Welcome back! I hope you all had a restful vacation.
Glad to see you are still here and following our class blog. I enjoyed
learning about all of you from our introductory passages and the 6 word memoirs are very telling!
One of the biggest
concerns I've heard from students over the years is about peer editing.
What is peer editing? Why is it so important? Why do teachers make you do
it?
It is simple. Practice makes better. No one is perfect. No piece of writing
is ever really finished. One of the skills I want us to practice this semester
is the art of peer editing. Having the ability to objectively judge another's
piece of writing is definitely a skill. Being able to take criticism on our own
writing is sometimes tough. But in the end...we all want to be the best we can.
So for this week's blog, I'd like you to tell me one positive experience and
one negative experience you've had with peer editing. Then, go back and read
your peers comments. Make an additional comment on at least one.
See you in class!
Ms. Z.
One time we were editing essays in class and this one kid wrote a seven page essay that I was supposed to edit. I tried to go through, read the whole thing, be thoughtful, etc., but we only had about ten minutes and I didn't even get halfway through. Meanwhile, I get MY essay back from this same kid, and it's basically just a bunch of checkmarks with "good job!" written at the end. I just spent ten minutes trying to be thoughtful and putting in effort, and I felt really bad about not finishing their SEVEN PAGE ESSAY, and this kid spent all of twenty seconds going through mine. I know my essay is garbage, don't tell me I did a "good job" because we both know that's bull, and maybe put in some effort. Maybe they thought my essay wasn't worth their time, but at least I didn't make them read seven whole pages.
ReplyDeleteI did get a lot of good advice from the other kids in my peer editing group though, so I did end up doing well on the essay.
Sorry that you had to go through that, that must have been incredibly annoying. Hopefully you can have some better experiences this year!
DeleteYikes, seven pages?? I hope they ended up cutting it down some!
DeleteHonestly no peer editing has ever been eventful enough to leave a lasting memory on me. The only peer editing that I have found truly helpful was when my friends helped me edit my college essays and supplements. This was very useful as they knew my writing style, what I was trying to say, and me personally. Therefore, they could make comments that were useful while not overpowering my voice. I don't know if I have had a peer editing experience that is 'bad', they don't normally surpass the "underwhelming" stage to even earn a title as expressive as bad. I feel like sometimes I get edits just for the sake of edits which is annoying. People just want to make it look like they wrote something while not thinking through if the edit is actually necessary or helpful. To be quiet honest I don't hate peer editing, in fact, I've never passed in an essay that hasn't been read over by someone else, I just don't think it is useful when mandated.
ReplyDeleteI agree; it's useful when people are trying to help you, like friends who are editing college essays, but the it's required people just want to get it over with and don't bother doing anything helpful.
DeleteThat's good that your friends were able to help you improve your writing without overpowering your voice and meaning of the paper.
DeleteI haven't had to many experiences with peer editing throughout high school, believe it or not ! Teachers in the past have just assigned essays weeks in advance, only to have the students forget about it, then the due date comes up abruptly with no one to peer edit your essay! Obviously not a very useful technique, so I am happy about the peer editing being done in this class. Also, picking your own groups is very helpful because it's easier to give feedback to friends. My good experience had to be in this class acouple of days ago! We had plenty of time to thoroughly go through the essays and were able to talk them out! A bad experience had to have been when we get randomly paired up with someone, and have 10 minutes to read and edit through the entire four page essay with a check off sheet.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that it's easier to be put with your friends rather than people you are not comfortable criticizing. That can be awkward
DeleteI agree, it was nice to actually get to have people that I am comfortable with edit my work because it just makes the whole experience so much less stressful. I also agree that it was good to finally be able to spend real time on someones paper and have them spend time on mine rather than trying to rush through the whole process and just get it over with.
DeleteWhenever I get grouped with some of my close friends, I know that they will give honest, constructive feedback because we both know I will not take it to heart. My friends want me to get a good grade as much as I do, so we will always try our best to come up with feedback, because we don't have to worry about offending the other. People I am not as close with, however, might approach the situation differently. They might either act indifferent, and refuse to actively participate, or they'll simply tell me "Nice." Buddy, this is English with Philbin, and you're giving me no help, I probably was going to get a C on the paper anyways, but it would be nice to get some help to possibly turn it into a C+.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, it's the worst when you get a one worded response on something that took you days to write. It's much better and more helpful, at least for me, being with people who know you better.
DeleteI usually have different experiences as my friends tend to assume I can edit my own papers and don't usually take the time to look at my work. Maybe I should join your friend group...
