Collaborative Writing - Our First Try

We have been one-to-one for a little over a term now so the students are pretty engaged and confident when it comes to using their devices and Google Drive, so I thought it was time we cranked it up a notch.

Often with our writing, we do whole class planning, where I model the learning intention and we work

together to come up with the success criteria, so we're already collaborating to some extent. My goal of this session was to allow for that same discussion and experience but with their peers rather than having the lesson so teacher directed.

I thought the best was to approach this was with a 'Moment in Time' exercise. The students would share the same experience then plan and create a piece of writing together. Before we even started, I had to teach the students how to share a document in Google Drive. As I said, they know their way around pretty well so it only took a few minutes for everyone to have created, named and shared their document with their buddy.

Once everyone was ready, I handed out a few sour lollies to each student. We timed it so they ate the lollies at the same time and started writing their plans about the experience as it was happening. I couldn't believe how successful it was straight off the bat! As I walked around the class I was thrilled about how quickly they had picked it up. They were talking to each other, they were working together and coming up with some great vocabulary to describe their sour lollies.


So, naturally when it came to my next session I thought: These kids are clearly collaboration masters, I can just give them simple instructions and send them on their merry way!

Unfortunately... I was wrong.

Jonathan and Luke's writing

YES they shared their planning, but when it came to producing a single piece of work between 2 or 3 of them it just did not go to plan. I ended up with one document between the small groups and an individual piece of writing for each of them on that same document. Eeek!

Naturally, this disastrous lesson ended up being valuable for both me and the students. Collaborating in writing is an entirely different way of thinking for these guys, and for me as well. We took the time to role play what collaborative writing looks like: first with me modelling with a student, then several students opting to demonstrate their understanding. Before we knew it, we were off on the right track again.

Sharing back to the class

Just like the planning session, the students had fantastic discussions. They worked with each others strengths - all and all had a very successful outcome. When I asked the students for feedback after the sessions were complete, there was a mutual agreement that they really enjoyed the whole process. As their teacher, I definitely did too! They were mostly entirely engaged during the whole process, clearly enjoying themselves, and of course I was very happy with the final product as well.

Despite the speed bumps: Awesome. Will do many more sessions like this in the future.