Collaborative Planning and Transforming Knowledge

Abstract

Previous research suggests that although college students are developmentally readyto transform knowledge according to the constraints of specific rhetorical situations,they often don't do so. In this exploratory study, I ask if students in a business andprofessional writing course can transform knowledge when cued to do so in aninvention activity—collaborative planning sessions—but are given no other instructional help. Further, I ask what kinds of instructional scaffolding students providefor each other in their planning sessions. Collaborative planning sessions for two pairs of students on three differentbusiness writing assignments were recorded and transcribed. Detailed descriptiveanalyses of these transcripts suggest that the students transformed knowledge whenthey faced rhetorically complex tasks, when the writer showed commitment to thetopic, when they engaged in extended discussion, and when they focused on rhetorical issues. Further, the students provided each other with both relatively simpleinstructional scaffolds (active listening, identification of simple problems, andproviding opportunities for extended elaboration) and more sophisticated,situation-specific prompts to transform knowledge (posing specific questions basedon explicit rhetorical concerns and challenging each other to completely reconsiderhow they were approaching a writing task). Implications for pedagogy and researchare briefly considered.