“Do you want to be in my story?”: Collaborative writing in an urban elementary classroom

1997, Journal of Literacy Research

Based on a year-long interpretive research project, this article describes the arrangements for collaborative writing in an urban elementary classroom. In contrast to typical descriptions of collaboration, this study suggests a more complex view, one that includes a range of ways for students to participate in writing together. This study begins to answer the following questions: What happens when teachers allow students to talk as they write? What does a classroom look like when collaboration is conceptualized as more than a technique, but as a way to understand students as members of a writing community? In this classroom, collaborative writing included the following arrangements: Students wrote alone and shared their work with others; they wrote in pairs or small, consistent groups called networks; and they worked together to author a single text. Brief case studies are used to illustrate each of these types of collaboration. This study describes the ways students responded to op...

Journal ofhttp://jlr.sagepub.com/ Literacy Research ''Do You Want to Be in My Story?'': Collaborative Writing in an Urban Elementary Classroom Katherine Schultz Journal of Literacy Research 1997 29: 253 DOI: 10.1080/10862969709547958 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/29/2/253 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Literary Research Association Additional services and information for Journal of Literacy Research can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jlr.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jlr.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/29/2/253.refs.html >> Version of Record - Jun 1, 1997 What is This? Downloaded from jlr.sagepub.com by guest on October 11, 2013 "Do You Want to Be in My Story?": Collaborative Writing in an Urban Elementary Classroom Katherine Schultz UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA BE Based on a year-long interpretive research project, this article describes the arrangements for collaborative writing in an urban elementary classroom. In contrast to typical descriptions of collaboration, this study suggests a more complex view, one that includes a range of ways for students to participate in writing together. This study begins to answer the following questions: What happens when teachers allow students to talk as they write? What does a classroom look like when collaboration is conceptualized as more than a technique, but as a way to understand students as members of a writing community? In this classroom, collaborative writing included the following arrangements: Students wrote alone and shared their work with others; they wrote in pairs or small, consistent groups called networks; and they worked together to author a single text. Brief case studies are used to illustrate each of these types of collaboration. This study describes the ways students responded to opportunities for collaboration. Collaboration was more than a technique; through interactions with peers, students developed their own voices and ways of writing. Journal of Literacy Research Volume 2% Number 2,1997, Pages 253-287 Pimi SCHULTZ It was language arts time. Spread throughout the combination third- and fourth-grade classroom, students worked on a variety of projects, most of which were tied to a series of assignments connected to Greek mythology, the current thematic unit for this class. Students worked at their own pace to complete assignments given to them by their two teachers at the beginning of the unit. Reading groups met in three corners of the room. The room was noisy and, at first glance, chaotic. A closer look revealed students engaged in reading and writing by themselves, in pairs, and in small groups. Students moved around the classroom as they talked, read, and wrote. Most students either wrote Greek myths, looked for factual information from books to fill in teacher-made worksheets, or completed a reading group assignment. Two African-American girls sat together on a rug; they argued about which names they each should use in their stories. A cluster of students - Black and White, girls and boys - listened as one of their friends read his story aloud. At key points in the story, there was loud laughter and plenty of comments. Some students sat alone working on their stories or drawing pictures. On occasion, they turned to their friends for advice, then listened, commented, and returned to their own work. Although the two teachers were frequently interrupted with questions, for the most part, the students functioned "independently" and looked to each other for assistance. (Fieldnotes, 18-Apr-89) T HIS SCENE, DRAWN FROM A YEAR-LONG QUALITATIVE STUDY, d e p k t S t h e Col- laborative nature of writing in an urban elementary classroom. This vignette illustrates the variety of arrangements for collaboration established, sanctioned, supported, and explicitly taught in a large and complicated classroom. The aim of this article is to describe, in detail, these collaborative arrangements in order to complicate our understanding of collaboration during writing and to suggest ways that students' responses to collaborative writing both reflect and constitute their voice and social relationships with others. Students in this classroom could be said to be collaborating whether they were writing with their peers or writing "alone." At the same time that they worked collaboratively, students functioned "independently" (in the language of the classroom), which meant they made their own decisions about assignments independently of their teachers, turning to their peers for help and clarification. Before they began a story, students in this classroom, as in many other classrooms across the country, often solicited the involvement of their peers with the following question: "Do you want to be in my story?" This ritual of asking permission to use their peers' names illustrates just one way students brought their social world into their stories. The names symbolized the myriad contributions their peers made to their stories and suggested that students collaborated with one another even as they claimed to write alone. I begin this article with a review of some of the ways collaborative writing is discussed and defined in the literature. Next, I describe the research methods and research site in order to contextualize the study. After an overview of the meanings of collaboration in this classroom, I delineate the arrangements for collaboration. In this classroom, students wrote alone, they wrote as individual authors writing side by side in pairs or in small, consistent groups which I call 254 COLLABORATIVE WRITING pmU networks, and occasionally, a few students authored a single text. I introduce individual and pairs of students to exemplify each type of collaboration. The arrangements for writing exemplified by these students illustrate the broad range of collaborative relationships in this classroom. They suggest a complex and multifaceted view of collaboration that allowed a range of students to participate in the classroom curriculum. They also suggest the ways in which students' engagement in collaborative writing affected how and what they wrote; their writing voices were shaped by their peers with whom they collaborated. To gain a better understanding of collaboration during writing, the following research questions guided my inquiry: (a) How is collaboration defined in this classroom? (b) What is the range and variation of collaboration? (c) What are the structures established by teachers and maintained by students that support collaboration? (d) How do these interactions shape students' writing and voice? These questions guided my collection and analysis of data and helped me to address the research problem: What is the nature of student interaction during writing in this classroom, how does student response to the opportunities for collaboration shape writing and voice, and what does a description of these interactions suggest about writing curriculum and pedagogy in urban elementary schools? Review of Related Literature: Writing as a Collaborative Process For masterpieces are not single and solitary births. They are the outcomes of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice. (Virginia Woolf, 1928/1981) Historically, writing has been viewed as a solitary process (Brodkey, 1987; Ede & Lunsford, 1990; Gere, 1987; Gere & Roop, 1992). Traditionally, teachers demand silence in the classroom during writing periods. Students frequently write on teacher-generated topics using preestablished formats. Further, teachers generally initiate writing and decide on its purposes and audiences (Florio & Dunn, 1985). However, in contrast to these more traditional pedagogical practices, there has been a long-standing history of research and pedagogical experiments in collaborative writing. In her study of writing groups, Gere (1987) documented a history of peer response groups that have existed in the United States since the colonial period. Dewey's (1938/1963) advocacy of "progressive" education began early in this century and emphasized that learning occurs through interaction with others. In this article, I take a sociocultural view of writing, which describes the complex ways in which the individual learner reflects and enacts the values, beliefs, and ways of writing in her culture at the same time that the culture reflects 255 Jimi S CHULTZ the writing practices of individuals (Bloome & Green, 1984; Cook-Gumperz, Gumperz, & Simons, 1981; Gumperz, 1981; Heath, 1983; Scribner & Cole, 1981). In contrast to a view of writing as a set of isolated skills, this perspective suggests that writing is a set of social and cultural practices. When people speak or write, they position themselves in relationship to others. Children's texts can be viewed as simultaneously individual and social; writing opportunities are tied to social possibilities (Bakhtin, 1981,1986; Dyson, 1995). Whereas Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) provided a framework to understand the social nature of learning, Soviet philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin offered educators a theory for the essentially collaborative nature of all writing (Freedman, 1994; Thralls, 1992). Since Bakhtin's ideas have been introduced in this country, they have helped teachers to notice and build on the ways in which students' writing connects with their past interactions and experiences and reflects their anticipated future audiences. Bakhtin (1986) wrote that a text is simultaneously filled with "varying degrees of otherness or varying degrees of 'our-ownness,' varying degrees of awareness and detachment. These words of others carry with them their own expression, their own evaluative tone, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate" (p. 89). Bakhtin's insistence that texts are embedded in social dialogue and his description of their multivocal qualities (Bakhtin, 1981,1986) is critical to an understanding of writing as a collaborative activity. Brodkey (1987) summed up the curious disjuncture between our theories of writing and learning and our persistent images of writers: "Writing is a social act. People write to and for other people. Yet when we picture writing we see a solitary writer" (p. 54). This article describes the multiplicity of ways that writing might be social or collaborative in a classroom. Collaborative writing was first discussed as a method of teaching writing at the college level. Kenneth Bruffee (1973,1984) is generally credited for the introduction of the concept of collaborative writing groups to the college writing classroom. His articles in College English (Bruffee, 1973,1984,1986,1987) engendered considerable debate about the methods and meanings of collaboration during writing (e.g., Fox, 1994; Myers, 1986; Trimbur, 1989). Bruffee's notions of collaboration grew out a particular historic time period - the early 1970s - when, as