Answer:
Collaboration helps students understand writing as a public, communal act, rather than as a private, isolated one. Many students write papers that make sense to them but that aren't clear or persuasive for others. Peer reviewers help students to understand that they aren't writing for themselves, but for readers.
Collaboration, therefore, helps student writers to develop a sense of audience. Too often students write only to please their instructors, whose expectations they rarely understand. Knowing that their peers will read their papers gives students a concrete sense of to whom they are writing, and why.
Collaboration helps students to better understand the conventions of academic discourse. When talking about their papers with their peers, students will learn where their readers stumble. They can also find out why. Often, these conversations lead to a better understanding of the writing conventions that the student-writer has neglected or misunderstood.
Collaboration helps students realize that academic conventions are not simply arbitrary rules, but in fact reflect readers' expectations. If student writers want to be understood by an academic audience, they must heed the conventions of academic writing.
Collaboration gives students practice in analyzing writing. It is easier to see where a classmate's writing is going awry than it is to find flaws in one's own prose. It is also easier to critique student writing than it is to analyze the published writing that instructors often give their students as models.
Collaboration encourages students to talk about their writing. In peer review sessions, students have to field questions about their writing. They have to explain and sometimes defend their writing strategies.
Collaboration helps students to understand writing as a process and to increase their sense of mastery of what is often a complex and difficult task. The best way to learn something is to teach it. When instructing their peers, students learn how to improve their own prose.
Explanation:
