, but they also model good metacognitivereflection by showing the importance of continually working towards improving an academicprocess—just as students should work to refine their individual research writing process.Moreover, this teaching attitude demonstrates to learners that collaboration between studentsand instructor is an important factor for a healthy community of learning.

Collaborative Activities for Use withthe Cumulative Writing Model

Peer review and group discussion are common collaborative activities for the writingclassroom, and when employed effectively, they can be powerful tools in helping writers honetheir skills (Feagin, Strenski, and Singer; Lundstrom and Baker). I often employ peer reviewactivities during the CWM process along with many other collaborative classroom activities.The following are a list of activities that help build a sense of cooperation among writers.Most of these activities can be used at various stages of the CWM.Speed-interviews: This activity, inspired by speed-dating, encourages students to share oraldrafts of their writing with their peers. Students are formed into pairs and are usually givena set of questions to help them learn about their peer’s research topic. Students are given atime limit to interview one another (often just a few minutes each), and then students rotateinto new partnerships. The process is repeated several times which helps writers to gainmultiple perspectives on their work while also better refining their explanations with each newpartnership. As students are interviewed, they discover which aspects of their paper needgreater clarification or support. For example, interviewers may ask writers why they shouldcare about their partner’s research, and this encourages writers to return to their drafts, post-interview, to improve their relevancy. Likewise, an interviewer may be confused by the ter-minology in a writer’s explanation, prompting the writer to better define terms. The purposeof speed-interviews is to help writers evaluate their current draft by orally defending theircomposition to a peer.Vocabulary games: As Graff and Birkenstein point out in their guide for first-year writingstudents, the language of academic argument is foreign even for native speakers of a language.This is especially true for ESL writers who conduct research writing; they benefit from explicitinstruction of academic vocabulary and phrases (Coxhead). Vocabulary games can be a greatway to review and enhance vocabulary learning. In addition to playing charades, drawing,circumlocution, and other word guessing games, my student also enjoy playing a written formof the telephone game. In this pass-along writing game (McCollum), students are requiredto write a sentence using target words or phrases from a vocabulary list. Then, the paper ispassed on to a peer who must draw a quick image to represent the written statement. Thesecond student folds back the original sentence, and passes the drawing on to a third student


who must create a new sentence (using target words or structures) based on the previous stu-dent’s drawing. Play continues in this manner for 3–5 iterations at which point students revealall sentences and drawings to see whether the meaning of the original sentence was preservedor altered through the process. This writing game employs multiple social vocabulary learningstrategies as highlighted by Pavicic Takac that can help writers expand and retain academicwords.Online resource sharing: One of the challenges of research writing is time spent on sourcefinding. As part of the CWM, I try to reduce the amount of time students spend locatingsources so that they can increase the amount of time spent writing and revising. By havingstudents work in topic groups, they can also pool source material. At the start of a unit, Irequire students to gather two relevant sources for their topic and create a detailed annotatedbibliography. Then, students post their bibliography to a shared folder on a school server ora class wiki. Once all students in the topic group post their two materials, each participanthas numerous relevant sources at a fraction of the time it would take to find them withoutthe help of the group. Moreover, the sharing of these sources encourages students to choosehigh quality articles since they know that their group members will evaluate and critiquethose selections. The shared sources also help with peer review activities since students candiscuss the articles with their group and seek clarification from others who have read the samearticles. Additionally, once the class has moved onto subsequent phases of the CWM, writerscan refer to the repository of shared sources to help them learn about their newly assignedtopic.Reading model papers: In a writing class, students often need to develop both their micro-language (vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics) and their macro-language (rhetorical patterns,organizational techniques, transitions). Sometimes it can be difficult for students to make theconnection between the micro-language lessons and large writing assignments. In order tohelp students bridge the gap, instructors can provide students with model papers that exemplifythe structures, styles, and patterns that students are required to produce. Instructors can assigngroups to read through these exemplars and locate examples of the types of micro- and macro-language structures that are being studied. As students read these model papers, we see howother writers employ language to solve rhetorical tasks. They can then employ those structuresin their own writing.Practice-rating benchmarks: An extension of reading model papers is providing studentswith the opportunity to evaluate those peer-level models according to a relevant rubric orgrading scheme. Although a rubric is an important element to a standards setting program(Brown & Abeywickrama), even a well-written writing rubric can be ambiguous to interpretand apply without the help of benchmarks (McTighe & O’Connor). By providing studentswith the opportunity to read and then practice-rate various example papers (ranging in qualityfrom poor to excellent), instructors are encouraging students to discuss how the rubric is rep-resented in actual papers. In their small groups, students teach one another to recognize thestrengths and weaknesses of these anchor paper and then can, very quickly, become accurateat assigning the appropriate rating to a sample paper. The purpose of practice-rating is tohelp students to internalize the qualities of the grading rubric so that they become betteraware of course expectations. As a result, students are in a better position to improve theirown writing, and they are also more accurate in assessing the quality of their own writing andthus anticipating the grade they will receive for their own work. Practice-rating demystifiesthe grading process and helps students to feel more confident in both the scoring rubric andin their own ability to achieve a desired grade.Live writing with feedback: The more that students will be required to write from source