a result of open admissions policies, the profile of the typical student at city and state universities drastically changed (Forman, 1992; Wiener, 1986). In addition, his emphasis on collaborative writing reflected efforts writing teachers were making to transform the teaching of writing in school so that it would be more similar to the writing processes and genres students would need in the "real world" of work (e.g., Doheny-Farina, 1986; Lunsford & Ede, 1986; Odell & Goswami, 1985). Bruffee's (1984) central argument was that collaborative writing groups freed students from the tyranny of the teacher and, through their interactions as peers, allowed students to set their own agendas. His vision of collaboration was one of an expanding dialogue that both included and allowed for 256 COLLABORATIVE WRITING WlmU multiple viewpoints. Critics of this description of collaboration argued that these conversations are rarely "status-equal" and reflect power structures and stratification in society at large (e.g., Fox, 1994; Lunsford & Ede, 1986). Further, it was argued that collaborative learning should include conflict as well as consensus, what Trimbur (1989) called "dissensus" or the explorations of differences, and that teachers should be skeptical about the ways collaborative learning serves to reproduce rather than critique the inequities in society (Myers, 1986; Trimbur, 1985,1989; see also Lensmire, 1994, for a discussion of these issues at the elementary level). Adding a postmodern voice to the conversation, Clifford (1992) summed up this perspective: "Collaborative work needs to allow for difference, for alterity, for multiple voices" (p. 176). Throughout this debate, which is frequently used as the cornerstone of discussions on collaboration in classrooms and workplaces (see, e.g., Forman, 1992; Reagan, Fox, & Bleich, 1994), collaboration is often referred to as a method of teaching in which teachers put together students in groups, often to discuss and critique their writing and literature. Thus, collaboration is viewed as a technique to be added to a teacher's repertoire for teaching writing. Studies that use this definition extend the meaning of a collaborative group to include two or more individuals writing together in face-to-face situations (Rogers & Horton, 1992), on computers (Daiute, 1989; Daiute e^Dalton, 1988,1992; Zeni, 1994), or as either student- or teacher-initiated group work (Bell-Metereau, 1994; Fox, 1994). Process-writing classrooms are often considered to be sites of collaborative writing. In contrast to traditionally organized classrooms, in which students write in silence on teacher-generated topics, the process-writing movement, begun in the 1970s, led to an increased emphasis on peer interactions during writing periods (Calkins, 1983,1991; Graves, 1983). Across the country, classrooms have been reorganized to promote both spontaneous interaction between peers and formal structures for peer response, such as peer conferencing and "author chairs" where students share finished work or work in process with their peers (e.g., Graves & Hansen, 1983). Although claims have been made about the advantages accrued by these teaching methods, few empirical studies have examined and described the collaboration in these classrooms, especially in multiethnic urban classrooms (for exceptions, see Dyson, 1987,1988,1989,1993; Gutierrez, 1992). Studies of collaboration have generally focused on children's and adults' writing processes and the development of individual writers. In her study of invention during writing, LeFevre (1987) took a social constructivist view of the self. She presented a theoretical argument that undergirds this study, that the self is socially constituted. Because writing is a reflection of the self, writing can best be understood as a social or collaborative activity (see also Oldfather & Dahl, 1994)- The theoretical perspective that all writing is collaborative suggests the importance of documenting how writing is collaborative in a particular setting, which is the focus of this study (rather than whether or not collaboration is a 257 PJIH SCHULTZ good practice or method - a thesis of many of the studies and essays about collaboration). In a collection of essays on this topic, New Visions of Collaborative Writing, Trimbur and Braun (1992) argued that collaboration has become "one of the central preoccupations in studies of writing" (p. 21). They raised the caution that the term "collaboration," like "community," has become an uncontested term, one that carries assumed advantages for the classroom (Harris, 1989; Trimbur & Braun, 1992). Trimbur and Braun suggested that collaboration is an activity in which a group of individuals author a single document. This definition is both the most common definition I found in the research and teaching literature and yet reflects only one type of collaboration. In addition, collaboration is too often introduced as a "technique" rather than a shift in patterns of interaction and classroom routines. The admonishment to "do your own work" is a familiar refrain in classrooms across the country. At the same time, in recognition of the value of teamwork, teachers have recently introduced cooperative learning activities in which students work together to produce a single product (e.g., Cohen, 1986; Johnson & Johnson, 1987; Slavin, 1991). In her argument for "culturally relevant" teaching for African-American children, Ladson-Billings (1994) has recently stressed the importance of cooperative learning and community building (see also Foster, 1992; Robinson & Ward, 1991). These two modes of teaching and learning - the privileging of individual work and the promotion of collective work - are frequently posed as polar opposites. In the classroom described in this article, these two practices were incorporated into a single vision of collaboration, which included both working together and working alone. I chose to study the collaborative arrangements for writing in this particular classroom community because I wanted to document the social or collaborative nature of writing in an urban classroom that was considered "successful" by peers, parents, administrators, and school-district personnel. Students frequently spent 2 or 3 years in this fourth- and fifth-grade classroom with positive results. Often their academic and social skills - their ability to succeed in school - flourished during these years. In addition, students were often given opportunities to talk as they wrote, so that they became deeply engaged in their own and their classmates ongoing writing projects. The two teachers in this large classroom of 57 children were experienced and, in many ways, were considered by their peers to be exemplary teachers working in a challenging context. They had each taken leadership roles both locally and districtwide in areas such as curriculum development and school reform. Both had been involved over the years in a nationally recognized teachers' group that has met weekly for over 25 years to reflect on children's work and to interrogate teachers' practice. In this classroom, collaboration was taught as an integral part of the curriculum; it was stressed not only during writing periods, but throughout the day and across all of the subjects. In addition, teachers at various grade levels in the school held a view of collaborative learning that emphasized a respect for differences and a diversity of styles, rather than the melding of individuals and their 258 COLLABORATIVE WRITING PHH ideas into sameness. In this classroom and throughout the school, students from a range of backgrounds with various strengths and weaknesses collaborated and learned from one another. This classroom can be considered neither strictly traditionally organized nor a conventional process-writing classroom. Although teachers emphasized multiple drafts, informal conferencing, and peer interaction, they did not use formal peer and teacher conferences, author chairs, or other structures and routines that have become hallmarks of this pedagogical movement (e.g., Atwell, 1987; Calkins, 1983,1991; Graves, 1983). Instead, building on years of experience and considerable knowledge and expertise in the teaching of writing, the teachers chose and constructed their own methods and curricula according to the needs of the children they taught each year. Conflict, as well as consensus, was sanctioned by the teachers, who encouraged students to express their own viewpoints and ideas and not necessarily to adopt those advocated by others. Collaboration was not limited to response groups and peer conferences; like writing, it occurred throughout the day. While teachers encouraged students to write with peers with whom they had existing relationships, they constantly worked to establish a group identity and a classroom community. In this classroom, students and teachers struggled together to understand and explicitly define concepts such as "working independently," "group," and "individual" writing. The social structures and modes of interaction in the classroom created norms around collaboration that affected both how and what students wrote, as well as their development as writers. Collaboration was more than a pedagogical tool. It was a way of interacting that grew out of the respect for difference and diversity that characterized not only this classroom, but the entire school and communities in which many of the students and teachers lived. Method I collected data for this research project over the course of a single school year in collaboration with one of the teachers, Judy Buchanan. In addition, I worked closely with her colleague and the second teacher in the classroom, Karen Salton. {Note: This name and all others used throughout the article, except for Judy Buchanan's, are pseudonyms.) For the first 3 weeks of September, I spent each day in the classroom as a participant-observer. For the remainder of the year, I spent 3 days, and later in April, May, and June, 2 days a week in the classroom. I nearly always stayed for the entire day, so that I could capture the range of writing and relationships throughout the day. Although the students referred to me as a teacher and often asked me questions or requested my assistance, I was able to step back regularly from the classroom scene to take detailed fieldnotes. In this project, I included the "researched" in the research process and formed a collaborative relationship with 259 Wlmli SCHULTZ both the teachers and students in order to conduct the research. (See Schultz, 1991, and Buchanan & Schultz, 1993, for a detailed discussion about the teacherresearcher collaboration that characterized this project See also Fine, 1994.) Both the teachers and the students assisted me with the research. The teachers, particularly Judy Buchanan, who was a colleague of mine at the University, would frequently reflect on my observations and add details of their own (see Buchanan & Schultz, 1993). At the end of February, a group of students volunteered to act as student researchers. They were given folders to collect and record all examples of their writing at home and at school. We met a few times a week during an afternoon choice time, and I taught them some interviewing strategies. They began with interviews among themselves and then sought out peers. They particularly looked for other students who they thought of as "group writers." Although we brainstormed a few questions and they knew about my interest in writing and talking, the format and specific topics of the interviews were left to the students to determine themselves. Most students involved in the research process were actively engaged in writing either "alone" or with others prior to their participation as student researchers. The interviews were audiotaped, and the transcriptions were later shown to the student researchers. I did not notice a significant change in the students' involvement in their own collaborative writing groups after their participation as researchers in this project, although they did become more aware