Researchers and teachers are joining in a movement to introduce more collaborative work in language arts classrooms. While collaborative learning and writing are valuable activities in any classroom, not enough is understood about what happens when collaborative activities are introduced into a traditional classroom discourse structure. This study analyzes a collaborative activity, both as a traditional classroom event and as a collaborative event. The results of the analysis suggest that, even when the activity is explicitly collaborative and students are experienced collaborators, patterns of traditional classroom discourse dominate their communicative choices.
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