"Ideas first" in collaborative second language (L2) writing: An exploratory study

Abstract

Drawing from sociocultural perspectives, this paper argues for the necessity of distinguishing the activity of "brainstorming ideas" from the activity of "generating words/phrases" in collaborative L2 process writing. We designed a series of Chinese writing lessons based on the online collaborative learning software GroupScribbles (GS) to explore students’ participation and performance with "ideas first" versus "words/phrases first" activity designs. Quantitative data collected from an analytical tool reveal that students engaged more actively in the "ideas first" collaborative L2 writing than in the "words/phrases first" approach. Our research findings suggest that "ideas first" supported by the affordances of the GS tools a viable approach for collaborative L2 writing.