of the phenomenon of "group writing." Data collected included extensive fieldnotes, copies of student writing, interviews and discussions with teachers and students, and interviews the students conducted among themselves. Audiotapes were used to record conversations that occurred as the students wrote, during class discussions, and during interviews with individuals and groups of students. For the interviews, I primarily used open-ended questions, which I asked to obtain teachers' and students' explanations and confirming evidence for my observations. At the beginning of the year, I asked a series of questions to both teachers in order to understand the larger context of the school and neighborhood, to understand the ways they set up the routines for writing in the classroom, and to obtain background information about particular students. These interviews were both scheduled and more informal and spontaneous, occurring, for instance, as we crossed the street for lunch. Throughout the year, I continued to ask questions about teaching and auricular decisions. With the assistance of the teachers, in November, I chose 10 children as my focal students, about whom I asked more detailed questions. Rather than a selection of students who represented the demographic characteristics of the class, I chose students whose writing activities seemed to reflect different ways of participating in the classroom writing community. Thus, I chose students who tended to write "alone," students who wrote consistently in pairs, students who were "floaters," and students who were involved in the writing networks I describe in a following section. Three of these 10 focal students had volunteered as student researchers. As I analyzed the data and generated tentative assertions, I checked my observations, assumptions, and evolving theories with the teachers 260 COLLABORATIVE WRITING Pjjlj themselves and occasionally with the students. By the end of the school year, I had decided to collect data most intensively on five focal students and their collaborators, one of whom had worked with me as a student researcher. Each of these five students was involved in a different and representative type of collaborative relationship around writing. In this article, I describe four of these students who wrote in collaborative relationships with peers; the fifth student formed a partnership with her teachers (see Schultz, 1994, for a discussion of this collaboration). I conducted three in-depth interviews with each of the focal students about their writing over the year. In each instance, the students brought writing to our interview and talked about their writing processes. In addition, one of these students was interviewed by the student researchers. I analyzed the transcripts of interviews conducted by student researchers alongside the interviews I conducted myself. In most instances, I used the interviews collected by student researchers as supporting evidence for the observations and assertions I drew from other sources. (For arguments in support of including students' perspectives and their subjective experiences in research, see Erickson 6- Shultz, 1992; Nieto, 1994; Schultz, 1996.) During the following summer, I reviewed the data and my preliminary findings with Judy Buchanan. Together, we looked closely at the students' work, transcriptions of talk and interviews, and selected fieldnotes for each of the focal students. After the completion of the data collection, and together with the descriptive data from the fieldnotes, I analyzed all of the data sources including the transcripts of the conversations. During the research period and after the data were compiled, I reviewed the notes numerous times in search of patterns that would describe the writing processes in the classroom. Using standard interpretive methods (Erickson, 1986), I noted and analyzed patterns of interaction and behavior between teachers and students and among students as peers (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Erickson, 1986) including the ways that teachers and students each initiated, negotiated, and appropriated writing. (See Schultz, 1991, for a more complete discussion.) From the data, I generated numerous assertions which I tested against the data base by collecting both confirming and disconfirming evidence from the fieldnotes, transcripts of student talk and interviews, documents and artifacts, and through conversations with the teachers and students. For example, I collected instances in which the classroom structure seemed to support student collaboration, and times when collaboration was either discouraged or teachers decided to isolate students so they could accomplish their work. By noting the contrast with disconfirming evidence, I strengthened the descriptions of the patterns of collaboration through an illustration of the full range of possibilities and interactions in the classroom. Next, I found key linkages and searched for both a range of instances and frequent examples of each. The collections of instances generated new patterns and categories. Using the assertions, I wrote narrative vignettes and collected excerpts from interviews and students' writing. I returned to the classroom to check these with the classroom teachers (particularly Judy Buchanan), who 261 pjj;j SCHULTZ read, commented, and added to various drafts. The interpretive research methods I used highlighted the meaning perspectives of teachers and students in the classroom. One theme to emerge from this data analysis was the range of collaboration among students. I found a wide range of activities in the classroom and patterns of interactions that could be considered collaboration. A second theme was students' response to collaboration. Some students gravitated toward a single peer, whereas others chose to initially write "alone" before consulting with others. This article extends the analysis of these themes. The Classroom Setting This study is situated in a team-taught third- and fourth-grade classroom with 57 students and two teachers located in a relatively small public school that is part of a large urban public school system in a major Eastern us city. Although historically the school - called Baring School in this study- has been evenly integrated in terms of race and class, in recent years, the proportion of AfricanAmerican students has increased. At the time of the study, the school had approximately 65% African-American students, 30% European-American students, and a small number of Asian-American students and children from other cultural groups. The two European-American teachers, Judy and Karen, had worked together for several years and had developed a synchrony in their teaching styles and methods. Both teachers have long histories of teaching in the school and citywide reputations as excellent teachers. Judy has lived in the school's neighborhood for many years and has sent both of her children to the school. Karen has had a long commitment to the school and its surrounding community. The community where the school is located has a long history as a racially and ethnically mixed community of people from various social classes who have chosen to live in a diverse, urban neighborhood. A predominantly low-income African-American community borders one side of the community, whereas two large universities and their fraternities are located at another edge. Although two other schools serve the area, parents from the bordering poorer neighborhood who are concerned about the quality of their children's education have traditionally sent their children to Baring School. Students in the school thus come from these two neighboring communities, the predominantly EuropeanAmerican middle-class community associated with the universities and the poorer African-American community, as well as from its immediate racially and ethnically mixed community of people, many of whom are committed to living in an integrated urban neighborhood. Students often, but not always, spent 2 years in this mixed third- and fourth-grade classroom. The classroom itself was large and often noisy; the concrete walls and mostly bare floors did little to absorb the sounds of so many students in one place. The room was formed by two rooms separated by an open divider, with two doors leading to the hallway. Although one side of the large room 262 COLLABORATIVE WRITING Fj^M was designated the third-grade side and the other the fourth-grade side, students were assigned to desks in mixed age groups throughout the entire room. Desks were arranged in clusters, with open teaching areas occupying the front and back of the room. Much of the language teaching and learning in this classroom was connected to thematic units or projects which lasted from 1 to 3 months. Students were given both specific and open-ended tasks to complete during a language arts period. These activities invariably integrated reading and writing and involved a steady stream of talk, with students in both grades teaching and learning from each other. In this classroom, writing was not confined to a single period. Students wrote all daylong: to complete assignments; to explain their (mis)behavior; to communicate with their friends, teachers, and pen pals; and for their own enjoyment. All of this writing "counted," and although teachers carefully edited the expository writing which they used to teach standard conventions, they equally valued these many other kinds of writing which coexisted alongside the more formal curriculum. The large number of students in the classroom meant that students were often each other's teachers, an activity that was both encouraged and explicitly taught by the two adult teachers. The teachers believed in the importance of providing students with numerous opportunities to develop their own interests and strengths at the same time that they held the students to high standards. They felt various pulls between the teaching methods most recently associated with the whole language and process-writing movements (including literature groups, opportunities for journal or "free" writing, thematic units, and numerous projects extending reading and writing) and the need to offer activities that would prepare students for their next schools. As fourth-grade teachers in a K-4 school, they were constantly aware of the expectations and assignments students would face in the more traditional settings that most were likely to enter the following year. This meant, for instance, that although most of the reading material was literature, during certain times of the year, the students read stories from basal readers and filled in pages from workbooks. Thus, the writing pedagogy of this classroom could be classified as neither traditional nor one that strictly adhered to the teaching methods of process-writing classrooms. Rather, the teachers developed their own ways of teaching writing that were particularly adapted to the needs of their students and the exigencies of their school system. Findings Multiple Meanings of Collaboration In this classroom, collaboration signaled a range of ways of working together over time based on preexisting relationships among students and teachers. The arrangements for collaboration included students who wrote "alone," students 263 PJVJ SCHULTZ who composed their own stories while they sat side by side, and students who worked together to produce a single draft. (See Table 1 for a summary of the arrangements for collaborative writing.) Students entered this classroom with various perceptions and values about collaboration. More than half had been in very similar classrooms during previous years and were supported by families that placed an emphasis on collaboration, whereas others came from schools and homes that privileged individual accomplishment over group sharing in academic settings. This latter group of students often framed the act of helping each other as "cheating." The teachers tried to gear their teaching to accommodate a variety of styles, while at the same time, they explicitly taught students the rules for