b. Organizing Collaborative Writing
Talking about collaborative writing as a technique in teaching writing to students, it is better to consider how to organize
students’ writing activities. The students need some more direction to go with the activities and the teachers as a
facilitator will provide it. According to Dale 1997 there are five points to be taken into consideration when teachers organize collaborative writing in a
classroom. 1 Forming groups
Forming groups is done by the teacher to put students in a diverse group. It is a teachers’ task to arrange them into different group because if students from
their own groups, they tend to make homogeneous ones. One consideration to form diverse groups is that it creates a positive group that enhances each member
to interact with partners and assert their individual view. 2 Providing time
Since collaborative writing a bit takes time, that time must be provided for students. Students will have chance to assign their works and make their own
discussion. 3 Primary-writer system
This activity is when teachers need to set certain tasks which make students contribute to their works. So, each member of the group is involved in their group
work. 4 Assignments
There is not one kind of assignment that works best for collaborative writing. A set of assignment for an entire class is no longer the main importance
because it may be different among the groups of students. Each group could write different works within the same or different genres. For that reason, having each
group decide on its own topic is certainly appropriate. 5
Focus on process Since attention to writing process is a weakness to students who are early
writers, collaborative writing with its emphasis on process, can be an effective means of the teaching writing process. It facilitates the students to learn strategies
from each other. Frakas 1991 cited by Spring, 1997:1 says four possible definitions useful in approaching collaboration through an analysis or process,
they are: 1.
Two or more people jointly composing the complete text of a document; 2.
Two or more people contributing components to a document. 3.
One or more person modifying, by editing and or reviewing, the document of one or more persons.
4. One person working interactively with one or more person and drafting a
document based on their ideas of the person or persons. The above important points transform the needs of the teachers to
effectively organize collaborative writing the in a classroom. It can be inferred that through the activities in collaborative writing, the teachers help students to
keep a writing process moving forward. Therefore, to support the students to
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