Peer Review Recap, Part 4

After I worked with my previous (3rd Essay) peer review group, I felt I had gained a new understanding of the peer review process and was excited to work with our final group. My past group had been extremely supportive. We got assigned to our last group and we got to sit down face to face with our group and actually talk about where we were with our papers and also to talk about what we wanted to accomplish with our peer editing.

Just when I thought everything would be smooth sailing, bam - one of our members explained she was so dissatisfied with past peer reviewing that she had already decided not to participate. First because she did not feel it had been helpful throughout the semester and secondly because there isn’t any participation points from doing it. At first I thought she was angry at me because in the past she had written in her blogs about not getting support or good feedback.
I remembered that because I think I might have been one of the students who had "let her down" in the past. From what I remembered, it had been hard to peer edit her outline for the style essay.

Our second peer review was done at the wetpaint.com site and many students were frustrated and were trying to figure out how to approach the essay. They were trying different approaches to work it out. The interface at wetpaint.com was hard to format the text – it didn’t come out like a word document. So her outline came out reading like a long, long scroll. I don’t blame this student for being dissatisfied with the peer reviews. But you can’t be angry at all of your peers and blame them because you didn’t have enough material for them to evaluate. And you can't assume that just because one peer review didn't work out for you that all peer edits are going to be like that.

After that peer review and hearing other students whining about how they didn't like that one either, I signed up for the University Writing Center Peer Review Workshop and I’m glad I did. I learned some things about peer reviews this semester that I wish had known about when I was first starting at EMU. It sounds like such a simple activity, but I think teachers should offer this information in the classroom and poke students in the eye if they don’t listen. And this isn’t just for first or second year students either, its just good information for everyone.

The other thing that helped me come to terms with the dread peer review, was that while I have participated in peer reviews in many classes in the past, students were never asked to think about the process - just to do the actitvity. However because we were asked to think about it and write about it, I ended up learning about myself and others. Peer Reviews are for students (for me), to help others and to help themselves to be better writers. Students need to take ownership of the peer review, work with their peers, and be as supportive to their peers as they can be to get the most out of it.

Our final peer review extended over the Thanksgiving break which allowed for extra time for students to actually develop their essays to the point where peer reviews would be or hopefully be – successful. I received very good feedback so far from Siobhan and I’m sure I’ll get scorchingly good comments from the others in my group before the essay is due.

One of the points that Andrew from the writing center told me about that really made sense was that depending on the stage of the draft is how you should conduct your peer review. For example, there is a beginning, middle, and final stage of writing. Each stage requires a different focus. For example, you don’t check for punctuation errors in the first draft, you are looking at ideas, content, structure. Also, you need to talk to the person you will be editing and find out where they are in the writing process, what they need or would like you to help them with, and edit with an eye toward development.