Chapter 10. Assessing collaborative writing

Abstract

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the widespread use of collaborative writing tasks in second language classes driven in part by advances in technology. These advances have led to noticeable changes in the design and implementation of these tasks as well as their inclusion in assessed classwork. However, assessing collaborative writing is challenging because it requires assessors to consider what aspects of the construct of collaborative writing (product, process, nature of collaboration) should be included in the assessment criteria, and how these aspects can be reliably assessed. In this chapter we discuss these challenges, consider some suggestions on how to assess collaborative writing, and the pedagogical implications of assessing collaborative writing. We conclude by outlining future research directions.