21st Century is known as high-developed information society and knowledge-based society. To cope actively with the society, the ability of expressing one's thought systematically and logically is necessary. Therefore, the writing education which aims ...
21st Century is known as high-developed information society and knowledge-based society. To cope actively with the society, the ability of expressing one's thought systematically and logically is necessary. Therefore, the writing education which aims at communication skills and higher brain power is important than anything else. However, most learners feel difficulty about writing. That is because the lack of knowledge that is needed for writing process and the lack of the usage ability on strategies about writing process. In this study, we are going to do cooperative writing in order to overcome all the difficulties about writing process.
Recent writing theory is going through formalism, cognitivism and social constructivism. Formalism focuses on expression technique acquisition by copying repetitively the good sample answer. Cognitivism focuses on the writer's thinking process while he or she is writing. Social constructivism regards writing as the process of socialization acquiring the community's customs and rules. They argue that writing skills can be improved by ample linguistic interaction with readers. Social constructivism is the theoretical base of co-learning.
When teachers teach co-writing, learners can share the problem and can get help from others about brainstorming, organization and expression. That will be the way of decreasing the cognitive burden on writers. Also, learners can relieve anxiety when they write independently and will have positive attitude about writing with interests which brings active participation in writing activity. Especially, in this study, learners are planned to write about the book they read. In a rapidly changing society, reading a book is getting more important. For the young, books take a great part in their intellectual development by giving them information as well as building up desirable emotion and values.
The process of writing follows ordinary way of writing. There is not the only fixed process on cooperative writing. It can be changed variously according to which step of writing affects on cooperative writing process. In this study, learners do cooperative writing with others on the process of 'brainstorming', 'organization', 'pre-writing' and 'editing' which is the ordinary process of writing.
The results of cooperative writing are evident. Firstly, the amount of writing is increased compared to independent writing. Secondly, learners show the better understanding and ample expressions. Thirdly, they are well-followed the format of writing and writing is generally more natural. Some of learners have a difficulty with understanding the context of a book when they read it alone. That brings vague expressions and emotions on their writing. However, they show more evident expressions on writing when they do it with others. Lastly, editing skills are upgraded. When learners edit independently, the things they correct are just punctuations or spelling or simple grammar. However, when they edit writing with others, they can rewrite about paragraphs, expressions for the better way and general contexts of writing. Also, informal vocabularies are decreased and punctuations and spelling are used more accurately.