working with one another that governed this classroom. They continually reminded the students that "this is school" and that "working together doesn't mean fooling around and not getting anything done" (Fieldnotes, i-Nov-88). Students constructed their own understandings of what working with peers in a group and working alone meant. In a taped interview conducted by student researchers, a group of students drew the distinction between times people worked together to write a single text and times a group or pair of friends shared ideas in order to write individual stories. In this conversation, they attempted to sort out the meaning and boundaries of "group" or collaborative writing. Roy: [Group writing mostly is when] friends ... are really paired up to do the same thing. They actually do the same story. TABLE 1. Collaborative Arrangements for Writing Case study Type of collaboration Key characteristics Roderick Student writing "alone" • Wrote for rather than with peers • Collaborated with others if he was in charge Stephanie and Rachel Single authors writing side-by-side: Pairs • Acted as each other's first reader • Moments of privacy, moments of sharing • Took on multiple roles • Based on relationships developed over time Roderick, Michael, and Tom (Rod magazine writers); Jeffrey, Ali, Joseph, Michelle, and Lionel (detective network) Single authors writing side-by-side: Networks • Shared genres • Invited peers to be in their stories • Peers acted as sources of ideas, characters, and experiences 264 COLLABORATIVE Samuel: Roy: Samuel: Roy: Samuel: David: Samuel: Roy: Samuel: WRITING PJ^H Like Roderick and Michael and Tom ... (the members of the Rad magazine network, a group of students who worked on a magazine together.) That's group writing. Ellen and Kristen. Stephanie and Rachel, (pairs of students who consistently wrote together) They copy off of each other's story... Ellen and Kristen copy off of each other too. Whereas Roderick and Tom and Michael, they all help each other to do one thing. They don't copy. I know. Because they all use the same writing folder or the same notebook And they all make Rad magazines. (In actuality, each of the Rad writers had their own notebook.) Whereas people like... Or Mad magazine... (continuing) Whereas people like Kristen and Ellen, they do more copying of each other than actually doing group writing. (Student interview, 3O-Mar-89)* Although the actual distinction made by the student researchers between the two forms of "group" writing sounds more like boys (the three student researchers in this interview were all boys) deriding girls (the pairs of students who copied), the differentiation they drew between copying and helping nonetheless remains interesting. These students defined "group writing" as a time when students help each other to write a single story, as opposed to "copying," which is what students do when they share ideas for separate stories. Because these three boys mainly engaged in group writing during project times when they worked on group writing projects initiated by themselves, rather than school or teacher-assigned writing, this definition matched their own experience. As avowedly solitary writers during most school writing tasks, they framed the composition of individual stories using another's ideas as "copying" or, more seriously, "cheating." The teachers worked hard to introduce alternative conceptions of working together throughout the year. Toward the end of the year, although students constantly talked and worked together in this classroom, the teachers reiterated permission for students to work with one another on a variety of assignments, even when they were asked to "work independently" as illustrated in the following vignette. This was part of their ongoing and explicit teaching about collaboration. Karen: Students: Karen: (The whole group was gathered on the rug.) (addressing the students) Something happened with [the student teacher's] group where she realized that people weren't sure what "work independently" means. What does it mean? (give a variety of responses including) without the teacher, fast... not necessarily fast but steadily... 1. In reproducing dialogue, I have attempted to make it easy to understand, and thus, back channels such as "uh" and "you know" are occasionally deleted where they do not obscure the meaning of the interaction. At the same time, I have tried to represent the dialogue accurately. 265 I SCHULTZ Students: Karen: Student: Karen: Judy: working alone, by yourself. All those are the answers. It also means that you help each other; the people in the group help each other ... (suggesting) Like SSR [Sustained Silent Reading] ... No, not like SSR, because you're helping each other (implying that during SSR, students don't help each other; they read alone.) If you're really stuck you can get the teacher. (Fieldnotes, i8-Apr-89) "Work independently" took on new and multiple meanings in this classroom, meanings that differed from its usual connotations. Students were assumed to be able to function independently from the teachers, using their classmates as their primary resources. They were expected both to work alone and to consult with others as needed. Although this discussion took place in the spring, after the class had been together for many months, in both theory and practice, the tension between working alone and helping others remained unresolved. Although teachers often explicitly taught students about collaboration, these "lessons" were integrated into all aspects of the classroom rather than treated as a separate subject. In order to create an environment that supported collaboration or working with one another even when students were asked to "work-independently," the teachers paid careful attention to the structural organization of the classroom. A noise level louder than in many classrooms was tolerated, as were a range of seating arrangements. During many of the writing periods, most students were allowed to choose where and with whom they sat. Desks were clustered in groups of four to nine, which encouraged students to talk as they wrote. For instance, although two students, Stephanie and Rachel, described later in this section, did not have assigned seats next to each other, they chose to sit together to complete many of their assignments. The teachers encouraged students to consult with one another as they wrote and completed their assignments, while simultaneously insisting that they "do their own work." In addition, they promoted various social organizational structures such as pairs and small groups as configurations in which the students could choose to work. Teachers often asked students to share books and materials. Projects were constructed that required students to consult with one another, and teachers openly encouraged students to exchange information. As they collaborated, students walked the fine line between doing individual and collective work. Arrangements for Collaboration Roderick was angry at Michael because Michael appeared to be using the same animals he had chosen to construct a food web as part of the assignmentfor the 266 COLLABORATIVE WRITING PUM Sea Life project. He went to one of the teachers with his protest, complaining that Michael was "copying off of him." His teacher, Judy, calmly suggested that the two boys sit down and work together. Roderick looked at her incredulously, inquiring, "The same thing?" She nodded and the two boys sat down at another table and constructed their similar food webs. (Fieldnotes, 25-Oct-88) There were a variety of ways that students worked collaboratively in this classroom; most were sanctioned by the teachers, although some were not. Although at times, the teachers admonished the students to work alone and actually separated them from their peers, in many cases, as illustrated above, they actually put students together and asked them to help one another. In this classroom, students wrote stories while sitting alone, enveloped in relative silence; they wrote their own stories sitting side by side in pairs and larger groups; and on occasion, they collaborated as a group to write a single story. Bakhtin (1981) wrote: "The word in language is half someone else's. It becomes 'one's own' only when the speaker populates it with his own intentions, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it for his own semantic and expressive intention" (p. 294). Even as students sat by themselves, their stories reflected themes, ideas, and experiences suggested by others. When they wrote stories as group members, individuals often struggled to retain their own voices. This section will introduce a few of these types of collaboration through case studies of individual and pairs of students to suggest that collaboration is not a single set of activities initiated by teachers, but rather a way that students can engage with each other in writing. (See Schultz, 1994, for a discussion of collaboration between students and teachers in this same classroom.) Students Writing "Alone" Roderick was a 10-year-old African-American fourth-grader from a workingclass background and an only child who lived in the community adjacent to the school with his mother. Although his peers were important to him during the school day, Roderick seemed to have limited contact with friends his age outside of the context of school. This may have accounted for his need, at times, to write alone. Roderick nearly always had a group of students around him looking through his collection of Mad magazines, reading and working with him on his own Rad magazine, or sharing his prized fluorescent markers. Usually, he shared his materials willingly, although occasionally, he would get bothered by the crowds and reclaim his privacy. This constant group of people served as the primary audience for Roderick's writing. The pull he exhibited between wanting to share and demanding privacy seemed to reflect a more general tension Roderick felt between the desire to write as part of a group and the belief that, in order to be original, he should write alone. In an interview toward the end of the school year, I asked Roderick about 267 Wmii SCHULTZ the role of his peers in this process of invention. He began with a description of the writing he had worked on during the course of the year: Roderick: KS: Roderick: KS: Roderick: KS: Roderick: KS: Roderick: KS: Roderick KS: Roderick: Urn, like I like making up my own mythical creature and what it, its things it can do. And like what it do's best and something like that. And like if it can change shapes or something like that. And like um people that save, I mean like, someone that is like just goes out and saves other people from the mythical creature. Or like sends it to another world. And are those ideas that you talked about with other people first or are they ideas that you thought... Well like / think of something first Then I sort of check it out with other people to see if they like i t Uh-hmm. Because sometimes I'm not sure. So what might your conversations sound like if you're checking it out with other people? Like, do you think it's a good idea if I make the character do this or that or make him die? And what's something they might say? Like they go with the first choice. Like [the one] I wasn't sure with, they usually go with that one. Uh-hmm Or they make up their own to tell me. What if they have a different idea from you, then what would you do? I guess I'd use it, but change it in a way. So it's more like mine and not like theirs. (Interview, 30-May-89) In this retrospective account of his writing process, Roderick described the tension he experienced between a desire to solicit feedback from his peers and his concern that he retain and protect an original voice in his stories. His response to collaboration reflects this tension. Adults often described Roderick as "defiant" or having an "attitude," and he occasionally got into fist fights with other students. His defiance was generally connected to his stubbornness; he wanted to decide how and when he would accomplish