Electronic Pre-Writing and Peer Review

Jason Leubner
RHE 309K
Fall 20083

Prior to having them turn in their first essays, I had them use the classroom computers to begin brainstorming ideas as I walked around the room asking each student questions about what s/he was going to write about and what s/he though the main claims of the essay were going to be. I then had them email their ideas to me so that I could comment on them in response and make sure they were on the right track. In addition to this pre-writing exercise, I had them do their in-class peer reviews via email with a cc to me so that I could look them over and copy/paste their peers' best comments into my own comments on their essays.

There tends to be some skepticism among students about how helpful peer reviews will be for producing a better essay. However, doing them on the computers meant that students wrote quite a bit more than they usually do when handwriting the reviews. As a result, their comments were generally more thorough--most students wrote a full two paragraphs in addition to the more local comments they had made on the hard-copy drafts of the essay. This in turn helped me to focus some of my own comments on what the peer reviews were already saying and then expand upon them.

Overall, students found both of the activities quite helpful in writing and then rewriting their essays and a nice break from the usual discussion of readings that we typically do.