During peer review this week, I think I learned a lot about myself and my writing. I think that my personal problem with peer review stems from my lack of confidence in my writing. Our peer review leader hit the nail on the head when she said that people often shy away from commenting on other people's writing because they feel their writing is not of equal skills as the rest. I often feel that my righting is average and I fear the comments people will make towards the way I right. Along with that fear comes my excuse making. I always make a bunch of excuses before the peer review even begins in an attempt to make it appear that I didn't really try that hard in my writing. I need to work on my reception to constructive criticism.
I also realized that I need to keep this in mind as I become a teacher. There are going to be students that feel the same way as I do about peer review. It will be fairly easy to come up with ways to improve and proof read their papers because I have been in that situation myself. But I also need to make sure that I include peer reviews on some level because they do help many students. It's important that everyone has the same opportunities to learn. Some will develop their writing better through one on one reviews of their writing; others will benefit more from peer reviews.
So I guess I will continue to struggle with peer review until I am comfortable with it. Because let's face it, it is important to include peer review in teaching.
1 comment:
I want to have a more positive take on peer review but honestly last week's peer review session did little to change my mind about the process. I do believe that one-on-one conferencing can be effective for students and I can buy that reviewing your writing with peers can help you to see how others write but I just REALLY don't believe that it teaches you enough about your own writing and writing process to make up for the amount of time it takes to carryout the peer review process.
I think the process is excruciating, personally, and I can't imagine how it must feel for people who are less confident writers than I. I do feel confident in my writing and yet I still feel great trepidation at the prospect of telling a peer where I think their writing may be lacking. I can see why only positive or cursory comments are a problem in this process.
I still think giving students examples of good writing and meeting with them individually would be more productive for the student.
As for the metacognitive element of peer review, I think students could get just as much if not more benefit out of the blind essay review process that we have been conducting in this class over the last two weeks than the peer review process.
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