Last week, I began using peer editing in the classroom. Most, if not all of the students had done some sort of peer editing before, so I gave the class a few guidelines, told them to exchange papers, and let them go. Very soon, however, it disintegrated into social time or time to work on their piece. depending on the student.
I tried to figure out how to keep the students more on task and engaged in the editing process. The first step I took was to add two things to the week's assignement: they are required to turn in a draft and a peer editing worksheet with their final paper. I did this primarily to make sure the students understand that I feel more than one draft and peer editing are important.
On Thursday, we had our peer editing workshop. I developed a worksheet for each students to fill out while working on their partner's paper. On it were items like, "What was the main point of the piece?" and "A brief summary of the piece." I also included something positive and about the piece and something the author could improve. I wasn't sure how this would work - I was afraid that the students would interpret this as "busy" work, but I briefly explained the sheet and turned them loose.
It took a couple of minutes for the students to settle in, but everyone was taking the editing workshop more seriously than last week. After the students filled out the sheet, I overheard many students discussing the pieces and what they wrote on the sheets. I was very happy with the outcome. It seems that they simply needed a little more focus to the workshop and the editing sheet provided the direction. I will definitely use this in the future!
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