Interaction strategies in joint rewriting for teaching and learning writing

Abstract

This paper focuses on the interaction strategies developed in the joint rewriting activity of the Reading to Learn program (R2L) (Rose, 2012). Specifically, it aims to characterize the strategies of pedagogical interaction that this activity triggers. Joint rewriting is an activity whereby the teacher guides students in rewriting a text according to the same patterns of linguistic sophistication as a passage of the text taken as a model, in the case of literary texts. It implements pedagogical interaction strategies that aim to lead students to the apprehension and reuse of these patterns. The analysis focused on the interaction that occurred in Portuguese classes of the 5th grade. The axes of analysis consist in the identification of strategies implemented in joint rewriting in different dimensions (metalinguistic and metadiscursive, proposals’ generation, reorientation and reformulation, negotiation, and decision). The results of this study reveal that the teacher promotes the presentation of proposals by the students, guiding them to the intended version, through reorientation and reformulation, encouraging their voice in the decision, while assuming his/her teacher status, which emerges through the activation of the metalinguistic/metadiscursive dimension. These results confirm that the conversational strategies of joint rewriting promote success, emphasizing the importance of interactions through conversational involvement strategies (Gumperz, 2002) for text comprehension, co-construction of learning and literacy development.