Today we will use our entire class period to peer review one another’s final essays for class.
These following individuals will peer review one another’s essays.
Cassie and Paidin
Jordan Roper reviews Sara R.reviews Lauren who reviews Jordan’s
Hope and Tommy
Jordan and Adam
Remember to make sure the link to your Googledoc essay submission is both shared with Dr. Jan and submitted to the appropriate Canvas forum.
Peer review sessions provide you with an opportunity to see what other people in the class are doing on a given assignment, to get close and helpful reader-response comments about your own work–comments that should guide you in revisions to be completed before handing in the final draft, and also to practice giving detailed, constructive criticism. To this end, you should try to do a number of things while commenting on others’ papers:
Warm Fuzzies First
Remember everyone likes to know that they’re doing something right or well, even if it is only that they’ve followed the proper instructions for formatting.
Note what you like about the essay so the author knows what to keep or build upon, and try to explain why it’s working so they replicate similar kinds of good work in other sections. One to get the positive energy flowing is to begin by telling your peer what you learned from their essay, what stood out, and why.
Constructive Criticism is the most helpful.
Note what you don’t like so the author knows what to cut or change.
Always explain why you like or dislike something.
Comments like “Good!” or “This paragraph is confusing” won’t help someone trying to improve a piece. You must explain to the best of your ability why something is good, so the author can repeat the desirable effect, or why something else is bad, so s/he can remedy the problem, i.e.,
“This paragraph is confusing because you use too many pronouns and I’m not sure to whom you are referring.”
“ This sentence is confusing because I’m not sure how it is connected to the one that comes before or after it.”
“This sentence is fantastic because it uses clean, precise language that is grammatically correct, in parallel structure, and not overwhelmed by passive voice or prepositional phrases.”
Courtesy Counts!!!
Be critical. You’re not here to coddle one another. You’re here to seriously and helpfully engage each other’s work. Constructive criticism is much more valuable than empty flattery however much we might like the latter.
Be kind. You’re not here to nit-pick at things just for the sake of finding fault. Keep your criticism constructive. Also, remember that as an author, it is often easier to take a reviewer’s advice seriously if they offer both positive and critical feedback.
How to Complete Your Peer Review
1.Read over your peer’s essay. Try to read through once before making any comments at all, just to get a sense of the overall purpose and rhetorical flow of the essay. What stands out? What was hard to understand? Make some mental notes.
2. Next read over your peer’s essay and make some marginal comments. Use the “suggesting” feature in Googledoc to enter your comments either directly in the text or as side-bar comments.
3. Now that you’ve read the essay twice (you may need to read it a third time), you are prepared to draft the “Summary End-Comment” in the format of a letter addressed to your peer, and inserted as a side-bar comment on the Title of the essay. This end comment should be at least 250-300 words. Your goal here is to help your peer best communicate his/her/their rhetorical purpose for the intended rhetorical audience. The goal of your end-comment is to offer specific feedback to help them reach achieve their rhetorical purpose for their audience. To help you both achieve those goals, I offer specific prompts for the end-comments below. Remember, good writing extends far beyond knowledge of where to put the comma or how to spell “relate,” and you’re more than a grammar checker.
Summary End Comments
I
Your end-comment should begin with global issues:
Start with the thing that stood out most, or that you most enjoyed learning/reading about in the essay. This helps establish rapport by beginning with a positive observation.
Overall rhetorical purpose: Is there a thesis/argument—does it demonstrate its exigence? Since many of you are not writing explicitly argumentative essays, you will identify the essay’s “rhetorical purpose” and intended audience.Are they clearly identified? What genre is the essay? Does it conform to the constraints of the genre?
Arrangement: (Overall, paragraph to paragraph, sentence to sentence) Is there a clear sense of organization for the essay as a whole both as it moves from paragraph to paragraph and from idea to idea within paragraphs? If they include visuals/images/external links are they well introduced and placed within the structure of the essay?
Style: At the sentence level—are sentences clear and easy to understand? Does the writer employ clear transitions to link ideas together. Do you notice anything about the style in general—a tendency to use passive voice, prepositional phrases, to mis-place modifiers, etc.? If so, try suggesting an alternative model.
Do offer comments about grammar, but also offer comments about style, argument, arrangement, audience accommodation, rhetorical appeal, etc.
Delivery: Does the paper meet the minimum requirements of page length; i.e. is it a full draft? Include quotations from experts to build the author’s ethos? Does it include appropriately contextualized research whether in the form of observations, interviews?
Where to put the end-comment
Each of you will make a comment on the Title of the essay and include your summary end-comment there. Event though it should be the last thing you write (having read over and considered your colleague’s essay), it will then be the first thing they and I see. When they open your document. Your peer comments are worth 5 points.
Evaluation
I will look at your peer critique comments, and my own comments to them, which is why we are using Googledocs. I will record your performance on this task. Do not take it lightly.
As an author, consider both your peer’s and my comments as you revise. Your final marks on the final essay will depend on how well you incorporate both my and your peer’s feedback. Remember you can contact them and me outside of class for further clarification. Have fun!