material, the more feedback they will need on their paraphrasing, summarizing, and quotingskills. Although most instructors already provide written feedback on student drafts, I havefound that students respond well to immediate oral feedback on live writing exercises in theclassroom. For this activity, each student finds a space at one of the classroom chalkboards(or students can take turns, if board space is limited). In step one, students write a sentenceor paragraph related to their research topic such as a definition or explanation and then addtheir name and year to the statement in simple citation format (such as written by Shuai Li).In step two, students rotate one space along the board so that they are facing a peer’s writing.Then, depending on the desired skill, students are instructed to paraphrase, summarize, orquote the statement in front of them, making sure to properly cite the original author. Uponstudents’ completion of the task, I then read aloud each citation with the class and discussstrengths and weaknesses. For example, the students and I assess whether a summary is conciseenough, whether a quotation is properly punctuated, or whether a paraphrase is in danger ofplagiarizing the original author. Variations on this activity include requiring writers to performadditional rhetorical tasks such as agreeing or disagreeing with the original statement. In thisway, students better develop not only their language skills but are also gaining experience inbuilding an academic, written conversation. These written conversations are especially effectivewhen the original authors orally dispute the way in which their statements are used by thesubsequent writer, which then encourages improved clarification on behalf of both the originalauthor and the source user. Live writing activities can help students to better compose theirown ideas and to use the words of others more responsibly. Furthermore, this collaborativeactivity helps student to feel more comfortable sharing their writing with others since classmatesand instructor can see their live writing and provide immediate feedback on their use of lan-guage.

Adapting the Cumulative Writing Model

Every institution has particular goals for its composition courses. If you see aspects ofthe CWM that would benefit your students, adapt it to meet the expectations of your program.For example, although I use a problem-solution paper with my students, the CWM couldfunction equally well with a variety of different writing genres. The key is to find a logicalway to break the final paper’s structure into a few smaller papers so that students can practicewith the sub-structure before writing the final paper. Also, although I have developed theCWM with English as a second language learners in mind, the model may prove just aseffective with other groups for whom it would be useful to break down a complex writingtask in smaller, cumulative stages.

Whatever your needs, the key to successful implementation of the CWM is to reducethe cognitive demands on your students by helping them to learn the aspects of compositionthat you feel are most important through successive iterations of increasingly complex writingtasks. As you model effective strategies, your students will see how a once seemingly dauntingtask is actually within their capabilities as they develop their writing skills through cumulativeassignments.

Better Writing and Better Writers through Collaboration

The CWM can be an effective model for writing pedagogy for numerous reasons. Thisapproach lessens the emphasis on learning new genres of writing and instead allows more timefor language instruction and for group collaboration. The greater attention to vocabulary and


structures makes this model particularly useful for English as a second language populationswho may need additional exposure to the forms and conventions of academic English. Insteadof moving from one writing style to another, in the CWM, students can experiment andreceive feedback on their ability to employ effective research writing language. Additionally,the collaborative nature of the model contributes to oral language development as well: Byworking in groups and discussing their sources and papers, students can improve their abilityto explain and defending their arguments in speech and conversation.

The collaborative approach is also an essential component to helping students to under-stand how academic research is a continuous progression of learning, sharing, and buildingupon the work of others. As students read the work of their peers, as source material for sub-sequent assignments, they carry out discussions about meaning, purpose, and the implicationsthat previous texts have on future assignments. This approach helps students to better con-ceptualize the nature of academic research: participation in academic (written) conversations(Graff and Birkenstein). This happens as students see how a topic develops over the courseof a semester from problem paper, to causes paper, and finally solutions paper with studentcollaboration and interaction at each step of the process. As learners work together, theyimprove not only their written assignments, but they also become better writers.

Works CitedAscension Delaney, Yuly. “Investigating the Reading-to-write Construct.” Journal of English for Academic

Purposes 7.3 (2008): 140–150. Print.Bullock, Richard, and Maureen Daly Goggin. A Guide to Teaching: The Norton Field Guides to Writing. 2nd

ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.Britt, M. Anne, and Cindy Aglinkas. “Improving Students’ Ability to Identify and use Source Information.”

Cognition and Instruction 20.4 (2002): 485–522. Print.Brown, H. Douglas, and Priyanvada Abeywickrama. Language Assessment: Principles and Practices. 2nd ed.

White Plains, NY: Pearson Education, 2010. Print.Campell, Cherry. “Writing with Other’s Words: Using background Reading Text in Academic Compositions.”

Second Language Writing: Research Insights for the Classroom. Ed. Barbara Kroll. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990. 211–230. Print.

Chapelle, Carol A., Mary K. Enright, and Joan M. Jamieson, eds. Building a validity argument for the Test ofEnglish as a Foreign Language. New York, NY: Routledge, 2008. Print.

Coxhead, Averil. “A New Academic Word List.” TESOL Quarterly 34.2 (2000): 213–238. Print.Evans, Norm W., K. James Hartshorn, Robb Mark McCollum, and Mark Wolfersberger. “Contextualizing

Corrective Feedback in Second Language Writing Pedagogy.” Language Teaching Research 14.4 (2010): 440–465. Print.

Feagin, Caley O’Dwyer, Ellen Strenski, and Jonathan A. Singer. “Email Small Group Peer Review Revisited.”Computers and Composition 22.2 (2005): 191–208. Print.

Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstien. They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. 2nd ed.New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print. Harklau, Linda. “Through and Beyond HighSchool: Academic Challenges and Opportunities for College-bound Immigrant Youth.” Inclusive Pedagog yfor English Language Learners. Eds. Lorrie Stoops Verplasetse and Naomi Migliacci. New York, NY: LawrenceErlbaum Associates, 2008. 181–194. Print.

Howard, Rebecca Moore, Tricia Serviss, and Tanya K. Rodrigue. “Writing from Sources, Writing from Sen-tences.” Writing & Pedagogy 2.2 (2010): 177–192. Print.

Hyland, Teresa A. “Drawing a Line in the Sand: Indentifying a Borderzone Between Self and the Other inEL1 and EL2 Citation Practices.” Assessing Writing 14.1 (2009): 62–74. Print.

