As your peers make progress on their own essays, you will offer evaluations of their work that help them (and you) continue to improve.
On the day a rough draft is due, you will begin evaluating the essays of two different peers (and two peers will review your essay). Arrange with your group how you will distribute the sharing. Only students with a complete draft can be reviewed, each student must review two essays, and each student (with a complete draft) must have two reviewers.
On each essay you evaluate, you should spend 45-60 minutes. The first step is to read the essay and make comments in the margin about various strengths and weaknesses of the essay. Focus on the ideas of the essay and the structure of those ideas in the essay, not the grammar or style. As you read the essay, ask yourself, "How can the writer be more specific? How can the writer make the ideas more vivid? How can the writer improve how each idea BUILDS from the one before it?" Remember, the standard of excellence you're reaching for is effective communication. As Hjortshoj wrote, "Effective writing, therefore, facilitates continuous reading from beginning to end" (115). Make substantial comments on parts of the beginning, middle, and end of the essay.
Once you are done commenting on the paper, create a new document in your Google Drive essays folder for this course.
By default, you will be the owner of the document, but when you share this document with the peer you are evaluating, you need to make that student the owner. First, grant them editing privileges; when you see your peer's name on the sharing list, make him/her the owner. After doing so, you will still be able edit the document, but the student you are evaluating will actually own the document. And as long as you created the document in your essays folder, I'll have access to it as well.
Type a 300+ word response to your peer's paper. To earn credit for the peer responses you write, you must refrain from superficial, trite, cliched statements of praise and approval. Instead, I need to see evidence that you are grappling with the writer's actual attempt to communicate an idea and how that attempt can be improved. Do not generalize about the student's essay; instead, use specific examples from the essay to show what works but can work better. Also, show what does not work and suggest how to make it work.
Your response needs to be thorough because you also stand to benefit from the thorough responses of your peers. In other words, do your part and do not let it slide. Your peer responses will be featured in the final portfolios of the students you help, so you need to be accountable to this responsibility. At the top of your peer response, indicate which paper you are evaluating and address the writer ("Dear Michael"); at the end of the response type your full name after "Sincerely"--in this way, you are communicating directly with your peer.
