Assigning Collaborative Writing – Annotated BibliographyBleich, David (1995, January). Collaboration and the Pedagogy of Disclosure. College English. Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 43-61. Collaboration requires trust; this is more or less difficult depending on the composition ofthe class. Bleich says to bear in mind that for any one group of students, working togethermay not be the right thing. How do we move things that had previously been "private" (our ruminations about a subject) to the public sphere of the classroom? What, for instance, do Black students feel ready to share in a primarily White classroom? He furtherargues that the institutionally governed machineries of testing and grading block the stronger effects of collaborative practices—there is no way for collaboration to "count." He says that for real collaboration:1. It's important to know who's in the class2. What each person brings to the class must become part of the curriculum3. Curriculum is contingentHe calls for individual and group "self disclosure" as a way to begin.Bruffee, Kenneth. (1993) Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.Also, there’s an article about collaborative learning by Bruffee in our packet, called, "Collaborative Learning and the 'Conversation of Mankind.'" It’s certainly worth readingClark, Irene L. (1993, December). Portfolio Evaluation, Collaboration, and Writing Centers. College Composition and Communication. Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 515-524. Collaboration has become a bandwagon term for all sorts of positive-learning stuff. But, Clark argues that the possibilities for going astray may be "greater in a collaborative environment than in the teacher controlled conventional classroom.” Before collaborationcan occur, 1) a conducive context must be created, 2) trust must be established, 3) responsibilities must be clearly agreed upon, and 4) the distribution of authority must be settled. She argues that true collaboration occurs only when collaborators are part of the same discourse community. Thus, collaboration between teacher-student, student-student,or tutor-student is not “true.” For these folks--not a member of the discourse community--she brings in the idea of collaborative assistance, and she distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate assistance. Legitimate puts the process first, and maintains the student's voice. Illegitimate assistance effaces the student's contributions to the text.McClure, Michael F. (1990, February). Research in the Classroom: Collaborative Learning: Teacher’s Game or Students’ Game? The English Journal. Vol. 79, No. 2, pp. 66-68.McClure argues that collaborative groups often don't function because we don't give themreal purpose or real freedom. If we use groups merely "as a different set of rule-orientedprocedures to get students to perform as we want them to," then groups are just more work for the same ol' job of getting to the right answer. When done right, however, McClure says that groups are the best way to combat students' alienation. He also emphasizes, as Vygotsgy does, the importance of "play" in the classroom in order to break down barriers and create a source of long-lasting motivation.Howard, Rebecca Moore. (2000).from Collaborative Pedagogy. <http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Handouts/Tchg.Collab.html> Moore gives practical advice for instructors who want to assign collaborative writing, such as “make sure the task is best accomplished by a group and not an individual” and “don’t start a collaborative writing assignment until a substantial part of the term has elapsed.”Reither, James A. and Douglas Vipond. (1989, December). Writing as Collaboration. College English. Vol. 51, No. 8, pp. 855-867.Reither and Vipond argue that peer editing, peer tutoring, co-authoring and workshoppinghave not been persuasively successful because they have been introduced as "overlays" totraditional courses. The article states that "writing and knowing [are] impossible--inconceivable--without collaboration," and thus must be taught collaboratively to make sense. The authors argue for a re-visioning of collaboration not only to include co-authoring and workshopping, but also to include "knowledge making." They organize a course by: 1) asking the students a question that troubles the field. This will constitute much of the "knowledge making." Research teams will divide the labor and carry out necessary research. They talk about "group membership" changing, but don't explain howthis happens. 2) Different students present to the group, and 3) there is the publication of a student-written "book." They note: "Except on an ad hoc basis...the instructor does not attempt to teach research or writing skills explicitly." The collaborative reports themselves are not graded. Students assess one other's performance by noting the extent to which their peers helped them learn.Other websites:Collaboration and plagiarism:http://www.easternct.edu/smithlibrary/library1/plagiarism/collaboration.htmThe British “Collaborative Learning Project”http://www.collaborativelearning.org/From Barbara Goss Davis’ Tools for Teaching, a practical guide to successful