Gaining access to another participant’s writing in the classroom

Prior conversation analytic studies have shown that writing is a multifaceted activity, one that is accomplished in different participation configurations and through different practices of text production. A key factor that organises writing is whether participants jointly produce one text or write their own texts individually. While this choice is sometimes institutionally regulated (e.g. when counsellors take notes only for themselves), in some settings participants can manage the ‘jointness’ of writing. This article explores such management by examining how students seek and gain access to another student’s writing during individual writing tasks. The multimodal analysis focuses on sequences where students consult or share task answer formulations with each other, showing some routine ways — verbal and embodied — of negotiating such access. The focal sequences are a site of moral negotiation about where the borderline between individual and social lies, which manifests itself through different ways of seeking and granting (or blocking) access.