DeleteGood peer editing sessions are very rare as you have to be lucky enough to get the better writers in your class to help read through your paper. Luckily I have a close friend who helps me edit my papers before I turn them in. She is in the Algonquin writing center so she is constantly editing papers. Most of the time you get an average writer that turns into a negative peer edit since they usually have nothing Helpful to add or contribute to your paper. However since ty know they have to add something they just put in useless comments that don't help make your paper better.
ReplyDeleteI agree that most of the time is it the luck of the draw of who is assigned to edit your papers, but that is so great that you have that one consistent person that will take the time and help you edit your papers.
DeleteThe only positive experience I have had was with peer editing was my college essay. I got my friends, family, and my English teacher to look at it. Of course it was stressful, but for something to do with college, it was a very moderate level of stress. People were insightful and helped me fix the parts of it that may have put off an admissions officer.
ReplyDeleteThe worst in peer editing is when people don't actually find any mistakes. It's never because you didn't make any, I myself always make plenty, it's just because you don't care enough to look for them. This seems to be the general consensus from our discussion in class, and for good reason. This happens frequently enough that it doesn't seem worth it most of the time. I would usually much prefer to have a friend look at my paper than another single check mark and "Good work".
I agree. I often will focus more on getting the main information and ideas done when working on my first draft, as opposed to making sure every comma and capitalized I is where it is supposed to be. No amount of times my friend writes a smiley face on my paper will improve it.
DeleteI have rarely had good peer editing experiences but I do know that it helps to have good writers in the class that have input on both grammar and spelling and also on the issue that you are trying to get across. There's been many times when I have recieved my paper back with little to no corrections, just spelling and punctuation, and also times when someone has changed my writing completely. There needs to be a balance in between the two. It can be awkward to be harsh and honest but sometimes we really need the criticism.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I haven't had many peer editing experiences that have had a very lasting impact on me, I find that my best editing experiences happen when I am grouped with my friends or people who know me well. I find that they are the ones who give me the most honest feedback and feel comfortable sharing their edits with me. When I'm with classmates who I'm not as close with, they tend to be hesitant to leave comments on my paper, in fear that they'll offend me or say something wrong. It's also much easier to share more personal pieces with people who may already know the story, or someone who I know will be empathetic. My worst peer editing experiences happen when people finish editing your paper in 5 minutes and then just sit on their phone or do homework for the rest of the time. It's annoying to think that someone wouldn't take the same amount of effort that you did to give them helpful feedback, and they're using the time for a study.
ReplyDeleteI havent had many good peer editing experiences because a lot of the time the teacher will pair you up with someone random and they will either not care enough to actually give constructive and helpful edits or are too afraid to hurt your feelings to actually tell the truth. I remember in particular, I had a teacher that had us pass our papers around the whole class so everyone did edits. There were over 20 kids that editted my paper, and I STILL got barely any helpful feedback. The only good peer editting experiences that I have had are when I am paired with people that I am comfortable with. This is because I know they are open to really helping me edit and make whatever assignment I am doing better, and they know they won't make me feel bad for making any changes or suggestions. I am also a lot more comfortable sharing my writing with people that I know rather than just some random kid that I have talked to like one time, so I am more open to actually writing about what I want to write. My best experience was probably either when my friends helped me edit my college essay or the peer editting that we did on the memoirs in class a few days ago because we got to choose our group and had time to really take a look at everyones work.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of having 20 kids pass around an essay and edit it is interesting. If everyone writes on the SAME COPY of an essay and is required to write something, then people would eventually run out of "surface errors" to correct without repeating each other, and in theory they would start giving more substantial advice. (In reality it wouldn't work because with a group that big, no one would have nearly enough time to read the essay AND make decent comments. I would assume this is what happened when your class did it.) But this could be applied to our smaller peer edit groups, if we could come up with a way that everyone in the group can see each other's comments as they edit and Ms. Zuba can still distinguish who wrote what for grading. Some sort of color coding system? Or maybe share a Google doc of each essay with our groups and Ms. Zuba, and have the group members leave comments on that?
DeleteI've never actually had a positive peer editing experience, except for last week where we were able to spend a great amount of time working on it. In the past, the majority of peer editing that I've experienced was people writing down two small corrections without giving me any actual advice on my paper. It definitely is easier peer editing with friends rather than people you aren't completely comfortable with or with people who just don't care about your writing. That said, even with friends I still find it hard to peer edit, because theres times where I have no idea what to correct. No one has ever taught me how to peer edit and I feel like I need someone to peer edit my peer edits.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that both my best and worse peer editing experiences have come when I have peer edited with my friends. The best experience I have had is working with a friend who has done well in English classes his whole life. He really went in-depth with my paper, pointing out areas that I could change to make it flow better, or where to use stronger vocab as a way to make the piece more interesting. Now, the worse experience I had was with a different friend. We were partners because he didn't have anyone else to go with. Yet, when it came to peer editing, he only said parts that he liked, and perhaps added a comma or two. As compelling as it is to work with friends, it is important to know where or not they are the type of person who has your interests in mind when peer editing.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to say the only good peer editing moments I've had were also technically bad ones. Most of the time, I'd goof off with the people in my group. It was fun, but we never got a lot of work done. Sure, I've had some fun peer editing experiences, but I don't think I've had one that's constructive in a while. After my first peer edit in this class, I can tell that it's going to be a lot different, and now my editing experiences will be a lot more helpful!
