This article is about students and teachers writing together. For writing interactive media, see Video game writing.
Interactive writing has been described by Swartz (2001) as "a teaching method in which children and teacher negotiate what they are going to write and then share the pen to construct the message." Interactive writing is a cooperative event in which text is jointly composed and written. The teacher uses the interactive writing session to model reading and writing strategies as he or she engages children in creating text.
Interactive writing was also included by Fountas & Pinnell as part of their balanced literacy framework. Similar to shared writing, interactive writing allows a teacher and students to literally "share the pen" to create a joint sentence or message. Typically used in the primary grades, interactive writing is a powerful instructional medium for teaching phonics, spelling principles, rimes, writing conventions, and other key early writing skills. This form of interactive writing is thoroughly explained and detailed in the book Interactive Writing: How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2 by Andrea McCarrier, Gay Su Pinnell, and Irene Fountas.
Others have described interactive writing differently as a method used in literacy teaching, especially for young children, whereby the students have the opportunity to practice their reading, studying and writing skills in a safe and creative environment.
In this method the teacher(s) and students write to each other, by means of letters, dialogue journals or a message board. The students are free to choose the topic and the length of their writings. The teachers respond without correcting or criticising the spelling, grammar or writing style, but rather modelling more appropriate forms of writing.
A dialogue journal is an ongoing written interaction between two people to exchange experiences, ideas, or reflections. It is used most often in education as a means of sustained written interaction between students and teachers at all education levels. It can be used to promote second language learning and learning in all areas.
The aim of this method is to allow children to see literacy as something meaningful and enjoyable, rather than a mind-numbing school activity. The focus is on fluency rather than accuracy. The principle behind it is 'write to learn, not learn to write'. As such it relates to the learner-centered whole language approach.
Whole language is a discredited philosophy of the nature of reading that is based upon the premise that learning to read comes naturally to humans in the same way that learning to speak develops naturally. In assessing this claim, research psychologist Keith Stanovich asserted “The idea that learning to read is just like learning to speak is accepted by no responsible linguist, psychologist, or cognitive scientist in the research community”, while in a systematic review of the reading research literature, Louisa Moats concluded that “Almost every premise advanced by whole language about how reading is learned has been contradicted by scientific investigations.”
The interactive writing method has been described in books such as:
Peyton, Joy Kreeft (ed.) (1990) Students and Teachers Writing Together: Perspectives on Journal Writing.
Robinson, A., L. Crawford & N. Hall (1990) some day you will no all about me: Young Children's Explorations in the World of Letter Writing.
Reference
Swartz, Stanley L. et al., (2001). Interactive editing and interactive writing. Dominie Press/Pearson Learning.
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