PEER EDITING ONLINE AND FACE TO FACE What students read Lucy MacDonald, M.A., M.A Readers and Writers, Unite! McAllen, Texas July 12, 2013 lucy@lucyonline.com
The back story Student testimonial Interviewer: What did you like best about your writing class? Student: The Peer Editing Interviewer: Why was that?
The back story Student testimonial Because you never read what a teacher writes on your paper anyway! Interviewer: What do you read? Student: What the peer editing group says.
Lessons Learned 1. If the students aren t going to read my comments on their papers, I m wasting my time. 2. My students did not get smart overnight. I need to teach the members of the Peer Editing groups to be experts. Ergo: change to a train the trainer model and encourage the students to teach each other!
Overview of Activities 1 Build your team 2 Practice the Process 3 Face to face / Online
ALL ACTIVITIES ARE STUDENT TESTED AND RECOMMENDED BY STUDENTS.
Build your team.
Building groups No significant difference except for online Groups improve retention Caveat: groups bond = hard to regroup
Before we begin the next activity Does anyone want to move?
Activity # 1 Name that team! Open ended discussion. May choose to role play as students. May choose to be yourself. May choose to be creative. May choose to focus on school. May choose to focus on writing.
Activity # 1 Name that team! 3 minute Brainstorming Why is this important?
Activity # 1 Name that team! The A Team The Write Stuff
Practice the process
Activity 2 - Step # 1 Group members must tell each other how they want to get feedback. Begin with the affective first. Are you a beginning writer? Are you a returning students? Are you a second language students? Are you a wiz at writing? Can you spell or do you care?
Activity 2 Step #1 End with the how Comments in group forum messages Comments in email Comments in Word document Comments using Word tool track changes Comments on Post it notes (face to face)
What students say Don t be mean. I ve never been good at writing. English is my second language. Can you help me make my writing sound good? I ve been out of school for a long time, so I m not sure what to do. I can never think of anything to write about. I don t have time for this. Cut the BS. Just tell me straight. Isn t this cheating if you work on my paper? Just fix it. Teacher always says vague, unclear. I don t have a clue. Can you help me?
Professional writers have editors. We often do not see our own mistakes.
Step # 2 Activity Require written response to peers' writing. Kathleen O'Shaughnessy, co-director of the National Writing Project of Acadiana (Louisiana), asks her middle school students to respond to each others' writing on Post-it Notes. Students attach their comments to a piece of writing under consideration. "I've found that when I require a written response on a Post-it instead of merely allowing students to respond verbally, the responders take their duties more seriously and, with practice, the quality of their remarks improves." One student wrote: While I was reading your piece, I felt like I was riding a roller coaster. It started out kinda slow, but you could tell there was something exciting coming up. But then it moved real fast and stopped all of a sudden. I almost needed to read it again the way you ride a roller coaster over again because it goes too fast. Says O'Shaughnessy, "This response is certainly more useful to the writer than the usual 'I think you could, like, add some more details, you know?' that I often overheard in response meetings." O'SHAUGHNESSY, KATHLEEN. 2001. "Everything I Know About Teaching Language Arts, I Learned at the Office Supply Store." The Quarterly (23) 2.
Guidelines for this activity 1. Provide response comments on writing using the sticky notes. (Caveat: you need to train students on how to do this.) 2. Remember, in this case, your partner did not write the student sample! Therefore, give the writing sample with the sticky note response to your partner to read. 3. Then provide feedback to your partner, according to the designated format requested by your partner.
Ineffective vs Effective response More examples would help. When you indicate that college is a scary place, I get no real idea of why or how. What are the things that you think make college scary? I would like some examples.
Guidelines for this activity 1. Provide response comments on writing using the sticky notes. (Caveat: you need to train students on how to do this.) 2. Remember, in this case, your partner did not write the student sample! Therefore, give the writing sample with the sticky note response to your partner to read. 3. Then provide feedback to your partner, according to the designated format requested by your partner.
Debrief
Face to face / Online
How Peer editing really works Sentence Structure Thesis, Main Idea Coherence, Unity Detail, Examples
How Peer editing really works Sentence Structure Thesis, Main Idea Coherence, Unity Detail, Examples
How Peer editing really works Sentence Structure Thesis, Main Idea Coherence, Unity Detail, Examples
How Peer editing really works Sentence Structure Thesis, Main Idea Coherence, Unity Detail, Examples
Summary Engage the students Train the trainers Make the students experts Write more; talk less Have fun
QUESTIONS?
Resources Grammar Girl podcasthttp://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com
Resources Literacy Education Online provides writing assistance organized by problem. For example, instead of saying comma splice, the link says I m never sure where commas go. This makes it easier for students to find what they need, even when they don t know what the difficulty is called. http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/ Mascle, Deanna DeBine. Writing Self-Efficacy and Written Communication Skills. Business Communication Quarterly, 76 (2), 216-225, 2013. O'SHAUGHNESSY, KATHLEEN. 2001. "Everything I Know About Teaching Language Arts, I Learned at the Office Supply Store." The Quarterly (23) 2.