2025/01/10 by Manuel Montanero, Manuel Lucero Fustes, María Jesús Fernández Sánchez +2 · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Writing and Handwriting Education #Discourse Analysis in Language Studies #EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
paper · doi:10.1080/19463014.2024.2446433
openalex publication_date 2025/01/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
The aim of this study was to compare different collaborative (spontaneous and structured) story writing practices in a sample of 50 sixth graders students (11–12 years old). For the spontaneous synchronous writing practices, the dyads wrote the texts without any guidelines to structure the collaboration. Meanwhile, in the structured writing mode the students were asked to alternate the role of writing and revising each segment of text with their partner. In total, 2,682 communicative acts between dyad members were recorded and categorised from a dialogic and metalinguistic point of view during the synchronous production of the texts. Discourse analysis shows a pattern of asymmetrical dictator-scribe interaction during the spontaneous collaboration in heterogeneous pairs. Communicative acts of revision were focused on grammatical comments. On the contrary, the structured collaboration facilitated more symmetrical and balanced interaction. Semantic-lexical revision was more frequent in this condition. The implications of these results are discussed to understand how primary school students collaboratively write texts. The results also help us to explain the discrepancies in the literature and to improve the writing practices of students at this stage of their education.