“Ask for specific responses on early drafts. Do you want an overall reaction? Do you want help with a particularly
intricate argument? Do you want simple editing or proofreading help? When you share a draft and
specify the help you want, you stay in control of the process and lessen the
risk of your reader’s saying something about your text that could make you
defensive” (Fulwiler 176).
In the section entitle “Writing for Classmates” Fulwiler
addresses the importance of specificity in peer reviews. I think this is something that needs to
be addressed by all of us. I think
the most common issue with peer reviews in writing workshops is that students
cannot distinguish revision from editing.
I constantly tell students that email me, asking for a “second look”
that I charge 20 for editing… what they need is help with the overall paper…
which is an in-person conversation.
I think the confusion that students have towards
revising/editing stems from high school.
I remember the few peer reviews that I did where we just did a round
robin reading fixing grammar and syntax as needed. What I really needed help with, as a student, was content
and structure. Two things that
were almost never addressed in the instructions.
Lindeman also addresses this issue in Chapter 12 of her book
when discussing Writing Workshops.
She says that students often “adopt the hypercritical, authoritative
tone of the comments they’ve read on their papers” after a peer review so it is
important to provide a model for constructive advice.
That model should be a CLEAR, CONCISE set of instructions
for peer reviews. These should
highlight both the positive aspects of the essay, the areas which need work,
and specific questions on structure, how to remove unnecessary portions, and an
analysis of the rhetoric used….
Perhaps we can all come up with a template for Peer Reviews together? I bet it would be awesome/
all-inclusive/ great for us to give our future classes! Lets get on it!
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