I appreciate Lunsford’s confessional posture in “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center.” It is somehow consoling to learn that she found herself compelled against her will to acknowledge that collaborative learning is both epistemologically and pragmatically warranted, only to discover that implementing collaboration in the classroom and writing center is fraught with challenges. Has much progress been made in the nearly twenty years since her essay? Has the conversation shifted?
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One thing that has changed in my experience is that collaboration seems to be required in the classroom now. At all four institutions at which I've taught, the suggested syllabus outline included something about providing opportunities for group work or collaboration. Perhaps, as Tes points out in another post, this reflects the business world's emphasis on collaboration. While I don't disagree with the need to include this experience, like many "opportunities" strongly suggested by an institution, there were no accompanying ideas for how to implement group work effectively. As Lunsford and Tes point out, it can be fraught with challenges and doesn't seem fair to just throw students together and tell them to work things out for themselves. Many of them have already had that experience in high school, and resent it.
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