20 benefits of paired / group writing
This is one of those activities I’ve never read about in ideas and resources books but which is so simple and effective it must be in one somewhere.
It is the idea of communal writing – putting students into pairs, or groups of three, four, five… and getting each student in each pair / group to write exactly the same thing, down to the spelling, punctuation, paragraph breaks, etc.
(Of course each pair / group will give you a different piece of writing.)
My instructions to students are as follows:
You will write as a pair/group.
You will all write EXACTLY the same thing as the other student(s) in your pair / group.
You will all write at the same time (please do not make one draft and then let other students copy it later).
EVERYTHING you write in your pair / group must be the same. Check that your spelling, grammar and punctuation are the same as those of your partner.
If there are things you do not agree on, write them on a separate piece of paper and I’ll take it later, or quickly e-mail it to me.
Why do I think this is an utterly and totally fantastic exercise?
- It’s collaborative.
- It turns a writing activity into a multi-skills task.
- Students learn from each other.
- In my experience, students tend to think more about what to write, which produces better quality ideas. It’s great watching students have fun brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other.
- It’s a good opportunity for students to share their writing exam tips and hints (in their L1 if necessary).
- The finished piece of writing is often of a quality better than if students were to write individually.
- Mistakes are more likely to be ironed out within the group, leaving any incorrect work to be errors, which are more useful for the teacher to work on.
- The activity contains many elements of process writing, but student controlled.
- If you assign group names and tell students their work will go up on the board, they tend to write better for the future audience of their written work.
- Students think and talk about spelling, punctuation and grammar.
- It makes a nice change from individual writing.
- It gives the teacher a whole lot more time to monitor – five pieces of writing among 20 students is a lot easier than 20 individual pieces of writing.
- It drastically cuts down on marking / correcting papers – I take one finished piece of writing from each group (making the assumption the other students in each group wrote the same thing) and correct it.
- Give feedback is quicker. I return a copy to each student in the group and talk to the group as a whole.
- Stronger students can help weaker students.
- The teacher can use the points students do not agree on for a boardwork correction stage.
- If students mail the teacher the points they do not agree on, (s)he has a ready-made sample of work to copy and paste into an activity on the smart board / projector. This sample is likely to be useful in monolingual groups in that it is likely to consist of common errors.
- It’s fantastic for whole class writing project work. You can swap students around so each new student adds ideas to the original group.
- The activity can be used for grammar test practice activities where accuracy is key.
- It can be used for spelling tests and is fun if you make it a competition – the group with the most correct answers being the winner.
I hope you try this and then write a comment below. Or you could just write a comment below 
Tags: fun, group work, pairwork, writing, written work
Hi Sean,
I have tried pair/group writing activity with my students. For the most part I do agree with you: it is a fun activity and most kids do try harder. But like in every other activity sometimes it doesn’t go according to plan and the brigther kids end up writing the whole thing while the rest just copy it down.
To spice things up I usually have a little competition thrown into the mix. So after they are done I’ll take the texts they have created to another class and have them select the one that appeals the most to them. The award is something simple like a certificate or a badge and, of course, the honour of having been chosen.
Thanks for making me think more about what I do in class.
OK, writing a comment without trying it out first
Read it through and it really seems fun and at the same time effective for all the reasons you mention.
I was wondering, what level, in age and competency, has it worked best, in your experience? Have you tried it with FCE/CAE preparation courses, by any chance?
Thanks for the tip and your time!
Marian
Thank you Alex for your comment.
You’re absolutely right – there is the usual pitfall of the brightest students doing most of the work. That’s why I say they must all write, and at the same time.
I teach post-elementary / pre-intermediate students who find it a real challenge to even copy the same spelling. Why I like the activity I described is that because they have to check everything in their work is identical, they end up having to think about which version is right and wrong. I find this focus to get students talking about (for example) which spelling is correct, which gets them looking in their dictionaries. This generally happens without me intervening.
I love your idea of taking the finished texts to another class – Knowing there’ll be an audience generally increases students’ focus.
Thanks for making me think more
I’ll now look harder at how I can avoid the brighter students dominating.
Hello Marian,
Thank you for your comment.
I have only tried this activity with my post-elem/pre-int students in their late teens/early 20s. I usually get them to write texts of 100 words. Sometimes it’s practice for letter or e-mail writing for the KET exam and sometimes it’s a story or grammar practice.
The key to success in this activity is making sure students know their writing has to be identical to their partners’. This can be fun- tell them they can leave class five minutes early if their texts are identical but must stay five minutes longer if you find a single difference.
None of my students has ever left early
[...] Sean Banville, the man behind Breaking News English and a bunch of other websites used by ESL/EFL teachers all over the world, has written a post in his blog describing a neat Paired And Group Writing Activity. [...]
I’ve used a variation of your collaborative writing activity with people of all ages-eight to adult-and agree with your list of advantages. It’s a no-fail way to get students to apply a specific strategy or craft, as I wrote about at http://www.thewritingteacher.org/writing-blog-home/2009/10/22/notice-it-practice-it-try-it.html.
I’ve used these type of activities with my students (primary-secondary-adults) and they’ve found them really useful, specially those who found writing difficult.Greetings from Argentina
I tried this yesterday with my freshmen ELLs and my honors students. Worked great with both ends of the spectrum. Thank you for your ideas and your commitment to sharing them with us!
Thanks Stephanie – glad your writing activity worked. Best wishes.
Hi Sean, I wanted to let you know I’m your fan from now on! I’ve just discovered your great activities for teachers and they’ve been great help for my adult groups. This one about writing in particular I’ve used with a group of 23 teens and worked wonderfully!
Your activities are carefully thought and easy for sts to follow and do. Thank you so much ! Keep up the great work !
Very excellent tip. I tried it with my 7th grade Literature classes – we read a comic and used this paired writing technique to practice our summarizing and paraphrasing skills. Very interesting results – I called the lesson
“From Pics to Text ” Thank you again!
Thank you for your comment Mr. Lopez,
The “From Pics to Text” idea sounds great – Will definitely try it and add it to my post (with credit to you).
Great activity! When I begin my teaching career, I will be using many of your techniques and activities! Thank-you for providing such great websites!
I tried this yesterday with my freshmen ELLs and my honors students. Worked great with both ends of the spectrum. Thank you for your ideas and your commitment to sharing them with us!
I tried this two days ago with my Entry Level 3 group (adults). It was great to see the young men in the group, who generally avoid picking up a pen, so enthusiastic that they voluntarily worked through their break time to finish the story they were working on. Thank you for reminding me of this activity which I will definitely use again.
[...] Can something written by committee be useful in a language classroom? A: Sean Banville’s Blog tells about how “communal writing” can help students to learn from each [...]
[...] Can something written by committee be useful in a language classroom? A: Sean Banville’s Blog tells about how “communal writing” can help students to learn from each [...]
[...] Paired and Group Writing Activity by Sean Banville [...]
[...] Paired and Group Writing Activity by Sean Banville [...]