Research on second language (L2) collaborative writing (CW) has proliferated over the recent decade and will continue to bloom due to the changing landscape of writing and learning in the digital age. This article provides a research agenda on CW in L2 classrooms. We illustrate six research themes for future research inquiry by pointing out the…

This article is concerned with characterizing literacy activity as it is practiced in professional workplaces. Its starting point is activity theory, which grew out of the work of Vygotsky and has been subsequently elaborated in Russia and elsewhere. First, the authors propose that existing versions of activity theory are unable to account…

Describes how students in three college-level writing groups viewed their collaborative learning experience. Suggests that collaborative learning works (or does not work) in complex ways that cannot be reduced to a field manual of identifying behaviors. (RS)

A collaborative, oral-history, writer's workshop was held in an undergraduate college reading class. Sixty-five students each taped an interview on literacy life-experiences with a self-described reluctant reader at the middle or high school level, and wrote a narrative based on the interview. Students worked together in groups on their…

Observes collaborative activities in three writing classes. Offers two ethnographic reports: one illustrating the tension felt by the instructors as a result of stalled collaboration; the other demonstrating a more successful collaborative sequence. Concludes that once the instructors learned to think collaboratively, they began wholly to redesign…

Describes how a university professor collaborated with a ninth-grade English teacher in a research project aimed at studying the collaborative writing processes of the students. Analyzes the various collaborative writing processes of the students, including audience awareness, planning, and revising. (HB)

Describes the methods of two teachers who placed students in collaborative writing groups and asked students to assess their writing groups in personnel assessment memos to the instructors. Examines selected examples of these memos with regard to collaborative processes and the skills used most frequently by students. (HB)

In this article the author, discusses how the National Writing Project (NWP) prepares participating teachers for leadership roles by demonstrating their most effective classroom practices, studying research, and improving their knowledge of writing by becoming writers themselves. NWP prepares teachers to articulate and interrogate their practice…

Organizational stratification and writers' attitudes played an important part in the rejection of a proposed editorial review program at a university computing center. A peer review board, which consisted of four composition instructors, was established by the center director, in cooperation with a composition teacher consultant, to ensure the…

Describes how one English teacher engaged in a collaborative writing exercise with a fifth-grade female student. Explains how the teacher worked to become an equal partner with the student in the collaborative effort. Provides specific information about how the student's writing improved. (HB)

Describes how a literacy coach worked with two content area teachers to revise the way they think about and implement instruction to enhance students' reading and writing. Shares two teacher inquiries: the experiences of a ninth-grade science teacher and his students as they developed and rated a class-written expository essay; and a…

A case study explored the composing processes of two grade one students to determine the role of the computer as a learning tool in the first grade classroom. Analysis of the texts of the children's writing and transcriptions of the tape-recorded collaborative exercise in writing and computer use by the children revealed that young children, given…

A biographical sketch of award-winning brothers Christopher and James Lincoln Collier discusses their early writing influences and research pursuits. In 1974 they began coauthoring novels of historical fiction for middle school readers. The profile describes their collaborating technique and their plots, which incorporate history of the American…

Surveying a project that was conducted through the Center for the Study of Writing at Carnegie Mellon University, this book details the classroom inquiries conducted during the 4-year project (1988-1992) by 33 teacher-researchers from secondary and postsecondary classrooms. The articles and their authors are: (1) "Teachers as Theory…