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Collaborative writing

If one of your tasks is to teach writing skills, wikis can help as an adequate collaborative writing tool. While individual writing tasks are a practice widely used in TFL, collaborative writing task can come as a refreshing challenge. In wikis, two ways of collaborative writing are possible:

1. Sequential writing requires students to write a story sequentially, one by one, each contributing a fixed amount of written content according to the task. This kind of writing is exciting for students, as they control the story and take it in any direction they wish. This control, this sense of ownership and high level of creativity are both challenging and engaging to students, esp. in high school and higher education.
2. Non-linear writing is based on the same concept of collaborative writing, but instead of creating a linear sequential story, students are offered to split their story into two or more possible developments. E.g., a character they create is facing a choice, and there are two possible choice-based resolutions, each equally valid, each in need of development. One student chooses one story line and develops it, the other student develops the alternative story. The global story structure can split, multiply, merge back and resolve in an unpredictable number of ways.

As with any kind of collaborative task, students list their personal contribution and effort in their portfolio.

Learn more about Dynamic Group Vocabulary:
Sequential narrative on TFLW (Teaching Foreign Languages with Wikis)
Non-linear narrative on TFLW (Teaching Foreign Languages with Wikis)