Peer Editing

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Home : 2002 : September : 14

Peer Editing
By Kathy

My middle school students, grades 6 - 8, do something I call "responding" to each other's writing after the students have completed their first drafts. Each student is required to have 4 other students respond to their writing.
Each student who responds does the following:

1. Paraphrase - this allows them to determine if the reader read what the writer was meaning to say - organization, ideas, etc.

2. Praise - students tell each other what they thought was particularly good - an importnant note here comments MUST be specific NO GENERAL COMMENTS ARE PERMITTED (it's good ... I really

liked it, etc.) Responding students look at each other's work in terms of voice, word choice, sentence fluency, organization, etc. They are NOT looking to be copy editors. If they find big glaring errors, they are only to circle them. It is the author's job to edit for conventions!

3.Probe this is where we ask things like, where are you going with this piece? what will you do next? or else, we make note of the things we feel need improvement, again students must be specific in telling what doesn't work or what could be improved.