Collaborative reading for writing: an innovative task in academic settings

Abstract

Reading for writing tasks have been widely implemented in past decades, but research is still scarce on computer-mediated reading for writing. With a growing interest in collaborative writing and collaborative reading, spurred on by the broader awareness of sociocultural theory and the collaborative nature of digital technologies, we proposed an innovative task collaborative reading for writing (CRW) and implemented it with graduate students of diverse L1s in the U.S. The students jointly read and annotated journal articles via the social annotation tool Perusall and then co-constructed OASIS summaries based on the reading. This study examines how the students employ comprehension strategies during collaborative reading/annotating; how they develop genre knowledge and attend to form during collaborative writing; and how they perceive CRW tasks. Data collected included the Perusall annotations, recorded pair talk, and reflection papers. Results showed that online CRW positively impacted learning by engaging learners in collectively expanding their reading strategies and enhancing genre knowledge and attention to form. CRW afforded mutual scaffolding and reading for a purpose. We posit that CRW tasks can have immense potential in diverse academic learning contexts where L2 writers are present. Future research is desired to examine the long-term effects of CRW on the development of L2 literacy skills and explore the potential of CRW tasks among different learner populations in other educational settings.

Keywords:

• collaborative reading
• collaborative writing
• reading for writing
• second language writing
• computer-mediated task

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 It should be noted that learners’ selection of comprehension strategies and the number of interactive annotations might have been impacted by the topics of the assigned readings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meixiu Zhang

Dr. Meixiu Zhang is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at Texas Tech University. Her research focuses on second language writing, corpus linguistics, and instructed second language acquisition. Her work has appeared in journals such as Language Teaching, Modern Language Journal, Journal of Second Language Writing, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, System, Language Awareness, Register Studies, and Corpora. She also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Second Language Writing.

Mimi Li

Dr. Mimi Li is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics/TESOL at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Her research areas are second language writing and computer-assisted language learning. Her work has appeared in peer-refereed journals such as Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW), Language Learning & Technology (LLT), Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), Language Teaching, System, Computers & Education, and Computers and Composition (CC). She is Associate Editor of JSLW and Forum Editor of LLT.