COLLABORATIVE EDITING – Trying to bring an end to lazy and ineffective peer editing.
The problem of students “rubber stamping” the work of their peers during peer editing sessions is a frustration faced by many Brighten ELA teachers who, nonetheless, see the value of students evaluating the writing of their classmates. In a perfect world, this process can inspire student writers to be more accountable as both writers and readers of their own work, as well as of the writing of their peers. In reality, teachers often find peer editors signing off on, or failing to revise work that is clearly and obviously below par. Although my use of the word “obviously” arguably bends toward the subjective, I have too many times employed checklists that ask peer editors to “check off” that the author has, for example, underlined the title, only to find an affirmative check endorsing a paper in which the title is objectively not underlined.
In an effort to address this, I plan to employ the following peer editing strategy as a way to frontload the expectations for the year.
Below is an outline of the framework and a variation of the SRSD (Self-Regulated Strategy Development) method used to teach the strategy. The activity is front-loaded by administering a Pre-Assessment of Genre Knowledge: Grade 7 and having the students memorize two mnemonic devices that will compose the foundation of our evidence-based writing for the year. These devices will dovetail with the R.A.C.E. framework for constricted responses to which they have been previously introduced. The devices are:
Day 1
- Small heterogeneous grouping of 3-4 students
- Team Writer
- Team Editor 1
- Team Editor 2
- Students choose a topic from a prompt list (see examples here.)
- Students use a POW TREE graphic organizer to build the informational blocks of their paragraph(s) – the prompts lend themselves to taking a position using a thesis statement.
- The team is given a short workshop period to complete the topic planning and POW-TREE graphic organizer.
- The Team Writer is responsible for filling out the organizer with the collaboration of the Team Editors.
- After the workshop time expires the Team Writer will be assigned the task of composing a well-written paragraph(s) (on notebook paper/typewritten with a class heading) that supports the thesis statement by the next class period.
Day 2
Compare/Diagnose/Operate REVISION WORKSHOP (CDO) – Student teams evaluate the Team Writer’s first draft – This revising strategy involves revising a paper sentence by sentence, starting with the first sentence and proceeding to the last. After reading a sentence (Step 1) the Team (they are all Team Editors now) agrees upon/selects a CDO Strategy Card that best describes it (Step 2). Two of the cards focus on clarity, one asks writers to consider the sentence in relation to overall purpose; two others ask for analysis for confusion; one for mismatches between intent and outcome; and two others prompt for evaluation of the readers’ reactions. Finally, the last card indicates that the sentence is good as is.
Each statement should be printed on a white card with a green border to remind students to start with these cards. The words Evaluate each sentence should also be printed at the top of each card to remind Team Editors that they are assessing each sentence. Whenever an evaluation card other than This is good is selected, Team Editors first think about how to correct the problem, then choose one of five tactic cards (Step 3). Finally, the Team Editors annotate the draft for revision. Each revising tactic (Step 3) should be typed on a white card with a red border to signal that this is the final step in making a revision (see CDO Strategy Card .)
After the Revision Workshop time expires Team Editor 1 will take on the role of Team Writer. The new Team Writer is assigned the task of composing a 2nd draft (on notebook paper/typewritten with a class heading) that carries out the intended collaborative revisions (Step 4) for the next class period.
Day 3
REVISION WORKSHOP – Student teams evaluate the Team Writer’s second draft – This revising strategy involves revising a paper sentence by sentence, starting with the first sentence and proceeding to the last. After reading a sentence (Step 1) the Team (they are all Team Editors now) agrees upon/selects a CDO Strategy Card that best describes it (Step 2). Two of the cards focus on clarity, one asks writers to consider the sentence in relation to overall purpose; two others ask for analysis for confusion; one for mismatches between intent and outcome; and two others prompt for evaluation of the readers’ reactions. Finally, the last card indicates that the sentence is good as is.
Each statement should be printed on a white card with a green border to remind students to start with these cards. The words Evaluate each sentence should also be printed at the top of each card to remind Team Editors that they are assessing each sentence. Whenever an evaluation card other than This is good is selected, Team Editors first think about how to correct the problem, then choose one of five tactic cards (Step 3). Finally, the Team Editors annotate the draft for revision. Each revising tactic (Step 3) should be typed on a white card with a red border to signal that this is the final step in making a revision.
After the Revision Workshop time expires Team Editor 2 will take on the role of Team Writer. The new Team Writer is assigned the task of composing a final draft (on notebook paper/typewritten with a class heading) that carries out the intended collaborative revisions (Step 4) for the next class period. For this draft, the Team Writer will be given a Peer Editing Checklist for reference.
Day 4
The team collaboratively evaluates the final draft using the collaborative editing strategy. The team determines if the paper is ready to be “published.” If so, the team will submit the paper for peer review. Peer reviewers will evaluate using the Peer Editing Checklist. If no revisions are needed the paper may be submitted for a collaborative assessment. The student team may make revisions and submit them on Day 5.