The effect of collaborative prewriting on L2 collaborative writing production and individual L2 writing development

Abstract This study investigates the effect of collaborative prewriting on L2 collaborative writing production and individual L2 writing development. The participants were 51 university EFL students from two English composition classes. One class ( n = 26) was the collaborative prewriting (CP) group, and the other was the non-collaborative prewriting (NCP) group ( n = 25). Both groups participated in individual pre- and post-test writing and two collaborative expository essay writing tasks via Google Docs. The CP group engaged in collaborative prewriting before the collaborative writing tasks, whereas the NCP group did not. Learners’ pre- and post-test writing was evaluated for content quality, organization, linguistic complexity, and accuracy. Learner collaboration was analyzed for reflective versus non-reflective content-, organization-, and language-related episodes (CREs, OREs, LREs). LREs were further analyzed for resolution. The results showed that the learners who were engaged in collaborative prewriting produced collaborative expository essays with better content quality and organization, and made greater improvement in the content quality and organization of individual L2 writing. The findings were discussed in relation to the CREs, OREs, and LREs produced during collaborative prewriting and writing processes.