the various classroom tasks. This was evident in his initial responses to teacher-assigned or teacher-initiated writing. For instance, rather than following the suggestions of his teachers or his peers, Roderick, in essence, invented his own curriculum by creating a magazine in his writing folder—the Rad magazine - and making this his primary site for learning to write more proficiently. While acknowledging that he was part of a group of magazine writers, Roderick repeatedly maintained that he wrote most effectively when he worked alone (Interview, 30-May-89), a sentiment echoed by his teachers. One day, in exasperation, he informed his teacher, "You don't learn from other people, you learn from work" (Fieldnotes, 22-N0V-88). An examination of the times Roderick worked with others and the instances he chose to write by himself suggests a pattern. Although he generally 268 COLLABORATIVE WRITING PJ^H worked on teacher-assigned compositions in isolation, when he turned to "his writing" - the writing for his magazine - Roderick was surrounded by his friends with whom he engaged in constant interaction. The relationship between Roderick and his peers exhibited a particular type of collaboration characterized by the relationship between writers and their immediate audience. Rather than writing with and for a single peer, as was the case in many of the pairs of writers in the classroom like Stephanie and Rachel described in a later case study, Roderick wrote for, but not with, a group of students. As he explained in the interview above, these peers shaped Roderick's writing through their responses to it, at the same time that he carefully influenced the content and form of their responses. Although Roderick's particular style, strengths, and set of responses were unique, there were many other students who, like Roderick, preferred to sit alone to accomplish their school assignments or other writing. Toward the end of the year, Roderick produced his first extended narrative, which was based on a Greek hero tale. He had begun the story at school sitting with a group of close friends - two White and two Black — in the hallway. The group had quickly degenerated into an argument, which the teachers had called to a halt, sending the students to work at their own desks. As a result, Roderick sat by himself to write this story. He appeared somewhat relieved to be writing a school assignment alone. Roderick finished the story that evening at home. Although the general theme is reminiscent of both the hero tales he had read and the stories his classmates had been writing, Roderick's use of street images gave his story the unique cast he had been looking for. Although initially somewhat resistant to the Greek theme, Roderick used this assignment to construct a bridge between his own interests and style of writing and the assignments given to him by his teachers. His initial discussion with his peers is reflected in the modern-day tone of the story that he integrated into the traditional tale. Jason and the Golden Chain By Roderick Jason was going to the mallandhesaw people walking down the street with gold chains. He wanted one of his own. He asked someone and they told him to go to the corner of Canal St. So he went into the store and there were stereos, car radios, radios, T.V. everything electronic and more. He asked the owner for a gold chain and the owner said, "I'll be right back." The store owner got away just in time because the stuff there was stolen and Jason didn't know. But the cop thought he did so they arrested Jason for stealing. Jason tried to tell them about the man that told him about the store owner and the cops believed him and they let him go. But the cops wanted a favor. They wanted to find the man. They asked if there was anything they could do for him. "Yes, could you get me a gold chain?" So Jason got some help from the gods. They gave a rock to help him. The rock will light when the men are around so it will be easy to find them. It worked and the cops gave Jason a chain. (Note: This piece was edited with a teacher and typed for a class book.) 269 tmii SCHULTZ Although Roderick seemed to have a strong conviction that he was someone who wrote best by himself, he clearly crafted his writing for outside audiences. This example of Roderick's writing introduces new notions of collaboration. In contrast to standard conceptions of collaboration as "writing with others" and "equal participation," Roderick was only willing and able to collaborate with his teachers and peers when he was in charge. When he was in a leadership role, with power clearly in his own hands, Roderick was willing to share ideas and learn from his friends. He selected peers to join him in the Rad network - the group of students who worked together to write their own magazines based on the popular Mad magazines—who were comfortable with this particular set of relationships. At the same time, Roderick's writing with others was mitigated by his understanding of invention as an individual practice and the value he placed on originality. In a classroom where collaboration during writing was established as the norm, each student found or created his or her own way to collaborate or learn from others. For Roderick, his willingness to collaborate was connected to his sense of timing. Most often, he waited until he had collected his "own" ideas — which of course were influenced by formal and informal conversations — before he was willing to collaborate or use his peers as an audience. This allowed Roderick to claim that he wrote alone and was the sole or proprietary author, when in fact, his writing process and the texts he produced included the voices of others. Single Authors Writing Side by Side Pairs of writers. The following vignette introduces an example of students who collaborated to write in pairs or dyads: (Stephanie and Rachel, two African-American fourth-graders who frequently chose to write together, were dressed nearly identically, each wearing a blouse, a mini skirt with shorts underneath, socks, and sneakers. They were lying on their stomachs next to each other, on the rug in the front of the room, looking through their folders to choose a project to work on during the language arts time. Together the girls decided to work on the assignment that asked them to write their own Greek myth. They each began by writing both of their names at the top of their papers — Stephanie (Flynn) wrote, "By Stephanie Flynn and Rachel Flynn" and Rachel (James) wrote, "By Rachel James and Stephanie James." Rachel walked over to one of their teachers, Judy, to ask whether she and Stephanie could work together. Recognizing the value placed on individual authorship in the middle school these students would attend the next year, for this particular assignment Judy replied that they could work together, but they each had to write their own myth. When Rachel returned and relayed this information to Stephanie, they each titled their page "Adventures of Athena and Diana" and began their stories with the words "One day," continuing with slightly different sentences.) 270 COLLABORATIVE WRITING PllM Stephanie: Rachel: Stephanie: Who did Theseus like, Diana or Athena? I don't care. Who was Theseus closest to? (Rachel giggled.) Stephanie: {assertively) Theseus liked Diana. (They each wrote independently and silently for a few minutes.) Stephanie: (excitedly) Oh! I know another story for my title - "Cupid Comes." (Rachel giggled.) Stephanie: Just another adventure, Rachel. You can keep that title, Rachel. C-, C-, Rachel, cupid, CRachel: Oh, C-U-P-I-D. Stephanie: (erased her original title and wrote "Cupid Comes" in its place) Okay. My [story] is going to be good. (After writingfor afew minutes, Stephanie read her story aloud. While reading it, she self-corrected parts of it, for instance by adding a "but" when it didn't make sense. Rachel continued working quietly without commenting, and Stephanie returned to writing.) Although the two girls' stories began nearly identically as they started to talk and write, both the titles and the content quickly diverged. Only the basic plot and main characters remained the same. Stephanie's comfort with Rachel as a writing partner was evident when she began the word she needed help with and expected Rachel to finish spelling it for her ("C-, C-, C-, Rachel, cupid, C-"). Although Rachel helped Stephanie with the technical aspects of writing, Stephanie thought of many of the ideas for their stories. The two girls continued to talk as they wrote: Stephanie: Rachel: Stephanie: Stephanie: Rachel: Stephanie: Mine is decent. Do you want to hear mine so far? Okay. Let me hear yours first. (Rachel read her story.) You want to hear mine? I have tofixthat. Okay. (Stephanie read her story. As she read it a second time, she paused to change "oves" to "over" and to fix "arrow," which Rachel helped her to spell.) (commenting on her story) First he was in love with Diana and then he fell in love with Athena. As the two girls continued to talk and write with one another, they acted as each other's first audience. The act of reading her own story aloud enabled Stephanie to find mechanical changes that would make her story more comprehensible. In addition, the two girls traded ideas for their evolving plots. Stephanie occasionally glanced at Rachel's paper to see how to spell words. As they continued to write, Stephanie began to cover her paper. After writing for a brief period of time, she showed her paper to Rachel again. Then she took her story to her teacher, Judy, who complemented her on the story thus far and posed a question to encourage Stephanie to continue. 271 Wmii SCHULTZ Rachel: What did Teacher Judy say? Stephanie: She said, "That's great What is Cupid going to do?" Although at times Stephanie made her work private by covering it up, Rachel never followed these actions. It seemed as if Stephanie had a need to claim individual authorship for a moment, before returning to the collective composing process. A member of a large family, Rachel seemed comfortable with sharing her words and knowledge at all times. She did not appear to feel the need to assert her individual identity. Stephanie rarely consulted teachers for help or approval. However, after Rachel had listened to or read her story a few times, Stephanie was ready to show it to her teacher. Rachel's and Judy's enjoyment of the story gave Stephanie the confidence and motivation to continue writing. Stephanie: (commenting on her story aloud) Cupid hit all three of them. Rachel: Slapped all three of them. Stephanie: And they stopped looking around. (After these brief comments, they each began to write again, engrossed in their own stories. As the lights wereflashed,signaling the end of the period, Rachel and Stephanie said "aw" in unison. They continued working for a little while longer and then each put their stories in their assignment folders. Tape tran- script,fieldnotes,28-Mar-89) In the final moments of this writing period, Stephanie and Rachel composed collaboratively as they traded phrases and ways to articulate their ideas. Their disappointment when asked to stop their writing reflects their enjoyment of writing together. Each of the two students enacted a number of roles as they worked together. Although Stephanie tended to take the lead in initiating conversations, Rachel seemed to impart most of the information about spelling and grammar. As they each thought of new ideas, the two girls initially checked with each other, collaboratively developing their themes. Occasionally, they made decisions about the task together, such as when Stephanie confirmed that Rachel was also skipping lines. Although Stephanie covered her paper so that it couldn't be read by Rachel for a brief period of time, the general absence of competition is remarkable. This partnership was based on a relationship developed over time by two students who felt relatively comfortable with their knowledge about both the mechanics of writing and their subject matter. Their conversation moved them forward in their writing. This