Keck, Casey. “The Use of Paraphrase in Summary Writing: A Comparison of L1 and L2 Writers.” Journal ofSecond Language Writing 15.4 (2006): 261–278. Print.

Lee, David Y. W., and Sylvia Xiao Chen. “Making a Bigger Deal of the Smaller Words: Function Words andOther Key Items in Research Writing by Chinese Learners.” Journal of Second Language Writing 18.4 (2009):281–296. Print.

Lundstrom, Kristi, and Wendy Baker. “ To Give is Better than to Receive: The Benefits of Peer Review tothe Reviewer’s Own Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 18.1 (2009): 30–43.Print.


McCollum, Robb Mark. “Pass It On! Writing Games.” Language Games: Innovative Activities for TeachingEnglish Ed. Maureen Andrade. Alexandria, VA: TESOL, 2009. 41–48. Print.

McTighe, Jay, and Ken O’Connor. “Seven Practices for Effective Learning.” Educational Leadership 63.3(2005): 10–17. Print.

Nakamura, Sarah. “Lexical Issues in Writing Center Tutorials with International and U.S.-educated Multi-lingual Writers.” Journal of Second Language Writing 19.2 (2010): 95–113. Print.

Pavicic Takac, Visnja. Vocabulary Learning Strategies and Foreign Language Acquisition. Clevedon, UK: Mul-tilingual Matters, 2008. Print.

Pennycook, Alastair. “Borrowing Others’ Words: Text, Ownership, Memory and Plagiarism.” TESOL Quar-terly 30.2 (1996): 201–239. Print.

Plakans, Lia. “Discourse Synthesis in Integrated Second Language Writing Assessment.” Language Testing26.4 (2009): 561–587. Print.

Singh, Gurupdesh. “Summarization Skills: An Analysis in Text Comprehension and Production.” Contem-porary Themes and Issues in Language Pedagog y Ed. Vaishna Narang. Delhi, India: Nagri Printers, 2006.17–32. Print.

Storch, Neomy. “The Impact of Studying in a Second Language (L2) Medium University on the Developmentof L2 Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 18.2 (2009): 103–118. Print.

Wheeler, Greg. “Plagiarism in the Japanese Universities: Truly a Cultural Matter?” Journal of Second LanguageWriting 18.1 (2009): 17–29. Print.

Wolfersberger, Mark A. “Second Language Writing from Sources: An Ethnographic Study of an ArgumentEssay Task.” Diss. University of Auckland, 2007. Print.

Yu, Guoxing. “Reading to Summarize in English and Chinese: A Tale of Two Languages?” Language Testing25.4 (2008): 521–551. Print.


Anxiety Disorders and theCollaborative Classroom

KATHLEEN M. HUNZER

Since I started teaching college composition classes in 1993, many changes have occurred.When I started teaching, most of the syllabi I was required to use structured writing classesaround the modes: narration, description, comparison and contrast, etc. I quickly learnedthat the modes of narration and description were dangerous in one major way: these twoeasily led to the confessional essay. I received essay after essay with lines such as “It was amoonlight night when I first became a woman” and “The sun was burning hot when my girl-friend and I first...,” but more disturbing were the essays about child abuse, sexual abuse, andthe like that students submitted to me—a complete stranger—and submitted for peer review.This made me very uncomfortable; after all, I only had three psychology classes in college,and they did not prepare me to be a counselor to these newly-liberated teenagers. So as timewent on, I tried to revise my assignment sheets and collaborative assignments so that theyavoided such personal confessions by the students. Regardless of how many precautions Iincorporated into my class and my assignments, however, these essays still broke through.

When I was finally liberated from departmentally-mandated books and syllabi thatrevolved around the modes, I moved toward a more social-epistemic atmosphere in the classand focused on societal issues, and while this eliminated the types of essays named above,another issue arose. As the class shifted to addressing issues of gender and race and othersocietal problems, the class discussions and assignments became intense and uncomfortableat times for some. Now I had a new problem on my hands: students were now coming to mesaying that their anxiety disorders (such as Panic Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder)or their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder made staying in class sometimes very difficult andmade collaborative learning a huge challenge for them.

For example, one semester when we discussed sexual assaults and viewed the film TheAccused, six students came to me and told me that they had been sexually assaulted (a few hadbeen raped) and that they were having trouble discussing the topic in class with peers theyhad only known for a few weeks. I struggled with what to say and do since I do not have anytraining in dealing with students who have been attacked, but I especially struggled with whatto do as a teacher whose classes are highly collaborative. Sadly, this was not an isolated incident.The year before these incidents occurred, I had a veteran with PTSD, two students with Gen-eralized Anxiety Disorder, a female student who had been sexually abused as a teenager, anda few students who suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder/Panic Disorder—all of whom self-

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disclosed these situations to me at the very beginning of my classes. Since students are wellaware from day one that my classes involve collaborative learning every day, all of these studentsexpressed some concern about their success in my class. I tried to keep their situations in con-sideration in my class, but again I struggled with how to handle these situations since I donot feel adequately prepared to face these challenges. Suddenly those confessional essays seemedlike a piece of cake.

As the student population shifts, I have found that I have had to move from being acounselor/grader for the confessional essays to being aware of students’ anxiety and behavioralchallenges that can affect my classes; no classes in Grad school had covered what to do inthese situations, either, so I had to quickly adapt to this new role, which now required me towear even more “hats” in the classroom: now I was a teacher, evaluator, facilitator, monitor,coach, counselor, mentor, the one professor students seemed to trust with this information,and the professor who was trying to teach these students how to work collaboratively whenthis could be a challenge. Because I was concerned at donning these hats successfully, I decidedto learn about the situations my students had experienced so I could create some solutions ofmy own.

