Praise, Question, Polish: Students as Peer Editors

This strategy is one used during peer editing in order to facilitate meaningful feedback between peers and to encourage students in sharing their reading aloud with others.
I chose to use this strategy in my AP class this year when editing a creative paper about experiences with learning to read and the importance of words.  Students were charged with gathering in small groups (3-4) and individually reading drafts aloud.  While the author read his/her draft, others in the group (the peer editors) listened and took notes on elements of praise, question and polish.

• Praise:  What is good about the writing and why is it good?
• Question: As a reader/listener, what do you not understand?  What would you like clarified or extended upon?
• Polish:  What specific suggestions for improvement can you make?

At the end of the reading, peer editors finalized notes and then shared those ideas aloud in a discussion/dialogue with the writer and the other editors.  The written comments were then also given to the author, so that he/she would have comments to look at while revising for the final draft.

• Students responded that they felt this worked well.  They liked the leading questions and having a format for their comments to be shared. They also were happy to take home a variety of responses to their writing, rather than just one editor's comments.
• As a teacher, I liked that all students had an expected voice in the editing process, all were cognizant of the fact that their comments would be shared aloud and should hold merit and relevance to the author.  I also liked that students were able to hear a variety of comments in response to their own draft and others' drafts, allowing their own perspectives to be validated and built upon as well.
• For assessment purposes, the forms that students filled out held them accountable, but having time to add to their responses during sharing of the comments did allow for some of the comments to not be authentically one's own.   This would only be used in a formative nature.

This idea came from an article shared via email by Colleen on Dec. 2, "Can Peer Review Help Johnny Write Better?" by Susan Taylor, published in The Journal of Adventist Education, April/May 2014 (Vol. 76, pp. 42-46).

Student Interaction Strategies

The intention of this year's entries on the blog is to research and experiment with all different student interaction strategies.  It is my intent to use these strategies in my classroom to foster more varied, authentic, and academically-productive student interaction, and then write about the successes and shortcomings observed.  I will discover various current sources to inform my postings, including books, web sources, and colleague input; these sources will be linked whenever possible.