description of collaborative writing does not match the conventional conception of collaboration in which individuals' ideas are blended into a common statement. In this vignette, working separately is both as important as and a part of working together. Working alone and working together are two aspects of collaboration. It is instructive to look at the stories produced by this collaboration. Stephanie's story contains more explicit emotional language (e.g., kissing and 272 COLLABORATIVE WRITING PJ^H slapping), and her plot is complicated yet understandable. Stephanie's enjoyment of writing this story and her humor is evident in her choice of words. Cupid Comes by Stephanie Flynn One day a goddess names Athena meet a goddess named Diana. They both liked Theseus. But Theseus liked Diana. So Diana and Athena fought all the time over Theseus. One day cupid came and looked around. When he saw the two goddesses fighting over Theseus. He plucked an arrow by accident and it hit Theseus, and Theseus fell in love with Athena! So one day Theseus asked Athena to go to lunch with him. She said yes so they went. They say under a oak tree. Theseus kissed Athena and Diana saw them. She screamed. Then she went over to Theseus and slapped him! Then he fell in love with Diana again. Then Theseus was all mixed up. Athena slapped him (The story continues in this vein for a couple of pages with the addition of Jason who marries Athena. The story concludes.) Then Athena and Diana was friend again and afair [after] all cupid don[e] his job all them lived happy. Rachel chose a different hero as the central character of her story. This story has more interesting details and a more intricate story line than much of Rachel's previous writing. Adventures of Athena and Diana by Rachel James One day two goddesses were walking down the road there names were Athena and Diana they were dose friends they both liked a hero and they both liked Perseus. So Athena and Diana went home they put on there special dresses and went on there way they were both going to Persu's house, they didn't want each other to know that they were both was going to Persu's houses, so they went diffrent ways, they both were surprized when they got to the door. Before theyknoked they wer fighting. Persus came to the door because he herd all this noise. Before he knew it Athena and Diana were all on the ground they got there favorite dresses dirty. Persus got mad he slamed the door and counted to ten, then he opened the door agian and scremed real loud his castle shook the[y] both got up and apologize to persus, then he let them in to have a cup of tea. (This story continues for nearly four more pages. Perseus' solution is to make a calendar so that each goddess comes to visit on a separate day. One day there's another mistake and both goddesses show up. Perseus appeals to Cupid for help with the following result.) So Cupid shot an arrow at Athena and Diana and they did not like Perseus any more. Although the stories have similar beginnings and themes throughout, the girls each found separate resolutions to their tales. In addition they each added their own details: for instance, Rachel's emphasis on clothes and Stephanie's more descriptive language. Rachel borrowed a line from a book that was popular in the classroom that year and which had engendered much writing - The Jolly Postman -when she wrote that Perseus offered the goddesses a cup of tea. Working with 273 tmU SCHULTZ Stephanie seemed to encourage Rachel to write longer, more detailed stories, whereas Stephanie's stories, most likely because of Rachel's influence, became simpler and easier to comprehend. Stephanie wrote best when she could talk first; much of her writing was talk written down. The opportunity to work closely with Rachel allowed her to talk out loud about her ideas and pause long enough to find a way to find the right words. Judy summed up Stephanie in a single phrase: "She's always in a rush" (Interview, 18-J11I-89). Indeed, Stephanie was frenetic; she needed to be doing something with her hands and feet at nearly every moment. She spoke so quickly that her speech was at times incomprehensible. One day as I watched her racing to be the first student finished with a math sheet, I noticed the slogan on her sweatshirt: "Born to be First." The phrase exactly matched Stephanie's actions. At the end of the year, Judy observed that Rachel helped Stephanie to act more calmly and conform to the expectations of the classroom (Interview, n-Jul-89). In contrast to Stephanie's frenzy, Rachel was calm and quiet. She chose her words carefully, both in her speech and in her writing. Rachel was nearly always actively engaged in learning. Through her enjoyment of listening to and writing stories, for instance, Rachel helped Stephanie to become more involved in academic activities. On the other hand, Stephanie seemed to influence Rachel to make her stories livelier and more complex and to go beyond the minimum requirement. At the same time, Rachel was willing to keep up with Stephanie's pace if their collective activities demanded it. They accommodated to each other's styles in their friendship and collaboration. Like Stephanie and Rachel, most pairs of students who wrote together had a history of friendship. Although, at first, Stephanie and Rachel wrote side by side and shared the content of their individual stories and writing projects, as the year progressed and their friendship grew, they began to ask the teachers if they could write their stories together. The teachers generally responded, as they did in the vignette above, that they could write together if each girl produced her own story. By the end of the year, the two girls, who had begun frequently to dress alike, wrote their names on their papers using their own first names and each other's last names, emphasizing their closeness and interest in imitating the other. Although some students wrote with and for their friends throughout the entire year, other groups were more fluid. As friendships and allegiances shifted, so did the pairs and groups or networks in which students wrote. These emotional stakes affected the social contexts in which students wrote and, thus, along with the official content and task, helped shape their writing. In most instances, students formed their own pairs and groups or networks in which to write. As long as the teachers felt that the groups were supporting the writing, teachers gave the students the latitude they needed to form these writing arrangements. Writing networks. Although students frequently chose to write in pairs, at times, they sat in larger groups or networks to compose their individual stories. The term "network" signals the social relationships among groups of students who wrote together over a period of time. Most of the networks were formed 274 COLLABORATIVE WRITING PJJM around common interests in topics, genres, or specific projects initiated by either students or teachers. The networks provided a variety of ways for students from diverse backgrounds with differing styles, needs, interests, and purposes for writing to come together in groups formed around writing. Teachers both supported and initiated the creation of various writing networks in the classrooms. Some were connected to writing assignments initiated by teachers, whereas others, like the Rad network, were linked to student-initiated projects. A third category of networks fell in between these types. These networks were frequently based on a student's idea, a writing project thought up by a student and then formalized by their teachers as a choice that was offered at a particular time of day. The following description of the detective network serves to introduce this writing arrangement. A group of five students, who frequently sat together at the beginning of the school year before the teachers had assigned them desks, wrote detective stories together in their writing folders. After each student had engaged in the ritual of inviting others to participate in his or her story, the students used one another as their main characters . These students — Jeffrey, Ali, Michelle, Joseph, and Lionel - came from a range of backgrounds. Two of them were African-American, one Egyptian, one European-American, and one of mixed race; two came from professional-class families, whereas the families of the others were working class; three of the students lived in the neighborhood surrounding the school, whereas two lived outside of the district; four of the students were male, one female. Although none of the students had long-standing friendships either with each other or with other students in the class, all of them except one could generally be found on the boundaries of one or more groups of students. Jeffrey, considered an "isolate" by his teachers, did not have any consistent friendships. Jeffrey's story was titled "Sherlock homes in nightmare on Elm Street part 1" (a title appropriated from a movie) and began as follows: One Shime [stormy] night there was a detective name w. that stad [stood] for watson who was wolling [walking] down the street in then there was a killer name Michelle (For most of the remainder of the first page there is a list of characters using the names of students and teachers that are introduced one by one.) Ali's story, begun that same day, had a list in the margins of three names: Ali, Jeffrey, and George (a student in the class, but outside of this network). His story had the identical title (with the same incorrect spelling) and began in the following way: "a dark and storme night and a killer was loose in Pennsylvania, ring-ring-ring-ring answer the telephone. Watson here whos there." Michelle was a more prolific writer than the boys in the writing network. She wrote quickly and was eager to share her finished pieces with her peers and teachers. The fifth story in her writing folder, begun the second week of school, had as its title "Jaws" and the requisite list down the side of the page with the following names: Jeffrey, Lionel, Ali, Mary, Kenya, Nicky, Kathy, Ben, and T. [Teacher] Karen. The content of her story was probably influenced by the sea-life 275 PJJH S CHULTZ theme and the Norse myths which were being read aloud to the class, as well as the detective stories Jeffrey, Ali, and Lionel were writing. Michelle wrote quickly, composing the following beginning to her story in one language arts period: One stormy night there was some pepole who went sailing on a boat Jeffrey said This wind is to hard lets turn back. Mary said no. We sailed 2 miles. All of a sudden They saw a boat. They said hi david. Hi kids. But as soon he was finished talking a shark (written underneath shark are the words "say loud") jumped out of the water and took david. in 10 secons he was gone. What in the world was that said Kenya. It was a great white, I said. I beg your parten, said T. Karen. A great white I said again. Lets kill him said Lionel. Are we scared, I'm not. These three short introductions to stories illustrate the ways students' social interactions shaped their individual stories. Taken together, these three short pieces and a brief description of the relationships and processes surrounding their composition begin to capture the complexity of a single writing network. As the students talked about their writing and read one another's stories, they appropriated each other's ideas and phrases, making them their own. Initially, these five students' common interest in writing detective stories seemed to arise from their assigned seats that were proximate to each other, rather than friendship or similarity in background. In fact, it was probably the lack of close friends and their positions as outliers in the class group, in part, that brought these particular students together to discover a common interest in writing detective stories. Their network functioned in a variety of ways: Students used the other members as characters in their stories; gave each other phrases and ideas; acted as the first audience for one another; and used their common writing to establish