What I learned as I researched anxiety disorders was shocking:

• According to the Anxiety Disorder Association of America website (www.adaa.org),40 million adults suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder each year, which includesgeneralized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, posttrau-matic stress disorder, and social anxiety disorder. Of these adults with different anxietydisorders, nearly 75 percent will experience their first event by the time they are 22years old, with 13 percent of college students suffering from some anxiety disorderwhile attending college, which means college classes around the country are pepperedwith students who live with these challenges.

• The American Association of University Women website (www.aauw.org) states that20–25 percent of women will be raped during their college careers, with 80 percentof rape victims suffering from chronic physical or psychological problems. In additionto these rape statistics, AAUW also posits that 1 in 4 college women will be sexuallyassaulted (“Sexual Assault on Campus”). While these statistics focus solely on women,we cannot forget that men are also often sexually assaulted while in college, but sincethese assaults are so rarely reported, finding reliable statistics on this problem is anissue; therefore, we do not have a strong grasp on the true breadth of this problem.

• Finally, according to the National Center for PTSD section of the United States Depart-ment of Veterans Affairs website (www.ptsd.va.gov), approximately 12 percent of thesoldiers returning from conflicts in the Middle East suffer from posttraumatic stressdisorder upon their return. Considering our college classrooms include an increasingnumber of returning soldiers, we also need to take this situation into consideration aswell.

Not only were these statistics disturbing on a human level, but these were also challeng-ing from a teacher’s perspective. How can I accommodate the needs of these students while not ignoring the needs of the rest of the class or sacrificing my course objectives and pedagogies? In order to find ways to help students work most productively as they facedthese challenges, I learned a bit more about the situations that I knew were in my classes, sowhat follows is a very brief context of the situations in case you face these challenges in yourclasses.


Anxiety vs. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)As we all well know, we all experience anxiety at some point in our lives, but according

to the Mayo Clinic, some people have more than the usual level of anxiety. These people arebelieved to have “Generalized Anxiety Disorder”: “ongoing anxiety that interferes with day-to-day activities and relationships and makes it hard to enjoy life.... Generalized anxiety dis-order has similar symptoms as panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other typesof anxiety, but they’re all different conditions.” People who live with GAD often have the fol-lowing symptoms: “constant worrying or obsession about small or large concerns,” “restlessnessand feeling keyed up or on edge,” “fatigue,” “difficulty concentrating or your mind ‘goingblank,’” and/or “irritability” (“Generalized Anxiety Disorder”). The students I have met wholive with this condition sometimes have a hard time concentrating in groups and can sometimesbe irritable with group mates. Clearly, these traits can affect collaborative learning.

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), one type of anxiety disorder, is “the fear of social situ-

ations and the interaction with other people that can automatically bring on feelings of self-consciousness, judgment, evaluation, and inferiority. Put another way, social anxiety is thefear and anxiety of being judged and evaluated negatively by other people, leading to feelingsof inadequacy, embarrassment, humiliation, and depression” (Richards). Experts believe thatSAD is much more common than research previously demonstrated. In fact, Thomas Richardsstates that “in the United States, epidemiological studies have recently pegged social anxietydisorder as the third largest psychological disorder in the country, after depression and alco-holism. It is estimated that 7–8 percent of the population suffers from some form of socialanxiety at the present time.” For students who may have SAD, the collaborative class can beespecially challenging since these students may experience stress or anxiety when doing anyof the following: introducing themselves to other people, facing criticism, being observedwhile completing a task, meeting new people and people in a position of authority, beingforced to say something or contribute to a class discussion, and making new friends.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)While many think of PTSD as something occurring primarily in war veterans, especially

Vietnam Veterans, the term PTSD is not solely connected to being in a war. PTSD is

... a type of anxiety disorder. It can occur after you’ve seen or experienced a trau-matic event that involved the threat of injury or death. PTSD can occur at any ageand can follow a natural disaster such as a flood or fire, or events such as war, aprison stay, assault, domestic abuse, or rape. The terrorist attacks of September 11,2001, in the United States may have caused PTSD in some people who wereinvolved, in people who saw the disaster, and in people who lost relatives andfriends. These kinds of events can produce stress in anyone, but not everyone devel-ops PTSD. (“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”)

People suffering from PTSD, regardless of the cause, can experience several symptoms suchas “repeated ‘reliving’ of the event, which disturbs day-to-day activity,” and this can lead tothe following: “flashback episodes, where the event seems to be happening again and again,”“recurrent distressing memories of the event,” and “physical reactions to situations that remindyou of the traumatic event.” Those with PTSD may also exhibit “avoidance” tendencies suchas “feelings of detachment,” a “lack of interest in normal activities,” “staying away from places,

Anxiety Disorders and the Collaborative Classroom (Hunzer) 219

people, or objects that remind you of the event,” “difficulty concentrating,” “exaggeratedresponse to things that startle you,” “excess awareness (hypervigilance),” and/or “irritabilityor outbursts of anger” (“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”). As you can imagine, working con-sistently in small groups where the conversation level of the room can sometimes get elevated,discussing serious social issues, and sitting in close proximity with others can be an issue withsufferers.

