Using Computers for Collaborative Writing

Purpose

As Saint Anselm faculty learned more about the difficulties that students have with their writing, it became increasingly clear that the inability to think critically while composing essays, regardless of discipline, is as problematic as the lack of mastery of writing mechanics. Faculty noted that, on exams, students could produce short answers which repeated information given to them by their instructors or found in their texts, but when they were required to relate one idea to another, generate their own questions or synthesize information, they floundered.

The problem, as diagnosed by the project director, was that students are rarely given the opportunity to use group writing as a process of discovery, to clarify their initial questions and ideas; to discuss ideas from the readings with each other and their teachers; to relate one paper or idea to earlier ones; or to revise an essay after submitting it for a first reading. There was very little collaboration or interaction between students and their teachers and peers during the writing process.

As a result, the college embarked on an interdisciplinary experiment that assumed that collaborative writing can be used as a way of learning. To counter the tradition of students writing alone, instructors formed co-authoring groups of three students to write common essays at the computer. Faculty then critiqued these essays on line as drafts evolved in a continuing student-teacher dialogue. This provided the opportunity for faculty to see students minds at work and for the students to watch each other write.

Intensive summer workshops were held to train faculty in the mechanics of co-authoring, to revise syllabi and curricula and to learn to use computer networks. Five hundred students and fourteen faculty from a variety of disciplines in the sciences and humanities participated in this experiment to change the teaching and learning of writing.

Innovative Features

In this design, not only did students co-author on-line essays in small groups, but each essay contained a negotiated co-authored text and a hidden text of individually authored comments. The latter could include student questions, complaints, discus sions or reflections on writing the essays. Faculty used the hidden text to make suggestions about reworking weak sections, or to question the logic of the arguments.

Evaluation

Evaluation included comparison groups, pre- and post-tests, interviews and surveys, and an analytic review of collaborative versus individual essays. To permit comparisons between the traditional approach to writing and the new one, participating faculty each taught two sections of the same course, one using computers and co-authoring and one using individual writing without computers.

Project Impact

The pre- and post-tests showed that the students in the experimental group improved much more than those in the control group, at least in the first year. The difference was statistically significant that year; in the second, the difference was insignificant.

Two other encouraging results surfaced. Even though experimental students were required to write less than the control students, they made greater or equal progress. Further, weak writers using co-authoring made greater progress than weak writers using traditional techniques.

In the essays themselves, the co-authoring writers demonstrated an ability to pursue alternative arguing strategies that was not present in the essays by individual writers. Students in the experimental sections even showed a certain continuity of le arning from essay to essay, e.g., they occasionally drew from previously co-authored papers.

Participating faculty agreed that even though co-authoring students may not have always shown immediate improvement as individual writers, they d id show dramatic gains as individual thinkers. As yet, however, this writing-thinking connect ion is not supported by any data other than faculty and consultant observations.

The survey results and individual student interviews strongly support the claim that this experiment improved student attitudes towards writing. Co-authoring students expressed significantly more positive attitudes not only towards writing, but also towards thinking and working harder, and towards defining themselves as writers.

According to students, the faculty of co-authoring sections were more valued as effective writing teachers. Students believed that they gave workable assignments, set fair goals and awarded fair grades. The faculty too responded very positiv ely: the project, they claimed, caused them to enjoy reading and discussing drafts of student essays. In fact, post-test scores of faculty attitudes toward student drafting, composing and revising rose substantially. In the words of one instructor, It felt good to no longer be a latecomer to the student s writing process, arriving in the margins of a text as red ink when there wasn't much point in arriving at all, except to put a grade on the paper...One of the principal goods of the academic life--intense and meaningful discussion of important issues--is taking place and being recorded.

Lessons Learned

• The hidden text feature of the co-authored essays offers a way around the often-heard concern from composition theorists about how to foster collaboration without compromising the rights of individual students. It allows free and easy communication about writing among students and instructors.
• Interdisciplinary programs usually require more institutional support than other efforts, and this one was no exception. It depended on the cooperation of a variety of departments across the College, their faculty and administrators, and in-house computer and technical staff. Obviously, this willingness to experiment and learn new pedagogy demanded much more from participants than continuing to teach in traditional ways.
• Large teaching loads and the need to cover certain material restrict faculty from making radical changes in their syllabi or writing assignments. An experiment like this one flourishes best within a context of overall curricular reform, or as a feature of an already established writing-across-the curriculum program.
• And, finally, just because a program tries to shift authority away from the teacher and place him or her into a more collaborative role doesn't mean that students recognize and accept the shift, or know how to fulfill their greater responsibilities.

Project Continuation

The college continues to fund the technology necessary to support the sophisticated co- authoring software used in the project, and has upgraded the computer network in the Academic Resource Center to make it easier for co-authors to access each other' s texts. However, in recent years there has not been funding for the training necessary to introduce the project to new faculty. The project director, who left the college the year after the project ended, has instituted a modified version of the origin al project at Boston College.

Available Information

Information about the project is included within on-line discussions on Bitnet and/or may be obtained from the project director:

Lad Tobin
English Department
Carney Hall
Boston College
Boston, MA 02167
617-552-3721

The final report to FIPSE fully describes the project's evolution and implementation. The project director published one article and one book chapter based entirely on the FIPSE project:

"Collaboration: the Case for Co-Authored, Dialogic, Non-linear Texts" in Writing Relationships: What Really Happens in the Composition Classroom. Heinemann Boynton/Cook. 1993.

"Writing Between the Lines" in Vital Signs 2: Learning and Using Language Collaboratively. Ed. James Collins. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Boynton/Cook, 1.

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