Next Step, Peer Review

[Molly Schwartz]

This week in class the students worked on peer reviewing each other’s essays.  Last week the students had been working on creating a successful outline for their essays. This required them to format their outlines to an online document that specified where they should put their topic sentences, thesis statement, and evidence to support their ideas. On Monday Mr. DuBe began class by explaining that they were going to transition their essay from outline format to essay format. Mr. DuBe proceeded to give a series of rigid instructions on all the adjustments the students had to make; deleting the headings of the outline document, getting rid of extra spaces, indenting paragraphs, making everything double spaced, etc. This process seemed rather tedious and given that not everyone was done with their outline yet or hadn’t written their outline in complete sentences made it a difficult lesson to apply to everyone. While there was an expectation that the outline be completed and written in sentence format, not everyone was on the same page and since Mr. DuBe was busy reciting the instructions for changing the format, there was little room for any variety or flexibility. At this point Mr. DuBe had me work one on one with a student who was not done with her outline yet.

When I returned to tutor the students were working on peer reviewing each other’s essays. In the time I had been there the expectation was that they all had a completed rough draft. Mr. DuBe handed out a double sided paper that was titled “Peer Revision Worksheet: Informative Essay.” The document was meant to be filled out by two different students evaluating the same essay. Some of the objectives of the lesson were to recognize components of an essay, to think critically about writing style, and to learn how to communicate feedback in an effective manner. Mr. DuBe explained to me that often when students are asked to peer review that they are unclear on what to be looking for and are therefore unmotivated to provide useful feedback. By giving students a clear checklist and space to provide written feedback, Mr. DuBe challenged his students to engage more with the activity as a way that they could gain something by participating rather than just be on the receiving end. By having students become the reviewers, Mr DuBe was allowing students to learn from each other and have them step into the role of MKO. While giving students this power to give feedback may have offered an opportunity for intrinsic motivation, there was no grade on the feedback given. In other words there was no extrinsic motivator like a grade to motivate students to give better feedback. Each student had about 15-20 minutes to read an essay and then they switched, taking in total about 40 minutes. Mr. DuBe then explained that students should hold on to their feedback sheets and apply the comments to their essays.

While for some this exercise seemed like a productive endeavor, the students who were behind on their outline and probably needed the most feedback were not in a position to receive it. While they could give feedback regardless of their essay status, I sensed that they were less motivated to participate in the class activity due to feeling discouraged. While some students were motivated to be the MKOs and provide feedback and guidance to their peers, the students who were behind on their essays felt less motivated to participate. Despite Mr. DuBe’s best efforts to explain that the point of peer review was to get feedback on how to improve their writing and that all writers at all levels went through this process, some students didn’t seem to take the bait. I wonder if they had had more one on one time to prepare for the lesson they might have felt more confident in their writing.

I remember when I was in middle and high school I never really liked peer review because if I wasn’t confident about my writing I was embarrassed to show it to my peers and I wasn’t sure if any of my feedback was “right” so I usually defaulted to only giving positive feedback and dodging any responsibility to provide feedback. Over time I wrote more and read more and I was able to develop my writing skills and editing skills but I certainly wasn’t there yet in 9th grade. I think Mr. DuBe’s outline format and peer review worksheet did provide students with a clear skeleton of what an essay should include and how it should be formatted. Hopefully with time students will be able to build up their skills of thinking more critically and metacognitively about the writing process.

 

On Friday I worked with two students Maddy and Yani. Maddy was behind on her essay and hadn’t received any feedback from peer review. Yani had been out of town due to a family emergency for two weeks and was very far behind on completing assignments. It was really cool to work with Maddy on her essay on the American Dream. As an American Studies major my mind was racing with ideas but I also knew that it was her essay not mine so it should be her words and not a complex theory I had been thinking about in college. I was able to bounce around some new ideas for her and give her a chance to be a bit more critical in her response which I think interested her more. It was tough at times because she often came up blank when it came to writing her ideas down. She was able to comprehend but putting it in her own words was a challenge. Given that Mr. DuBe’s class mostly follows a behaviorist perspective and is product based (using completed assignments to dictate grades) I could see why Maddy was behind. The fact that she seemed to be comprehending the material suggest that in a cognitivist school setting Maddy could be at the top of her class. When we sat down Yani got right to work making a list of assignments she knew she could complete easily and bring up her grade. I was impressed with how motivated she was given how overwhelming it must have been to come back and have a mountain of work in front of her. Given how motivated she was she clearly could fit into a behaviorist school setting, however I felt it was unfair that despite all her efforts there was little flexibility in bringing up her grade due to her absence from class especially since it was out of her control to miss school.

[Shaw Qin]

Hi Molly,

I really enjoyed reading your post!

I found your observation on Maddy fascinating. It makes sense that from a behavioral perspective, under the evaluation framework of Mr. DuBe’s current class, Maddy is behind since she hasn’t met the behavioral goal of completing worksheets. However, I wondered if Maddy could meet the learning standard even if it is behavioral-based, as long as the standard is more flexible and reflect Maddy’s learning process. After all, Maddy has to have demonstrated some behavioral clue that she could comprehend critical ideas about the American Dream. In other words, cognitivists also evaluate cognitive learning and growth through some behavioral indicators.

On the other hand, I wondered if there were ways to scaffold Maddy’s learning materials and environment to help her transform her comprehension and ideas into written texts. Would it be helpful to ask her to repeat what she just said (or repeat it for her) and ask where she thought she could start writing or what the main point should be? Since in many situations, people’s comprehension is more skilled or advanced than their performance, I would imagine the process of performing closer to the level of understanding can also be an aspect of learning (maybe even in Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development).

Shaw

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