Victims of Sexual Assault

As the statistics stated earlier in this essay demonstrate, we are increasingly seeing thevictims of sexual assaults in our classes. As the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Networkdiscusses, the terms “sexual assault” and “rape” can be confusing, and the definitions maydepend on your state’s laws (“Types of Sexual Assault”). Regardless of the legislative distinctionsmade, however, people who have been sexually assaulted and those who have been rapedexperience similar after effects. Victims of sexual assault and rape may suffer from post-trau-matic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, flashbacks, sleep deprivation, and may evenresort to self-harm (“Effects of Sexual Assault”). Some survivors feel uncomfortable in groupsor may even feel uncomfortable with people walking up behind them while others are insecureabout discussing serious issues with their peers. Since the effects can be so varied with thisgroup, it’s very hard to predict what you will face in the classroom.

What can we do?

As I stated in my introduction to this piece, no one really prepares us for the challengesof having students in our classes who have to live with these conditions. Most campuses havevery helpful counseling services available for students who have these conditions, but thisoffice may not be able to help you as the teacher as you face these situations. Also, since thetiming and the situation may not allow you to seek this assistance at just the right moment,what follows is what I have learned to do in these situations. When in doubt, however, or ifdealing with these situations concerns you, always consult the professionals on your campus.The suggestions that follow are those that I have developed over many years of using collab-orative learning in my classes. I do not have all the answers, and very little research existsabout how to successfully use collaborative learning in environments that can easily be pop-ulated by the issues listed above, so most of the adjustments that you will have to make willbe dependent on the moment, the situation, and the student(s) involved.

The first step to working with students with these conditions is to recognize that you arenot a counselor or diagnostician. You should not be looking for the traits and symptoms out-lined above: this is beyond the purview of our jobs. I simply explained them above so youare informed about the situations, which has been very helpful for me when a studentapproaches me and says, “I suffer from SAD (or PTSD, GAD, etc.) and I’m scared about suc-ceeding in your class.” The research I have done allows me to hit the ground running, sinceI can speak with a some authority to the student about his/her situation, thus allowing meto address the students’ needs. Please remember that the student must self-disclose to youhis/her situation before you can act. When the student does choose to self-disclose the con-dition, take time right then and there to discuss with the student what reasonable accom-modations can be made to help that student succeed in your class. You should not be expectedto cater your entire class around this person’s situation, so if you think that the student willnot do well, then you should be upfront with the student and suggest that he/she take a


different class, perhaps one that will better accommodate that student’s situation. I do, however,encourage students to remain in my class, and I promise to do what is reasonable to guidethem through the class. Doing this has been successful: I have never had a student leave myclass due to anxiety issues.

Next, I inform students on the very first day that our class will use small groups and col-laborative activities throughout the semester so they know entering my class that this is thecourse format. Students who are concerned about this almost always approach me immediatelyafter the first class to discuss their concerns. Therefore, when students come to me and self-disclose, I ask them, “Well, what are you worried about in my class?” You cannot guess whatis worrying them. Once you know their concerns, you can better discuss with the student thesituation. As you may have noticed, many of the disorders addressed above have similar symp-toms/effects, so what works for one student one semester may work for another.

Although I am not required to have this meeting and provide any accommodations forstudents who live with anxiety disorders, I try to work with the students for two reasons.First, I am a fairly flexible person, so if I can help a student with an anxiety disorder in myclass, I feel that this will help them in other classes. I usually have a good relationship withmy students and they feel comfortable with me. I try to be an effective mentor for the students.Second, and more importantly, I think we need to make sure that these students do not runfrom every challenge that they face. I’m not asking students to stay in an uncomfortable sit-uation, one that could seriously exacerbate their condition, but I do remind students that col-lege is where students learn different approaches and techniques that will help them in thefuture. As I remind them, eventually they will have to speak in public, offer an opinion, workwith a team, etc. The world both inside and outside of college is social and collaborative, soI encourage students to embrace this opportunity to prepare themselves for this world. Again,I do not force students to stay in the class, but I do try and demonstrate to them that the “realworld” is out there, and my class will teach them how to face some of the social challengesof that world.

What Accommodations Work?Since many of the conditions named above can produce the same concerns with students,

I have developed some practices that have enabled students to succeed in my extremely col-laborative and social classes.

Situation #1: A student tells me that he/she was physically assaulted and does not likewhen people sneak up from behind and that he/she does not like feeling surrounded by peo-ple.

Solution: Suggest that the student sit with his/her back to a wall, and then when puttingstudents in a group, have the group go to that person since the person has found a comfortable,safe place in the classroom. Also, since collaborative learning requires my constant “sharking”of the classroom to make sure groups remain on task, I make mental notes of whom I shouldapproach from the front and not from behind. This small accommodation works very welland does not draw attention to the person with the challenge.

Situation #2: A student says that sometimes he/she gets edgy and needs to removehim/herself from the situation.

Solution: This sounds very simplistic, but just let the person get up and leave for a breathof fresh air or to remove him/herself from the situation for a few minutes. This is a very simpleaccommodation that does not excuse the person from regularly working with the group: It’sjust a way to provide that safety valve for the student. Many times the groups are so intent


on their work that they do not even notice: They just assume the person went out to use therestroom or the water fountain. Many times students who felt like they had to leave once ina while early in the semester do not do so as the semester progresses.

Situation #3: A student admits that he/she obsesses over things and does not like whenthe group does not do things “perfectly.”

Solution: This one is a bit trickier since you cannot simply tell someone to be “less obses-sive.” Students who have related this concern to me are often the students who visit me reg-ularly in my office hours, so I can work with them one-on-one to teach them copingmechanisms. One suggestion I offer is that the student write brief lists of things to be done,even in group work. So that the student who is obsessive does not feel odd making lists duringgroup work, I often suggest that all groups make goal lists. If the group is asked to revise atext, for example, I’ll suggest to all of the groups that they create a list of priorities beforethey face the actual writing task. In this way, the person in the group who does tend to obsesshas a chance to keep the group on task by referring back to the list. Also, if the student worriesthat others in the group will not write well enough or cannot spell, I encourage that studentto be the “secretary” of the group: I’ve never heard a group argue over who was going to writeout the answers or report to the group.