friendships and negotiate group membership. The ritual of inviting their peers to be characters in their stories, illustrated below, helped to bind the detective writers together as a cohesive network of writers, at the same time that it assisted them in their story invention and writing. Jeffrey: Joseph: Jeffrey: Joseph: Jeffrey: Joseph: Ali: Joseph, do you want to be in a Sherlock Holmes mystery story? What's it about? Ali and Michelle are killers. I'll be Sherlock Holmes. I'm Sherlock Holmes. I'll be Watson. I'm Watson. (The three boys argued briefly and then compromised, agreeing that all three of them would be detectives. Fieldnotes, i6-Sep-88) For Jeffrey, a student considered an outsider by most of his peers, the act of asking other students to be in his stories served both as a means to join the group by negotiating a role for himself in the network of writers — and as an entrance into writing. Because membership in this network entailed writing a detective 276 COLLABORATIVE WRITING PJiH story, over the course of the year, Jeffrey became a writer. His peers became models of writers, sources of ideas, characters, and experiences, and not insignificantly, companions, if not friends, for the duration of the time they wrote together. A week later, Lionel, another member of the network, was writing his own detective story. He leaned across his desk to talk with Michelle. Lionel: Michelle: Lionel: Michelle: Lionel: Michelle: Do you want to be in this? Yes. The boys have to be detectives. I want to be a spy. Do you want to be a doctor? {He goes on to explain that as a doctor, every day she would go out and kill people.) All right. (Fieldnotes, 23-Sep-88) By agreeing to participate in Lionel's story, Michelle negotiated a role for herself as a co-constructor of the story. Feeling that she had a role in deciding the fate of the character with her name, Michelle took this role seriously. In the writing networks, students developed both ongoing relationships and patterns of interaction that supported their writing. Their informal participation in these groups indicated their willingness to participate in the composing processes of their peers. Each pair or set of students developed its own rituals around collaboration. For example, Jeffrey looked to his peers to get him started hi his writing. Had he been asked to write in silence, it is easy to imagine that Jeffrey would have responded with silence or an empty page. The talk that surrounded his writing enabled him to find words and ideas with which to write. Whereas Roderick wrote his Rad magazine alongside his peers and fellow authors and he relied on his friends to be the audience for the finished product, he did not want their interference in the writing process. In contrast, Stephanie and Rachel counted on the constant feedback and input that they provided for one another. Thus students used the writing networks in different ways to become more engaged in writing and to establish their own voice in the classroom writing community. Through writing in these networks, students learned to work with others whose backgrounds were different from their own. Rather than artificially setting up groups that reflected diversity, the teachers encouraged modes of writing that were compelling enough to the students that, following their own interests, they formed their own networks. Multiple Authors Writing a Single Text In this classroom, although students frequently collaborated as they wrote their own texts, they only occasionally worked together on a single piece of writing. When a group of students worked together to write a single story, they were often distracted by the process of writing, particularly the negotiations the writing 277 Pmii SCHULTZ involved, and lost sight of the end product. For instance, a group of students initiated a project to write a graduation play. They collected actors, agreed on a theme - a variation of "Duck Tales," a popular television show at that time - and began to write the dialogue. Although they worked steadily on the play during their free time for more than a week, and had many ideas and endless interesting conversations, the play was never completed. This was a common scenario. Often, it was only the projects that teachers assigned to groups of students that were actually completed. The completion of a single text on their own seemed particularly difficult for many students, perhaps because they did not feel ownership of the final product. However, there were examples of successful collaborations of this type. As their final piece of writing for the year, Stephanie and Rachel collectively composed two letters. Toward the end of the school year, the principal brought a letter to the class which had as its address: Fourth Grade, [City], [State]. The letter had been sent by a student in Roxbury, Massachusetts and arrived at Baring School with that scant address. Apparently, the letter was part of "a great race," a chain of letters begun by some fourth graders from around the country. This was a busy time of year, and Rachel and Stephanie were the only students to express interest in this letter writing project. They decided to write two letters together and to adopt a single pen name for their signature. They created this new name Rachel Flynn - by using Rachel James' first name and Stephanie Flynn's last name. To go along with their blended name, they combined their families, friends, and their individual biographies in the text of the letters. Although they talked together before they began to write and took turns actually scribing the letters, composing both letters together in the midst of gales of laughter, the first letter was written as if by Stephanie, the second letter as if by Rachel. Their nearly identical letters, sent to separate people, are reproduced below: Dear Kathrine, I have three sisters and I have a mother and father there names are Ilene and Jonh Flynn and my three sisters names are Brenda [Stephanie's real sister], Stephanie and Ruth [Rachel's sister]. My classroom is big and there are two classrooms put together. My fourth grade Teacher is Mrs. Judy Buchanan. And the third grade Teacher Mrs. Karen Salton. My Best friend is Gina. Me and my sister Stephanie have the same best friend and we play together. from Rachel Flynn Dear Bryan, I like to play Nintendo too. My name is Rachel. I have a sister name Stephanie and two more sisters name Brenda and Ruth. Brenda is the olders out of all of them. I go to [Baring] Elementary. This year I am graduating in June. My Best friend is Gina. Who are yours? I like to go boating and camping too. I was in [Baring] school sciene [since] kindegarden from Rachel Flynn 278 COLLABORATIVE WRITING f\%j\ This example illustrates a playful sharing of identities as the two girls explored a variety of ways to collaborate. By the end of the year, although their personalities remained very distinct, Stephanie and Rachel's writing styles had converged in ways that lent strength to each student. Their close work together gave each student access to her friend's strengths and allowed them to help each other on numerous levels. Their comfort with each other allowed them to write a single piece together, combining their ideas, styles, and names. As individuals and members of a variety of writing networks, Stephanie and Rachel enacted a range of collaborative relationships in their composition across a variety of genres for multiple purposes including those determined by their teachers and those they set themselves. Discussion: Revising Our Understanding of Collaboration Collaboration is frequently defined in a narrow fashion. Most often it used to describe situations in which students work together to write a single text or times they work in a group on a common project. In many classrooms, collaboration is an extra activity or an add-on technique that is taught, or more accurately used, as an instructional strategy for grouping students to accomplish specific tasks. During writing periods, students are generally instructed to write alone and in silence. In contrast to these understandings of collaboration, I suggest a more complex view of collaboration, one that includes a range of ways for students to participate in writing together. I offer an image of a classroom filled with opportunities for writing and interaction. In this classroom, students collaborated with each other and with their teachers to both invent and accomplish writing tasks. Through collaborative interactions, students gained power and authority for their own writing. It was these relationships that engaged the students, motivated them to write, and guided and supported them as they became writers. In this article, I argue for a focus on a variety of arrangements for collaboration and for multiple definitions of collaborative writing including, but not limited to, writing alone but for others, pairs and networks writing individual stories and other texts side by side, and multiple coauthors composing single texts. I suggest that students' responses to collaboration shaped their writing processes and products. A dose look at the collaborative relationship between Stephanie and Rachel illustrates this range of collaboration. Throughout the year, Stephanie and Rachel's collaboration with one another took many forms. In the beginning of the year, they generally sat next to each other and looked at each other's writing, but wrote responses that differed both in content and form. Although at times their writing appeared nearly identical, at other times, they veered in different directions. There were moments when Stephanie covered her paper, claiming individual authorship and the need to write alone. These were punctuated by 279 PinU SCHULTZ times when both girls freely shared their ideas and writing. Toward the end of the year, they wrote myths or hero stories with similar themes, characters and plot lines, exchanging their names and listing each other as authors. At the end of the year, they collaboratively composed letters to unknown students in another state, using a single pseudonym formed by both of their names. Stephanie and Rachel seemed comfortable enacting this range of relationships, and their collaboration, in turn, shaped their writing voices. Although Stephanie and Rachel offered each other many kinds of assistance, such as editing and exchanging ideas, the impact they each had on the other's writing ran deeper than surface assistance. As students with distinct personalities and approaches to composition, each influenced the other's writing at the same time she benefited from collaboration with her peer. Although some of the collaboration occurred as specific dialogue, much of the interaction took place during the process of composing itself, as they read and absorbed each other's writing. Observing the other's style and approach, choice of topics, and use of words, they learned from one another, each adjusting her own writing. Thus, this study suggests that collaboration is a complex and multifaceted concept that can encompass a range of interactions in a classroom. This study also illustrates the range of ways that students respond to opportunities for collaboration in an elementary classroom. Some students, like Roderick, preferred to write "alone" and used their peers as their primary audience. In addition, Roderick chose to work with others more frequently when he was working on his own writing as compared to a school writing task. Other students, like Stephanie and Rachel, formed close relationships and consulted with each other as they wrote at each juncture. Jeffrey looked to his network of writers for friendship and guidance. Belonging to a network helped him become both a writer and a member of the classroom community. Finally, some students attempted to collaboratively compose a single piece. This classroom provided a myriad of opportunities for students to interact with each other as they wrote. Their stories became infused with each other's ideas as did their choices of styles, topics, and genres. Rather than setting up formal