Collective writing and the Biblioteca di Lavoro

A collective text is not simply a collection of sentences by different writers. The group gathers ideas and experiences, discusses them, decides what to communicate, organises material and revises repeatedly. Writing makes the transition from individual voices to shared thinking visible without erasing disagreement or difference.

The teacher supports the process through questions, verbalisation and feedback without replacing the class’s voice. They may record suggestions, compare formulations, recall the intended audience and clarify criteria for coherence. The final work emerges from reasoned decisions and addresses real readers: a newspaper, inquiry, letter or class book.

Mario Lodi, Lorenzo Milani and collective writing

Collective writing also played a decisive role at Lorenzo Milani’s school. In summer 1963 Mario Lodi visited Barbiana and described the Movimento di Cooperazione Educativa’s work, particularly class correspondence and writing together. An exchange began between Barbiana’s pupils and Lodi’s class at Vho. Barbiana’s first collective letter brought individual proposals together and sought the most precise, understandable wording for its readers.

The school refined this practice: notes and ideas were gathered, grouped into chapters and paragraphs, ordered, duplicated and repeatedly revised together. It contributed to Lettera ai giudici and, in 1967, Lettera a una professoressa, signed by the pupils. The latter is the result of a collective search for precise, essential and accessible language, not an isolated author’s voice. Lodi’s visit and school correspondence are a documented part of this history, within a pedagogy that Milani and his pupils developed independently at Barbiana.

The Biblioteca di Lavoro, designed by an experimental group coordinated by Mario Lodi and published by Luciano Manzuoli in the 1970s, offered a complementary idea: replace the single textbook with a range of short booklets — documents, readings and guides — for observation, source comparison, inquiry and cultural production.

The two practices reinforce each other. The library offers diverse materials to question; collective writing requires their selection, discussion and transformation into shared work. A contemporary library may include books, testimony, images, data and digital resources, provided sources remain accessible, verifiable and actively examined.

A possible sequence

1. Start with a question emerging in class.
2. Gather experiences, observations and varied sources.
3. Compare reliability, viewpoints and key terms.
4. Build an initial shared structure.
5. Write, read aloud and revise repeatedly.
6. Publish with sources, intended readers and the choices made.

Sources

Reference titles are retained in their original language. Linked resources may be in Italian or another language.

1. Scrittura collettiva – Gessetti Colorati
2. Casa delle Arti e del Gioco — La Biblioteca di Lavoro
3. Maria Rosaria Di Santo — Mario Lodi e la “Biblioteca di Lavoro”
4. Franco Lorenzoni — Mario Lodi, don Milani e la scrittura collettiva, Giunti Scuola
5. Members area