Situation #4: A student tells me the first day of class that he/she does not “meet newpeople well,” does not do introductions very well, and that he/she has a very hard time trustingstrangers. Just the thought of having to work this closely with strangers is causing a great dealof panic.

Solution: As a person who has suffered from panic attacks in the past, I immediatelyrelate this to the students while also telling them some personal challenges I’ve faced: that Itook my speech class at another campus so I did not know any of the students, that I have ahard time talking to people I do not know, that I tend to stick with people I know at a partyrather than walking up to people and introducing myself, and that I changed my major incollege so I would not have to speak in front of people. The student usually looks at me withgreat disbelief since my job forces me to do these things every day, but when I do this, studentsusually stay in the class and seem to trust me more. I think they need to see that all of us canhave similar challenges. Also, I remind them that since they will spend a great deal of timewith the group mates, the group mates will become familiar, less stranger-like, and that eventhough they will all be scared at first, their group will become “friends” in a way. This seemsto put the students a bit more at ease. Another way of combating this situation is through themanner in which I assign groups. When I put students in groups for writing classes, I clusterthem by their work habits and personalities (see my essay “Connecting Writing Process WithPersonality: Creating Trust Circles in Writing” earlier in this collection). Students usually rec-ognize that they are working with like-minded individuals and, consequently, are eventuallycomfortable in class.

Situation #5: A student tells me that he/she does not like being watched while workingand that he/she does not respond well to criticism by peers.

Solution: This is also a tricky situation since, at some point, the student will be watchedwhile working by a peer or by me, and the student will continually be judged by his/her peersand colleagues in any situation: This, again, is part of the “real world” issue. I usually suggestthat the student pay more attention to what the group is discussing than on where I am inthe room, and I try to offer encouragement to all of the groups while I circulate. I’ll just say“great work so far,” “excellent, excellent,” “I knew you guys were smart cookies,” or someother phrase of mild support. Sometimes I have to get groups back on task or suggest thatthey are not on the right track, but since my comments are at the group and not one individual,


this seems to work. I try not to hover over one person or another: I try to hover evenly andkeep moving so one group or person does not feel overwhelmed. I also remind students thatall of us are evaluated by our peers/colleagues. I remind them that I am periodically observedby others, that my work is peer reviewed when I submit something to a publication, and thatno matter where I am or what I’m doing, someone could be judging me. I want them to rec-ognize, in a non-threatening environment, that being observed and critiqued is part of life.

Situation #6: A student sees challenging issues on the syllabus (e.g. the Iraq war, sexualassaults in culture, essays about dying, etc.) and says that he/she will not be able to discussthese personal topics because they are “too close” to the issue.

Solution: In rare instances, against the advice of a colleague who thinks students need to“suck it up” if they have an emotional connection to a topic, I have permitted students to notdiscuss a certain issue. In the class that I mentioned earlier in this article where we watchedand discussed The Accused, for example, I did allow a student to miss class. She had beenraped and said she couldn’t re-live it. She never missed another class. While one could arguethat this avoidance can be negative, I was not about to force a student who has been rapedto re-live the nightmare again. If students do not want to miss class, I simply tell them thatthey do not have to share their personal experiences—that they can try and speak in generalterms or not at all. Sometimes heated discussions do occur, but I keep an eye on the studentwith the challenge and make sure that he/she is not being targeted, and I do not call on anyoneduring these kinds of discussions: Everyone needs to speak on his/her own. One time I hada student who was gang raped at a bar, and when people started saying, “well, Jodie Fosterwas dressed like a slut and was high,” the student spoke out for the first time about her expe-riences. She asked the class, “do I look like a slut?” The class was startled, but then sheexplained. After class she said that she had never talked about it but that she wanted othersto see the reality of the experience, which is why she spoke up. She said she was glad she didit and thought she could in my class because I had established such an atmosphere of trust.Should all students do this? Probably not: but the class has to provide the appropriate envi-ronment to accommodate this type of situation if it happens.

Concluding Thoughts

Considering the increasing number of students enrolling in college who have beenassaulted, who have been in active combat, who have survived extreme adversity, or who liveevery day with anxiety challenges, writing instructors who implement collaborative learningin their classes must be aware of this problem. We cannot change our entire course designsfor one student or another, and we are not trained counselors who are prepared to shepherdour students through these life challenges, but we can be prepared to help students be as suc-cessful as they can in their college classes. In reality, collaboration is not confined to a writingclass or even to college in general: Collaboration is a reality in almost everyone’s lives. Becauseof this, writing instructors cannot back down from using collaborative learning and writingin fear of upsetting students who face emotional and social challenges. We need to create thekinds of environments that allow these students to learn ways to learn despite the challengesthey face.

I openly admit that the solutions I presented above are not complicated and did notresult from any professional development meeting. The solutions are more common sensethan anything else, but since I have had to learn quickly how to deal with these situations inmy own classes, I wanted to share with you some strategies that you can keep in the back ofyour mind in case issues arise in your own classes. I recognize that I am not a counselor and


that I cannot cater my entire class to the needs of one student or the other, nor should I, butI can create a collaborative environment that allows all students to learn and grow in theirown ways without fearing that their anxiety disorders will get in the way of these goals.

