How Can You Make It Happen?
There are a variety of ways to incorporate peer response and editing into the writing process and writing workshops. Most teachers find that it works best to focus on a handful of issues rather than attempt to fix everything in a piece of writing. In a peer response group, for example, students may be focused on one or two key ideas or skills, such as a good lead or powerful descriptions. During a peer editing session, writer and editor will likely concentrate on one writing convention at a time, such as spelling or capitalization.
Identifying something such as a sentence fragment is only one piece of the puzzle—knowing how to correct it is a vital part of the process too. Mini lessons are helpful in tackling these issues.
Mini lessons help students learn skills and mechanics in context and are specifically tailored to students' needs. You may decide, based on the mistakes you have seen in students' writing, that students could benefit from a mini lesson on recognizing and correcting sentence fragments. When you are satisfied that they have a reasonable understanding, ask them to apply what they have learned as they edit one another's work.
The area you choose to focus on will be determined by the nature of the assignment and your goals for the lesson. Obviously, a creative writing assignment will have a different set of goals than an analytical one, and the peer editing guidelines you set will reflect this. Keeping students focused on a handful of questions with which they are comfortable will produce much better results than asking them to cover everything or to focus on unfamiliar issues.
Upper Grades Areas of Focus
Thesis Statement/Introduction
Have students consider questions like these:
Can you find the thesis? Does it accurately voice the paper's main idea?
Is the thesis supported in the body of the paper?
Is there any evidence or support for the thesis that is missing?
Is there any information included that contradicts the thesis?
Is all of the textual evidence clearly related to the thesis?
If some of the information is not relevant, can it be cut from the paper?
If not, how could the writer include it without undermining the original argument?
Does the introduction give the reader clues about the paper's subject?
Content
Have students consider questions like these:
Is there a logical structure to the argument?
Are the ideas arranged so they are easy to follow?
Do the transitions (between sentences and paragraphs) help connect the ideas? If not, what structural changes could be made?
Is the paper interesting? What are the most interesting or convincing sections?
How could the writer make the rest of the paper as interesting or convincing?
Does the writing achieve the writer's purpose?
Are there enough details and evidence? Are there any unrelated details that distract the reader?
Are unfamiliar terms explained or defined?
Style
Have students consider questions like these:
Is the style understandable? Is the language appropriate for the audience and purpose?
Does the writing contain clichés or overused phrases?
Are there too many linking verbs in the writing? Is the passive voice overused?
Is the writer too tentative about his or her ideas? Does the writer use phrases like "I think..." or "It seems..."?
Younger Grades Areas of Focus
Content
Have students consider topics and questions like these:
Writing good leads: Is the lead strong? Does it grab the reader immediately and make him or her want to keep reading?
Detail and description: Does the piece have enough detail? Can the writing be enhanced with more detailed descriptions?
Clarity, coherence, and cohesiveness: Is the writing clear? Does it make sense? Does everything fit together?
Endings: Is the ending satisfying? Does it leave the reader questioning the outcome? Should it?
Mechanics
Have students consider topics like these:
Spelling: Identify patterns and rules.
Capitalization: Check the beginnings of sentences, names, proper nouns, and so on.
Punctuation: Check end punctuation, quotes, apostrophes, and so on.
You should also involve students in the process of brainstorming items on which to focus. This could be done in a mini lesson. Once a list is set, post it in the classroom for reference during peer editing sessions. It could also serve as a reference as students are writing independently throughout the school year. Then, come up with a checklist or rubric that peer editors can use to evaluate one another's work. No matter how you choose to do this—whether as a checklist, worksheet, or rubric—remember that each item should require an active response from the editor, whether it is circling, underlining, or discussing.
One strategy might be to have the editor initial the paper when it is complete. Students in primary grades especially enjoy documenting that they assisted a classmate with editing. This initialing process can also help teachers to know when a student has completed one round of peer editing.
Once you have developed your worksheet, checklist, or rubric, you are ready to begin the peer response and editing processes with your students. These steps outline the process:
Have your students bring in a draft of their papers. Depending on the needs of your particular class and the assignment at hand, determine the appropriate time needed for the peer response or editing sessions. Remember that you must allot time for the paper to be read twice.
Pair or group students using a configuration that works best for you and the students. Letting a pair of friends work together may encourage sharing, but it may also lead to more time off-task. Use your judgment.
Pass out the peer response or editing questions or checklist, and remind students that their roles in this process are vital. Students should be given expectations prior to the lesson. Clearly communicating your expectations will serve as motivation and is also a way to tie rubrics to the checklist.
Select one student in the pair to be the responder or editor. Have the author read his or her paper aloud first. He or she may catch errors in the writing just by doing this. Next, the responder or editor should also read the paper aloud. Tell students not to worry yet about answering the checklist questions; they should just hear the paper in its entirety.
Have the responder or editor return to the beginning of the paper and work through the checklist questions. Stress to the students that this process is, in part, a dialogue between the writer and the responder or editor. The student providing feedback should ask questions, make suggestions, and offer opinions, while the writer should clarify intention, consider alternatives, and listen willingly. The responder or editor will also help the writer make appropriate corrections along the way.
Once this process is complete, roles switch. Students should now focus on the other paper. The first writer becomes the responder or editor, and vice versa.
Have the authors keep any written comments from their peers with them so that they may use them when they construct the next draft of their paper. These comments should then be handed in with the final paper, as they will be useful to the teacher during the evaluation process.
How Can You Measure Success?
You must first determine what "success" means to you in this instance. Perhaps success is the full participation of your students in the process. This may be especially relevant if they have never done such an activity before. Later on, success may be measured by how many of the peer's suggestions were taken seriously by the writer. Perhaps if you had asked your students to focus only on sentence fragments and comma splices, success could be measured by whether you see improvements in those areas in later drafts of the paper. For some teachers, a student's final grade is determined not just by his or her own writing but also by his or her role as a peer responder or editor. Most students will take the process more seriously if they know they will be held accountable for their work at every stage of the writing process.
