Date of Award

8-2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

English

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Jessica Restaino

Committee Member

James Nash

Committee Member

Melinda Knight

Abstract

Teaching student writing can be a very frustrating yet rewarding experience. Because there are so many ways to approach writing instruction and the writing process, there is often a disconnect between teachers’ expectations and students’ performances. A plethora of research has been done on teaching the writing process: peer editing, revising, and other areas of writing instruction. However, not much has been explored in terms of how writing can improve if we ask students to write together.

The goal of having students write together, or coauthor, is to allow them the chance to learn from each other and explore the complex writing process together. In this research, I studied a class of 25 ninth graders in a high-achieving high school. The students participated in a coauthoring project where they worked on the entire process from beginning to end: topic generating to final paper.

I focused on three main areas of growth regarding coauthoring: writing as a process, writing as a social experience, and the overall effects of thinking and writing. As a result of coauthoring, students were able to learn more about each of the aforementioned aspects and experienced an overall improvement in their writing. Coauthoring provided students with highly effective tool with which to approach the very complex field of writing.

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