1. Peer Review Workshop
ENG 113: Composition I

2. What Is a Peer Review Workshop?
You will be paired with a classmate
Read each paper
Provide detailed feedback based on your active reading of the story
A learning experience
One of the best ways to identify mistakes in your own writing is to read the writing of others
You get the opportunity to receive feedback directly from your audience

3. Benefits of Peer Review
You “see” your writing through your audience’s eyes
Identify the strengths and weaknesses in your writing that you may not see yourself
You receive strong feedback to base your revisions on
You must revise to improve your paper for the final portfolio

4. Challenges of Peer Review
The reviewer does not offer constructive criticism
Only positive = Great job!
Only negative = Awful!
Authors do not value their classmate’s opinion
Only the instructor “counts”
Reluctance to share work that is not “perfect” or “finished”

5. Overcoming Peer Review Challenges
Provide constructive criticism that is useful for your classmate
Detailed
Specific
Gentle
Recognize that your classmates are your audience and their point of view matters
Be open to feedback
Peer review is beneficial to the reviewer as well as the author – you will both learn from each other
Remember that writing is a process. Revision is a very important part of that process.
Polish your writing
Fix errors
May never be “perfect,” but can get much closer

6. Peer Review Process Move to sit next to your peer review partner
Introduce yourselves and provide details about your papers
What feedback would be particularly helpful?
Engage in Active Reading
Read for your own reactions (subjective)
Reread the text critically and annotate (objective)
Reread to put it all together (subjective/objective)
Provide constructive criticism – how did you react and why with specific recommendations for improvements

7. Introduce Yourself and Your Paper
Each author should take a moment to describe his/her essay?
What is the topic of the essay
What is the main idea/thesis of the essay?
What strategies did you use in your writing?
Were there any parts of the essay that were particularly challenging or that you are particularly proud of?
Do you have any specific feedback that you think would be helpful?

8. Focus Areas Main Idea Evidence Organization Assignment
Is there a thesis statement? Is it clear?
Evidence
Appropriate?
Enough?
Organization
Well organized?
Assignment
Does the essay fulfill the requirements of the assignment

9. First Reading Read through the paper once Get the “Big Picture”
Be subjective – focus on your own reactions
Do not need to make detailed comments or notes, yet, but you can mark interesting passages, confusing words, or other parts of the paper that you react to as you read

10. Second Reading Read the paper again slowly
Focus on the text itself – be objective
As you read, write detailed comments
Use the worksheet as a guide
What passages, sentences, or words are confusing?
What passages sentences or words are effective?
Pay special attention to the passages, sentences, or words you marked while previewing the paper
What about them drew your attention the first time?

11. Third Reading Read the paper one more time
Think about your reaction and the text itself (subjective and objective)
How did you react to the text and what in the paper created that reaction?
Think about how the author might revise the paper to fix the problems or emphasize the parts of the essay that work well
Make sure that your feedback is detailed, constructive, and kind!

12. Discussion Take turns discussing each paper
For each paper, the reviewer should share his/her impressions of the story and suggestions for changes and improvements
Some Suggestions
Peer Reviewer
Be detailed
Be specific
Be gentle
Author
Be open to feedback
Ask questions
Remember – it is your story, so you can choose which feedback to incorporate in the final draft

13. Next Steps Hand in your drafts and worksheets to me
I will also read the drafts, provide feedback, and hand them back to you
We will have one-on-one conferences nearer to the end of the semester
Use the peer review feedback and my comments to make major revisions for the final portfolio.
Keep everything: you will need to hand in the rough draft and feedback worksheet with your final draft in your portfolio.
Your final portfolio should include
An introductory paragraph for each major paper that explains the revisions that you made and/or why you did not make suggested changes
A fully revised essay with major changes based on the feedback