Chapter 1: Classroom as Society: Using Peer Review to Teach an Unfamiliar Writing Style in Foreign Language Writing Instruction

The act of writing has traditionally been defined as composing text by marking coherent words on paper. This act, even if its purpose is for transmission to a readership, is at base an individual endeavor. Yet, in second language (L2) or foreign language (FL) learning contexts, the writer/learner must, by necessity, relinquish some of what makes the act of writing individualistic and seek collaboration with others, especially when the writing style being learned is either unfamiliar or specialized. In typical classroom situations, this collaboration comes primarily in the form of students’ first accepting instruction from others (i.e., the teacher) and then making alterations in writing based on teacher feedback and further instruction (either in subsequent drafts or in new writing assignments).