Collaboration in a peer response group / Sandra Sim Phek Lin

Writing is a complex task which students frequently encounter much difficulty in not knowing how and where to begin to write. Despite the paradigm shift, most teachers
still cling to their traditional belief of assigning a topic and leaving students to write the composition on their own. They fail to understand that writing is a process in which
'scaffolding' is much needed from an adult and even peers to help student writers to explore and discover meanings. Collaboration between student-student helps to promote
team co-operation through the sharing of ideas amongst students within the group. Learners play an active role throughout the learning process rather than depending on
the traditional teacher evaluation of the end products(Alesandrini & Larson, 2002). This provides them the opportunity to take leadership of their own decisions through meaningful dialogue. According to Shor and Freire (1987), "[voice] is a means to transform social relations in the classroom and to raise awareness about relations in the
society at large" (p. 11).