Works CitedAnxiety Disorders Association of America. 2011. Anxiety Disorder Association of America. Web. 24 May 2011.“Effects of Sexual Assault.” Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. 2009. Rape, Abuse, and Incest National

Network. Web. 24 May 2011.“Generalized Anxiety Disorder.” Mayo Clinic. 2011. Mayo Clinic. Web. 24 May 2011.“National Center for PTSD.” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 2011. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Web. 24 May 2011.“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: PTSD.” Pub Med Health. 14 February 2010. National Center for Biotech-

nology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine. Web. 24 May 2011.Richards, Thomas A. “What is Social Anxiety?” SAI: The Social Anxiety Institute. 2011. The Social Anxiety

Institute. Web. 24 May 2011.“Sexual Assault on Campus Statistics: Facts and Figures.” American Association of University Women. N.d.

American Association of University Women. Web. 24 May 2011.“Types of Sexual Assault.” Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. 2009. Rape, Abuse, and Incest National

Network. Web. 24 May 2011.


About the Contributors

Kara Poe Alexander, an assistant professor of English at Baylor University, has been pub-lished in a variety of journals, including College Composition and Communication, Journal ofBusiness and Technical Writing, Kairos, and Computers and Composition Online. Her primaryresearch interests include composition theory and pedagogy, technical writing literacy, andmultimodal composition. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Florence Elizabeth Bacabac, an assistant professor of professional and technical writing atDixie State College of Utah, has been published in both the Journal of Online Learning andTeaching as well as the Journal of Literacy and Technolog y. She has also presented at a varietyof conferences: NCTE, CCCC, ABC, Computers and Writing, L2 Writing Symposium, OhioTESOL, and Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s). Her primary research interests are computers andwriting and feminist rhetoric. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Randi Browning is a lecturer in the Writing Program at University of California, SantaBarbara, and is the co-director of the South Coast Writing Project. Prior to these positions,she was the writing program administrator and an associate professor of education at PrincipiaCollege. She has presented her work at several conferences: CCCC, Computers and Writing,Writing Research Across Borders, National Conference on Students in Transition, and TheFirst Year Experience International Conference. She can be reached at [email protected].

Ben S. Bunting, Jr., is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at Washington State Uni-versity. He has been published in New Media and Society and RMMLA, and he has presentedat several conferences, including PAMLA, PNASA, RMMLA, CCCC, THAT camp, andASLE. His research interests include ecocriticism, space and place theory, game studies,Chaucer, and Medieval literature. He can be reached at [email protected].

Anthony Edgington holds the positions of associate professor and director of the Compo-sition Program at the University of Toledo. His works have been published in the Journal of Writing Assessment, Teaching English in the Two Year College, and Journal of Teaching Writing,and he has presented at CCCC, Computers and Writing, and the East Coast Writing CentersAssociation. His research interests are writing assessment, working class studies, and writingprogram administration. He can be reached at [email protected].

Donna J. Evans, received her Ph.D. in English at Washington State University and is anassistant professor of English/writing and the writing center director at Eastern Oregon Uni-versity. She has been published in Assessing Writing and Writing Lab Newsletter and is thecoauthor of the Seventh and Eighth Findings: WSU Writing Portfolio Report; she has also pub-

225

lished nonfiction and poetry. She has presented at a variety of conferences and her researchinterests include the rhetorics of space, place and political economy, composition and technicalwriting pedagogy, and writing centers. She can be reached at [email protected].

Cheryl Hawkinson Melkun, an assistant professor of communications at the University ofMary Washington, has just completed her dissertation and is beginning to publish her work.She has presented many times at CCCC, IWCA, and ACHE, an organization from whichshe also received a research grant. Her research interests are composition and rhetoric (withan emphasis on pedagogy), writing center theory and praxis, and business and professionalwriting. She can be reached at [email protected].

Jennifer L. J. Heinert is an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Washington County and the University of Wisconsin Colleges Online. Her work NarrativeConventions and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison was published by Routledge in 2008. Inaddition to her interest in Toni Morrison, Jennifer is also interested in research connected toteaching and learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Kathleen Hunzer, editor of this collection, is an associate professor of English and the direc-tor of Written Communication at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls. She has been pub-lished in Feminist Teacher, Writing Lab Newsletter, Literary Magazine Review, and InternationalJournal of Listening, and she has presented at CCCC, Midwest MLA, WPA, and other con-ferences. Her research interests are argument theory, composition and rhetoric pedagogy, fem-inist rhetoric, and writing program administration. She can be reached at [email protected].

Catherine Simpson Kalish, an associate professor of English at the University of Wiscon-sin–Marathon County, has been published in Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction andMidwestern Miscellany. She has presented at several conferences, and her research interestsinclude teaching and learning related to peer review, 20th century American literature, andmodern Irish literature. She can be reached at [email protected].

Yazmin Lazcano-Pry is a graduate teaching assistant at Arizona State University and haspresented at a variety of conferences: CCCC, National Association of Teachers of English,Rhetoric Society of America, and the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies.Her research interests include digital rhetorics, Latino/a rhetorics, Chicana/o studies, docu-mentary studies, and women and gender studies. She can be reached at [email protected].

Robb Mark McCollum, lead instructor and program administrator for the Center for Amer-ican English Language and Culture at the University of Virginia, has written book chaptersin edited collections and articles in language teaching research journals. He has also presentedat language teaching and research conferences. He is interested in issues connected to languageteaching, teacher education, and applied linguistics and can be reached at [email protected].

Mialisa A. Moline, an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–RiverFalls, has presented at a variety of conferences including ATTW, CPTSC, CCCC, WCWCA,and Computers & Writing. Her research interests include cyberliteracy, distance-based edu-cation, computer-integrated instruction in technical communication, writing center techno-logical practices, internship management, and ethics in technical communication. She can bereached at [email protected].

