collaboration and conversation

Bruffee didn't structure his piece like I'm choosing to explain it, but it makes more sense to me. I had to read his piece in a previous class and the focus was a tad different. But, what I got out of the piece was that writing is a conversation. First, thoughts are internalized and through writing, it becomes externalized. Writing is a conversation that you have with a reader in which you have the ability to give them your thoughts, opinions and arguments. It is one of the only ways you can communicate with another human being with out opening your mouth. Respectively, collaboration works well BECAUSE of the fact that writing is a conversation. When you collaborate you are forced to talk things through. You are forced to verbalize your thoughts that you wish to put on paper. You get to "try them out" on a reader, before writing them down. When you write, you must understand who you're writing for and therefore you must understand what your intended reader will know and what they won't know. This is why it is very helpful to collaborate--when you collaborate conversation happens. They found that in collaboration, it didn't change what the student learned, it changed how the student learned it. The argument is that learning should be shifted to these new understandings and successes of peer education through collaborative work and through simply having a conversation about material. To perhaps think of learning as a "social process" and to teach it in that manner. Although collaboration is a slippery slope and can quickly become the general group with one hard worker, one who tries and one who is disengaged, teachers must familiarize themselves with such work and form tasks in which collaboration can flourish.