Miss Olsen

I’ve used the phrases “Peer Editing”, “Peer Review”, “Peer Feedback”, and “Peer Criticism” somewhat synonymously in the past, but I’ve come to learn that they are, in fact, different things. I tend to favor “Peer Review” out of the others, but it is important to look at the differences and advantages to calling your workshop days one of the phrases out of the others! Let’s go over them: Peer Editing From the online English Club , “Peer Editing” is broken into two parts: “Peer”, and “Editing”: “peer (noun): a person who shares your ability, age or background; your equal” “edit (verb): to review, correct and suggest changes to another person's work” Image from  The Conversation Key words here includes “equal” (when talking about a peer), “suggest changes” in editing, and “reviewing”. A Peer editor might suggest changes, look for grammar or syntax mistakes, and overall seems to be more surface level than a peer reviewer.                ...

Far too often are students left on their own during Peer Review, and they soon come to believe that it is an unnecessary part of the writing process. In order to combat this idea, I’ve come up with 5 ways to make peer reviewing days more efficient and enjoyable for you and your students. Scaffolding Image from Learning to Teach English Leading up to a Peer Review day, you should be telling students what is good, helpful constructive criticism versus blatant and destructive criticism, as well as criticism that is neither good nor bad (for example, random reaffirming words in the margins like “Good” and “I like this part” do absolutely nothing besides build false security for the writing receiving the peer edits). Scaffold leading up to the peer reviewing days by having mini lessons or even a lesson the day of the peer review day. Things to go over are destructive criticism (criticism that attacks the individual instead of giving ways to strengthen their writing), how to give constructiv...

The presence of technology within the classroom has been both a help and a hindrance. A help, especially during the Pandemic, allowing students to catch up on missed work or quickly research something they don’t quite understand, also a hindrance as it can be distracting during class time. However, my goal isn’t to study technology only within the classroom, but within peer review groups or partnerships specifically. Does it benefit the writers and readers to do it in person, or to just leave virtual comments on each other's papers? How does anonymity effect peer review? What are the shortcomings of these different approaches?  In-Person Peer Review In my experience, I’ve only ever done in-person peer reviews. We may have time to look over the person’s paper the day before and come prepared with comments in class, but I don’t believe I’ve ever just been assigned to simply leave a certain amount of comments on a peer’s paper and never talk to them about it.  One advantage of i...

  As a high school student, I remember looking at my “Peer Reviewed” papers and only seeing words like “good!” or “work on this section” or “what does this mean?” in the margins. I know my peers were trying their best; they truly thought they were “peer reviewing”. Afraid of hurting my feelings, they sprinkled in a few “good!”’s throughout the paper and called it good. As long as they got the participation grade for that day of peer editing, they thought the day was a success. However, I’ve come to learn during college that Peer Review and Peer Editing can actually be useful! It can actually help me improve my writing, rather than giving me false confidence! How and when did peer review begin to fail so terribly? Why don’t students like it? Do students even find it helpful? How can a teacher in the modern English classroom actually make it useful? These questions have been pummeling my mind as I approach the beginning of my experience as an English teacher, and I hope that this blo...