226 About the Contributors

Valerie Murrenus Pilmaier is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wis -consin–Sheboygan. She has been published in The Shaw Annual as well as the Journal of BritishStudies and has also presented her research at the International Shaw Studies Conference,MMLA, and the Film and History Conference. Her research interests are Irish literature, gen-der studies, and children’s literature. She can be reached at [email protected].

Duane Roen, the head of technical communication and assistant vice provost for universityacademic success programs at Arizona State University, has authored nine books and morethan 200 chapters, articles, and conference presentations. His articles have appeared in WrittenCommunication, Rhetoric Review, Research in the Teaching of English, and English Journal, andhe has presented at several conferences. His research interests lie in writing program admin-istration, composition pedagogy and curriculum, and family history writing. He can be reachedat [email protected].

Kelly A. Shea is an associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center/On-line Writing Lab at Seaton Hall University. She has published on teaching with technologyin the on-line journal Kairos, on the use of faculty vs. student on-line tutors in Writing LabNewsletter, and also on faculty development and writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) pro-grams. She has presented at many conferences and her research interests are core curriculum,electronic portfolios, course management systems, e-texts, and other pedagogy improvementinitiatives. She can be reached at [email protected].

Jacob Stratman is an assistant professor and chair of English at John Brown University. Hisworks have appeared in journals such as Christianity and Literature, Renascence, CEA Forum,SIGNAL Journal, and others. His primary research interests are American literature, teachingliterature and writing for social change, and pedagogy. He can be reached at [email protected].

Cindy Tekobbe, a graduate research assistant at Arizona State University, has presented herresearch at the Southern Comparative Literature Association, Computers and Writing, andNCTE. She is interested in digital literacies, new and emerging media, composition pedagogyand curriculum, and collective intelligence, memory, and identity. She can be reached [email protected].

Jason Wirtz, an assistant professor at Hunter College, City University of New York, haspublished in New Writing, English Journal, Writing on the Edge, Kairos, Community LiteracyJournal, Wisconsin English Journal, and Creative Writing: Teaching, Theory, and Practice. Heis interested in the invention processes of successful writers and the generative disciplinaryintersections of rhetoric and composition, creative writing, and English education. He can bereached at [email protected].

About the Contributors 227

Index

229

anxiety disorders 217–224; col-laboration 221–224; statistics218

blogs 90–91business writing 143–165, 166–

180, 181–200; and electronicdialogues 167–180

collaborative writing teams 133–135, 143–165, 181–200; assess-ment 140, 164, 152–155, 197–198; preparation rubric 140

competition 143–165computer mediated communica-

tion 87–98, 99–108, 109–129, 130–143, 166–180, 185–187

cooperation 109–129, 181–200,201–216; essay assignments123–124, 205–211; peer review124

course management systems(CMS) 101–104; benefits 106;discussion boards 92–93; forpeer response 101–102; forsmall group writing and pre-sentations 102–104

Cumulative Writing Model(CWM) 201–216; basic struc-ture 202–204; collaborativeactivities 212–124

digital environments 88–97,99–107; managing 89–90

dissensus 43–54; definition 44–45; how to use 45–51

electronic dialogues 167–180electronic environments 87–98,

99–108, 109–129, 130–141,166–180; managing time 89–90; strengths 166, 171–178

emotional intelligence 143–145

English Language Learners(ELL) 201–216

Generalized Anxiety Disorder(GAD) 219

Google Docs 109–129; assess-ment with 117–119; assigningwork 115–117; in the classroom113–115; creating, naming, andsharing 121; file/folder proto-cal 122–123; potential chal-lenges 119–120

group selection 55–65, 66–74,75–85, 147–149, 196–197,204–205; in electronic envi-ronments 93–94; and identity67–68, 148–149; MBTI and75–85; with speed interviews55–65; in Writing ConsultantFirm project 160–162

models of collaborative class-rooms 184–185

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI) 75–85; definitions of dichotomies 76–77; peerreview and 79–82; rationalefor using 77–79

peer review 5–16, 17–29, 30–42,49–51, 75–85; benefits 5–9,17–19, 110–111; challenges 9–10, 36; with CMS 101–102; el-evating the quality 10–15;handouts 27, 52, 107, 124, 127,138–139, 178–180; MBTI and79–81, 82–84; online 111–113,130–143; preparing students19–22, 31–34, 107; respondingto 25–26; with team 161–162;with web conferencing 132–133

peer tutorial method 30–42;benefits 37–40; drawbacks 36;

versus traditional peer review34–36

personality and writing 82–84Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

(PTSD) 219

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)219

social networks 94–97; Face-book 94–96; online writingcommunitites 97; Twitter 96

speed interviews 55–65; benefits56–57; conducting 58–60;definition 56; diagram 60;group notes 63; sample ques-tions 62–63; self-assessment64; trouble-shooting 61–62

team writing 181–200; benefits181–182; preparation 182–195;student roles 187–192, 196–197

Teamwork Database 185–187trust circles 66–74; assignments

68–70; results 70–73

web conferencing 130–143; withcollaborative writing teams133–135; selecting a platform135–137, 141

wikis 91–92, 104–105; for smallgroup writing 104–105

Writer’s Worksheet 22–25writing assignments, samples

28, 46–49, 52, 107, 123–128,139, 146–147, 158–159, 162–163, 168–171, 205–211

Writing Consultant Firm Project145–167; selection of teams160–162


~StormRG~

collaborative learning and writing

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