Undergraduate Collaborative Essays: Constructive not a cop-out

Essay writing is traditionally seen as a solitary endeavor but, as MIT states in their informative peer review video, ‘no one writes alone’. However, collaborative writing goes beyond giving feedback to co-authorship. In recent years, group essay writing has become a feature of undergraduate courses and is consequently an area of EAP that requires attention. We will discuss the rationale for introducing group essays into an EAP course at the University of Macau and describe how the task was structured. We will reflect on the pilot course, identifying what worked effectively and what needed to change to better scaffold the process for students. We will also include a summary of students’ responses to group essay writing, which helps identify the wider learning gains that can be achieved from collaborative writing. We will close the talk with an outline of the framework we introduced in the second year to mitigate some of the potential issues with group writing and maximize the positives. This framework could be used by fellow EAP teachers who wish to introduce group writing projects that will help their students develop academic skills like critical thinking, writing multiple drafts and self and peer reflection but also encourage the development of soft skills in the form of communication, time management and teamwork as well as transferable skills such as problem solving and negotiation.Read less