Peer Review Instructions:
- Find a partner
- Choose who wants to go first. That person should read his or her essay out loud.
- As the writer reads the essay, mark down anything you notice that could/ should be changed (places where you are confused, places where you need more info, places where the wording of the sentences is unclear, etc.).
- The second person should read his/ her essay out loud. Again, the listener should mark things that could / should be changed.
- After reading the essays aloud, exchange essays take some quiet time to fill out the peer review sheets. Write in full sentences. If something is not working, don’t just say it doesn’t work. Try to help make suggestions for revision. Treat it like you’d like your own essay to be treated. Be kind, but also offer constructive criticism.
- After filling out the peer review, come back together (10 minutes?) to discuss the peer review sheets. The writer should talk during this time, too. Let the reviewer know what you were trying to do. Ask questions. See if things worked the way you hoped they would.
- Exchange peer review sheets.
- Use your partner’s comments/ suggestions to help you make revisions. Keep in mind that it is YOUR essay, so all revisions are ultimately up to you. However, if something was unclear, etc., it may be a good idea to address that.
- I will provide you feedback via email or D2L. I will do my best to finish these by Friday evening, though it may spill into Saturday. Please read over my comments. If you have questions, let me know.
The 3 o'clock class did a great job with the peer-review. They're in Young Hall, which has "break out" spaces outside the rooms for students to study, so I allowed them to do the peer-review in those spaces as long as they stayed on the 4th floor. My job was to walk around from group to group, listening and answering questions. I like what I heard from most groups. They didn't seem like they were rushing through to get finished; instead, I heard a lot of comments about "too much summary" and needing more scene, questions about unanswered issues in the essays, et cetera. Everyone seemed really on task.
In my 5 o'clock class, I was missing 7 out of 15 students. I'd imagine those people did not finish their drafts, so did not come to class. That's bad, but I'm honestly not sure what I could do about it. They had an extra week because I was in the hospital last week with a DVT / PE. Of those who made it to class, only one pair seemed to take the peer-review seriously. The others rushed through it, finishing in about 30 minutes total. With reading the essays, filling out the peer-review sheets, and discussing, my estimate is that the review should take at least 50 minutes to an hour if taken seriously.
Again, not really sure what I could do differently. We modeled a peer review and talked about what makes it effective in class on Monday; I had very specific questions related to their papers to address (questions that, if answered seriously, would help make the essays better), and I walked around the classroom attempting to keep people on task. One possibility for why the peer-reviews worked better in the 3 o'clock is that those students had more space--the break out areas allowed them to do the review in private, versus three or so seats away from another group. While I think that made a difference, it's really no excuse for not taking it seriously. I know the onus is on the teacher--more than ever before, I think--to make classes engaging, enjoyable, etc. But if students refuse to do structured work (at a college level), I'm not sure what can be done about that. At some point, all the creativity in the world in lesson design or whatever just masks a lack of serious intent on the part of students, in my opinion.
Again, not really sure what I could do differently. We modeled a peer review and talked about what makes it effective in class on Monday; I had very specific questions related to their papers to address (questions that, if answered seriously, would help make the essays better), and I walked around the classroom attempting to keep people on task. One possibility for why the peer-reviews worked better in the 3 o'clock is that those students had more space--the break out areas allowed them to do the review in private, versus three or so seats away from another group. While I think that made a difference, it's really no excuse for not taking it seriously. I know the onus is on the teacher--more than ever before, I think--to make classes engaging, enjoyable, etc. But if students refuse to do structured work (at a college level), I'm not sure what can be done about that. At some point, all the creativity in the world in lesson design or whatever just masks a lack of serious intent on the part of students, in my opinion.
Bright spot: 1 out of 2 classes isn't bad. The 3 o'clock class did a great job. Those who were in the 5 o'clock class may have helped each other more than I realize despite them rushing through it.
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