Sunday, September 7, 2014

Blog Post #3 - How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback to Your Peers?

Peer editing is an important aspect of the learning process. It is simply working with someone your own age to improve and revise his or her writing according to Adriana Zardini's Tutorial Peer Editing slideshow. It involves three major steps. They are compliments, corrections, and suggestions. I have always heard that the proper way to critique is the "compliment sandwich." In this method one gives a compliment, a critique, and then another compliment. I do like the switch in the format, though.  It creates room for more detailed and specific editing and if the editor so chose, could still be followed up by a closing compliment. One of the main things to stress with peer editing is to "Stay positive!" This suggestion also comes from Ms. Zardini's slideshow.

a humorous picture of a cat swatting at another cat with the caption constructive criticism you're not doing it right

Link to photo source: Enggroup1

The compliments section of the peer editing process should be an easy one to understand: say what you like about the piece. After that is where the editor has to remember to stay positive. Nobody wants to be edited by the "Mean Margaret" that was mentioned in Tim Bedley's Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes video The suggestions portion is where the editor has the opportunity to comment on the author's "word choice, organization, details, sentences, and topic" as recommended in the above mentioned slideshow. After that the editor will have the chance to correct the author's spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and whatever errors may be found. This is the  suggestions portion of peer editing.

The words let's eat grandpa and let's eat comma grandpa. punctuation saves lives.
Link to photo source: Meredith Anderson's Blog

As mentioned previously, peer editing is an important opportunity for people to learn from others and from their own mistakes. Ms. Zardini closes out her slideshow by reminding us when we peer edit we must, "stay positive, be specific, and complete all three steps."

students participating in peer editing

Above: Students participating in peer editing.
Link to photo source: Mrs. Brooks's 3rd Grade class blog

2 comments:

  1. When creating your blog posts, always title your blogs "Blog Post 2" or "Blog Post 3", so that we know which post we are reading and they are easy to locate! Also, when doing your photos, be sure and use the ALT and title modifiers instead of just putting "source:_____" below the actual picture. Good job at using links and great writing :)

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    1. I have been doing both the alt/title modifiers and putting it below the pictures. The modifiers were working on my computer when I checked them. Are they not showing up?

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