mechanisms for sharing, the teachers in this classroom allowed for a range of relationships, as they carefully monitored students' growth as writers. Students in urban schools have been frequently characterized as "resistant" to learning. (For a review and analysis of this term, see Solomon, 1992.) In this classroom, students who appeared "resistant" to instruction by the teachers often became more successful writers through close collaborative relationships with their peers. For instance, Stephanie often took a defensive stance when teachers offered her feedback. However, after she read aloud and discussed her own stories and listened to those of her friend and collaborator, she developed new abilities and confidence as a writer. Likewise, initially, Roderick seemed to be difficult to teach. He often did not want to follow the rules or assignments established by his teachers. However, as his teachers came to know him, they realized that Roderick, like many other students, was resistant to using any ideas sug- 280 COLLABORATIVE WRITING tiMU gested by someone else, and so they found a way for him to establish his own identity in this classroom filled with collaboration. Jeffrey was one of those students who can be frustrating to teachers because at first he simply did not write; his paper was often blank at the end of the writing period. When his teachers allowed him to work on his own time line, Jeffrey figured out that he could make friends by joining a group of students in their detective writing network. Jeffrey began to write in order to become a member of the group, rather than to fulfill a teacher assignment. Teachers set up their classroom to allow for a range of participation structures or opportunities and arrangements for students to collaborate as they wrote. The presence of networks or groups of students who wrote together did not prevent students from writing alone, nor did it replace individualism with collectivism. Frequently, students preferred to write in relative silence. Yet even as they wrote by themselves, they were influenced by, and in turn influenced, the ideas of their peers and teachers. Because students so regularly read one another's writing, most pieces of writing quickly became part of the common property or lore of the classroom. However, despite an emphasis on collaboration and collective writing, students retained their individual identities as writers. For instance, students knew Roderick as the Rod magazine writer and looked forward to deciphering his wild adventures with their attendant intricate drawings. Likewise, they identified other peers as humor writers, anticipating their stories which were inevitably filled with jokes and puns. A member of the detective network, Michelle gained the reputation as a horror story writer whose stories were read with glee and disgust. All the same, these identities were not fixed, and students, like apprentices, used the stories written by their peers to learn new genres. Thus, students could maintain their individuality and originality at the same time that they were members of a network. Conclusion: Toward a New Vision of Writing Classrooms It is when people become challengers, when they take initiatives, that they begin to create the kinds of spaces where dialogue can take place andfreedom can appear. And it is then, and probably only then, that people begin thinking about working together to bring into being a better, fairer, more humane state of being. (Maxine Greene, 19&6) In this classroom, new spaces were created as teachers not only rearranged the furniture, but also encouraged a range of interactions and relationships that shaped much of the writing. Teachers allowed for collaborative arrangements, which encouraged students to become challengers of each other's writing and to bring critical dialogue into the activity of writing. Three conclusions about collaboration can be drawn from this study, each emphasizes the sense of possibility so vividly illustrated by and enacted in this classroom. First, students' 281 fmU SCHULTZ response to opportunities for collaboration helped to constitute their voice and their social interactions in the classroom. All aspects of their writing became infused with the voices of others, even as they struggled to create their own identities as writers. Thus, they learned to become writers from their teachers and texts and also from participation in this classroom community (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Second, this study suggests the multiplicity of meanings and practices of collaboration. Collaboration includes the acts of sharing, copying, correcting, disagreeing, adding, advising, listening, and writing alone. Also included in collaborative writing are negotiations of meaning and of friendship. Collaboration means to write with, and also for, other people. Third, this study illustrates that collaboration can become a strategy for teaching and learning about students' interests and strengths, their ways of working together across real and imagined boundaries, and the processes by which they become members of a community. Collaboration, then, is a strategy for reconceptualizing both classroom practice and research. As practiced in this classroom, it enables students to interact and write with peers from both the same and different cultural backgrounds. The collaboration described in this study gives students the chance to orchestrate the social relationships that shape their writing, at the same time they take a lead role in co-constructing their writing curriculum. This study begins to answer the following questions: What happens when teachers allow students to talk as they write? What does a classroom look like when collaboration is conceptualized as more than a technique but as a way to understand students as members of a writing community? A sociocultural perspective on writing suggests that not only is writing a social process, but also that there are writing practices that are specific to particular cultures. This study adds to this perspective by expanding the notion of social and collaborative writing through the documentation of a wide range of writing arrangements; at the same time, it makes clear the importance of establishing a classroom, even a school culture, that supports students to work together to collaborate. The classroom of this study was an unusual environment in which to study the social nature of writing. I purposely did not choose an "average" or "typical" classroom. Instead, in this exemplary urban classroom with a diverse group of students, I was able to document the opportunities for teaching and learning that every classroom holds. These patterns of interaction have powerful implications for educating children to work with one another. A classroom in which students form such relationships around writing has the potential to transform community dynamics. Situated in a community and a school that value racial and economic diversity, this classroom suggests the possibilities that exist for creating educational experiences across typical boundaries. This study describes moments, rarely documented, when students, supported by their teachers, school, families, and wider communities dared to form friendships and partnerships in writing with peers who came from different race and class backgrounds and from neighborhoods that are becoming increasingly estranged from each other (Anderson, 1990). An analysis of the ways in which these stu- 282 COLLABORATIVE WRITING Wimli dents crossed race, class, neighborhood, and gender boundaries to join together as writers underscores the power of a curriculum that is co-constructed by teachers and students, based on students' varied interests and needs (Schultz, 1991,1994), and one that encourages students to collaborate and to talk together as they compose on paper. In this classroom, collaboration was more than a technique. Rather, teachers established a classroom climate in which collaboration was explicitly taught, expected, accepted, and supported. Although it is often asserted that writing is a social process, few studies or articles describe, in detail, the social or collaborative nature of writing. This article gives an elaborated description of collaboration in one classroom, at the same time that it suggests structures or arrangements that other teachers might use to support this collaboration. It is not enough for teachers to allow students to talk as they write or for teachers to place students in collaborative learning groups. Teachers in this classroom developed and put into place a complex set of structures, routines, and understandings to support students' collaborations. For instance, the teachers set up a wide range of opportunities and formats for writing including journals, letters, literature response logs, and formal information reports and stories. Each format had a different set of audiences, procedures for revision and grading, and expectations. In addition, there were flexible seating arrangements in the classroom so that at times students sat in assigned seats and worked alone or with others nearby, whereas other times they had the chance to move around the room to form their own partnerships or writing groups, or to seek a quiet spot to write by themselves. Finally, writing occurred throughout the day during such times as a language arts period, periodically when students needed to write notes, and during a free-choice time. This study highlights the multiple uses and meanings of collaboration in a single classroom through a description of interactions, dialogue, and the examination of students' writing over the course of a single year. In addition, I describe the range of ways that students responded to collaboration. It would be useful to document the range of types of collaboration, developed by both teachers and students in a wide variety of settings and at different grade levels. Further analysis of collaboration in an elementary classroom might focus on the moment-tomoment interactions (see Duran & S2ymanski, 1993) or a sociolinguistic analysis of talk during collaboration. It would be instructive to document the ways collaboration is both imported by students from their home cultures, the aspects of collaboration that are carefully put into place by teachers, and the ways that teachers and students co-construct a writing curriculum in collaboration with one another (Schultz, 1991,1994). Finally, the term "collaboration," like "community," is often used only in its positive sense (Schultz, 1994). A more detailed exploration of collaboration between and among teachers and students would help complicate this term and to distinguish it from cooperative learning practices (see Forman, 1992; Reagan, Fox, d-Bleich, 1994). I'll conclude with a brief conversation between students engaged in writing 283 f\m\ SCHULTZ Greek myths. In this vignette, the three male students from different neighborhoods, race, and social-class backgrounds, crossed typical boundaries to collaborate as they wrote. Their insistence and choice to write together, using each other as resources, reminds us of the richness and possibilities for learning that can be found in classrooms where students are encouraged to collaborate as they talk, and when they stop talking, to write. Roderick: [I'm going to write about] some magician, like in the future, like 1998. (There is a brief discussion about the tape recorder.) Joseph: Make it like with the future god. Tom: I made one god up, a new god, god of California, surfing god. Joseph: Oh neat Instead of a lightning bolt... Tom: Roderick: A surfboard. Yeah. Tom: Joseph: What should his name be? Roderick: Perseus. Joseph and Tom: Perseus? Joseph: A god, you idiot. Roderick: Switchboard. Joseph: Switchboard, switch plate. Roderick: That's the name of a, yeah, well... Tom: Let's stop talking and write. (Tape transcript, 4-Apr-89) Author Note I am deeply grateful to Judy Buchanan, her co-teachers and students for their insight and support for this project. 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