Storying the Terroir of Collaborative Writing: Like Wine and Food, a Unique Pairing of Mentoring Minds

Source: Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, Volume 18, Issue 2, p. 177 - 197.
(May 2010 ).
 
The authors, two faculty members in a Canadian post-secondary teacher education context, inquired into their collaborative writing process initiated through an informal faculty mentoring relationship.

Situating their writing in the discourses of personal practical knowledge, social constructionism, narrative inquiry, and autobiography grounds their understanding of relational writing as side-by-side collaborators who engage in a bodily co-present writing process, negotiating the many nuances of text construction.
By using a metaphor of carefully pairing exquisite wine with fine food, the authors convey the mutual co-construction of their lived experiences that evolve through relational writing. Highlighting related literature in the areas of mentoring, writing terminology, traits of collaborators, writing process, and benefits of collaboration assists them in comparing and contrasting the literature with features unique to their own collaboration.

The authors conclude by noting critical issues and implications regarding collaborative writing that offer insight into the importance of honoring collaborative scholarship within academic contexts.