An investigation into using collaborative writing in the religious education classroom: action research in the Portuguese context

Shabnam Gulamhussen was teaching in the Ismaili Religious Education Centre in Lisbon, Portugal, when she conducted her action-research in 2016. In her investigation into the use of collaborative writing, she aimed at understanding the challenges and opportunities of implementing collaborative writing in the classroom; the role of group discussion in the process of co-authoring texts; and to collect students’ accounts of their collaborative writing experience.  Her findings suggest that collaborative writing is a complex social activity entailing several challenges concerning the nature of tasks, type of grouping, power relations, conflict, and ownership of texts.  These require the teacher to be a careful planner and organiser of authentic collaborative writing tasks while building an emotionally safe classroom environment.  Her study highlights that in collaborative writing tasks, group discussion engages students in productive talk for planning, writing, and providing critical peer feedback.  The report concludes by stressing the potential of collaborative writing in promoting content learning and development of interpersonal skills.