More About The Intertextual Collaboration (ITC) Process

While the ITC has many aspects and elements (a tool for invention, a method for revision, a model for intergroup and cross-cultural dialogue) a central feature of the process is that it demands that writers listen to and value every voice in the group. This requirement of integrating diverse and multiple perspectives results in a play of voices and replaces the attempt of one voice to dominate all others. Here, briefly, is how ITC works:

1. Participants brainstorm a broad theme and then select sub-topics of the large theme. For example: Broad theme, community. Sub-topics, neighborhood, developers, homelessness, rituals, courtesy, places, etc.
2. They can begin the draft immediately in the class or group, or go home and write a first draft.
3. The following week, they bring this draft and three copies to the group. In small groups, each person reads aloud, and discussion follows, which is guided by the writer. The focus is on the ideas, the concept or perspective presented; it is not on "correcting" the draft. In other words, participants use the writing as a vehicle to exchange ideas on the theme. This process is repeated until everyone has had a chance to read and talk.
4. At the end of this session, participants will have copies of their group members' writing to take home. During the following week, participants select something from each writer's draft (a phrase, a word, an idea, a style) and integrate it into their own work, producing a second draft. In addition, each writer must create and keep an acknowledgements page citing the source of the borrowed material and explaining the reason for using
5. Participants bring a second draft to the group, meet in small groups with different writers, and repeat the process--reading aloud, discussing and listening to the ideas that arise from the writing, integrating those ideas into subsequent drafts, and acknowledging them. 6. This pattern is repeated throughout the 6-10 weeks (depending on circumstances) that a group meets, until each person has worked with everyone in the large group and borrowed something from each to produce texts that reflect the multiple voices and perspectives of the group.

   There are many ways to adapt this process. The texts represented on this website were all conducted over a period of 8 or 10 weeks with the exception of the adolescent mothers group which met for only 6 weeks due to scheduling problems. However, we have done the process in as little as 4 hours with good results. Additionally, the ITC can be adapted for limited-English proficient participants and indeed, this is another important feature of the process. The collaborative nature of the process ensures that people with differing fluency and literacy skills may still participate fully.

   Sandra Darlene Sheela-Florence

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