“Now it’s my turn”. Comparing individual and collaborative writing practices in primary education

Abstract

This study aimed to analyse the effectiveness of different types of explicit writing instruction (EWI) activities involving individual and collaborative narrative writing in a sample of 93 sixth grade students (ages 11-12). Specifically, the processes and outcomes of three EWI conditions were compared: explicit instruction with individual writing (EWI+IW), with spontaneous collaborative writing (EWI+SCW), and with reciprocal collaborative writing (EWI+RCW). In the SCW condition, the dyads wrote and revised the texts without any guidelines to structure the collaboration. In the RCW condition, the students were asked to alternate the role of writing and revising each text segment with their partner. The quality of 336 texts written individually by the students before and after the training were assessed. In addition, 20 writing events (with a total of 2303 verbal turns) were transcribed and analysed. RCW produced a greater improvement in writing performance than students who engaged in IW practices. Discourse analysis showed that RCW facilitated more symmetrical and balanced collaboration than SCW. The results help to explain discrepancies in the literature. Finally, educational implications are discussed in order to understand how synchronous writing can be effective in upper primary education.