Housekeeping

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Gaslight: Rethinking the Traditional Writing Assignment

The typical solo writing assignment has key limitations.

• Isolated Process: Students lack immediate peer feedback when writing alone.
• Delayed Feedback: The traditional "red pen" is often demotivating and inefficient.
• Missed Learning: Students can't pool linguistic knowledge or learn from each other's strengths.

Gatekeep: The Research on Collaborative Writing

Students writing together is a core learning activity, not just group work.

• The Article: Davison, I., Vega, J. L. M., Chew, S. Y., & Gallagher, M. (2025). Assessing the Learning Potential of Second Language Student Interaction in Collaborative Writing. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 15(5), 1410–1419. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1505.05
• Collaborative Writing: Two or more students work together to produce a single text.
• Language-Related Episodes (LREs): The crucial conversations where students negotiate language use (word choice, grammar, organization).
• Key Finding: The study found that peer feedback during collaborative writing was overwhelmingly correct (only 7 of 470 instances were incorrect), making it a reliable and powerful source of learning.

Girlboss: Making Collaborative Writing Work in Your Classroom

Adapt the strategy for any level with practical, low-prep activities.

• Write and Discuss: Model collaboration by co-creating a text with the whole class after a shared experience. Use pop-up grammar to model LREs.
• Dictogloss: Have students work in groups to reconstruct a short text they heard. This focuses collaboration on language rather than content creation.
• Formative Practice: Use collaborative writing as a low-stakes practice run before a similar individual assessment to build skills and confidence.
• Information Sandwich: Students with different texts pair up to synthesize their unique information into a single, co-written piece.

Resources Mentioned

• Honing Our Craft (Henshaw & Potowski)
• Anne-Marie Chase on AP Spanish
• languageley.com (Pets unit)
• The World Language Classroom Podcast
• Somewhere to Share (Carrie Toth)