Reflective practices in collaborative writing of primary school students

Abstract

In this study we explore how reflective practices function in the process of collaborative writing of primary school students, performing writing tasks in the context of inquiry learning. Previous research has established that reflecting on the writing process and use of metalanguage are significant for developing writing proficiency. The Conversation Analysis-informed exploration displayed different practices. First, students reflect on appropriateness, in terms of redundancy, relevance and style, when accounting for the rejection of a proposal. Second, students reflect on correctness of spelling, punctuation and grammar, which becomes observable in recruitments, instructions and corrections. The findings suggest that students share a strong orientation to certain writing norms that are merely made relevant in a responsive manner. IntroductionCollaborative writing has shown to be beneficial for developing writing proficiency of individual students. Writing in small groups or dyads helps learners to emulate and learn from each other's writing and regulation processes, may stimulate conceptual learning, and encourages critical reflection and a heightened sense of audience awareness (Klein, 2014;Nykopp, Marttunen, & Laurinen, 2014; van Steendam, 2016). Hence, joint writing tasks may stimulate the progression from a novice to a skilled writer, which has been characterized by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) as the transition from a knowledge-telling to a knowledge-transforming approach to writing: "the development of the ability to write […] as involving moving the student from a natural oral conversationalist to a communicator who could generate a largely shared meaning in the absence of immediate audience" (Parr & Wilkinson, 2016, 217). The writing process of a skillful writer, can be characterized as a form of knowledge transforming, solving conceptual, metacognitive and rhetorical problems (

Conversational functions of ‘I know’, ‘you know’ and ‘we know’ in collaborative writing of primary school children

“…In an earlier study that we conducted on the same dataset as for this current study, we found that students refer to shared knowledge of all participants with use of 'we know' as a means to reject a proposal for a research or an interview question (Herder et al 2018b). We will address this type of utterance again in the current paper, as part of our collection of utterances with 'know' and the personal pronoun 'we'.…”

Interactions langagières d’élèves de 11-12 ans lors de la rédaction d’un récit en dyade et leur influence sur le texte

“…Toutefois, en quoi celle-ci est-elle bénéfique pour les élèves ? Diverses études se sont intéressées aux interactions langagières entre pairs dans un contexte où des élèves du primaire sont amenés à collaborer pour produire de l'écrit (Fitzpatrick & Hardman, 2000 ;Herder et al, 2018 ;Jones, 2003 ;Kumpulainen, 1996 ;Rojas-Drummond et al, 2006). Ces études cherchaient notamment à connaitre la nature des interactions produites par les élèves (par exemple, demander de l'aide, proposer des exemples, décrire, commenter, argumenter).…”

Peer talk in collaborative writing of primary school students: A conversation analytic study of student interaction in the context of inquiry learning

“…This is fundamentally different from situations where students have to share individual knowledge with each other, in order to arrive at shared ideas, that must be agreed upon by all participants. As concerns the mind maps, argumentative sequences are limited to debating the relevance of each other's contributions (see also Herder et al, 2018b), but this does hardly provoke extended discourse on the propositional content of the epistemic displays. The fact that only loose words or short sentences may be added to a mind map, in combination with the underlying possibility to expand endlessly (which is not the case in other genres), may also be a reason that accountability is not an issue.…”

“…The students then move on to generating new ideas, which implies that the initially proposed question is now rejected. Thus, in these specific contexts, agreeing with the propositional content of the demonstrated knowledge, implies that the proposal for a research or interview question becomes irrelevant (since the question has been answered already), and is therefore rejected (see also Herder, Berenst, De Glopper & Koole, 2018b).…”

“…as a means to reject a proposal for a research or an interview question (Herder, et al, 2018b). We will address this type of utterance again in this current paper, as part of our collection of utterances with 'know' and the personal pronoun 'we'.…”