ReplyDeleteThere have been many experiences that I have had with peer editing, but most of them have been negative. Teachers typically don't give us enough class time in order to finish all of the steps that peer editing requires. Everything is always so rushed and in the end, I usually get little to no marks on my paper, except maybe at the end a line that says "Good Job!" even though I know there are multiple edits that need to be made. On the flip side, there was one time where my peer editing experience was extremely beneficial. My partner not only corrected all the typical grammar mistakes, but they also fully analyzed my story and had suggestions on areas on where I should include more or less details and really took the time to give me edits to make my paper the best that it could possibly be.
ReplyDeleteGenerally whenever I get paired with my friends for peer editing, they tend to slack off and usually won't take the experience seriously. Usually they'll take the time to talk about what happened the other day on the news or at a party instead of using time effectively and actually editing my paper. The opposite usually happens when I'm put with a different group of people. These people don't usually want to be seen as slackers and will usually put in the effort to avoid that reputation.
ReplyDeleteHayes, I can relate immensely with your post. Editing with friends is usually a mistake because of the lack of work you produce as an outcome. There must be a solution!
DeleteThe best pear editing experience I've ever had was in Mrs. Philbin's classroom. She picked the partners for us and my partner wasn't one of my friends. I was able to get some really good and honest feedback from them which was very valuable to achieving a good grade in that class. On the flip side, my worst peer editing experience comes when I sit with my friends and let them peer edit my paper. I fine that very little work actually gets done and it results in a negative grade on my paper.
ReplyDeletethis is by jack shaw btw
DeleteFor peer editing to be effective, people have to suggest edits that that the writer wouldn't think to make themselves. By that standard, I haven't really had any good peer editing experiences. Peer-editors tend to correct grammar first. But by this point in high school, people are able to identify grammar mistakes well enough that when they make them in their own writing, it's usually due to a lack of proofreading. People often also make small suggestions, such as adding more analysis or description in certain places, but they quickly run out of things to say, after only suggesting things the writer was likely already planning to do anyways. Others have said people stop at this point because they don't care or because they don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. However, I would argue that a more common problem with peer editing is when people know an essay can be improved but don't know how. They avoid suggesting major changes because they don't know what they would change, or whether that change would actually make the essay or story better or worse.
ReplyDeleteI agree, often times with limited amounts of time peers just correct grammar first and then don't end up getting to the essay as a whole and a lot of times people might not know how to improve so they just write a meaningless note instead of discussing ideas.
DeleteMost of the time peer editing experiences are not the best. I don't have a specific bad experience with it, but time and time again peers have not given significant feedback, the teacher did not given any sort of incentive, or there was not nearly enough time. This typically ends with a paper that has minimal grammatical corrections and just and end noteven saying something like "Good essay". Good experiences in peer editing are far and few between. Of the few that I have had, the peer editing on the memoir in this class has been the best, as we were given a reasonable about of time and peers gave constructive input.
ReplyDeleteMost of my peer editing experiences end with little feedback and a lot of held in feeling about a paper because you do not want to come off as rude or annoying. One positive experience I have had with peer editing is when you are with a person you are not too close to so you are brutally honest with them. A negative experience would be with too close of friends where you slack off, talk about other things, and don't bring up any edits besides grammar because it would be too touchy of a subject. I also think if you peer edit someones paper and they don't know who did it is a smart idea because you can be as brutally honest as you want by being anonymous.
ReplyDeleteDylan, I agree with your comment on how anonymous peer editing would work better.
DeleteMany of the peer review sessions I've been a part haven't been the most successful forms of editing. It is difficult to tell someone you disagree or dislike a piece of something they wrote, even if they insist it won't offend them. I do not have a specific negative experience with peer editing but I feel like it often leads to an uncomfortable situation. One positive experience I've had could be when I read through someones paper that is near perfect leaving me with not much to correct.
ReplyDeleteBack in 8th grade we peer reviewed poems, and other kids would only ever comment about certain words being a stretch as far as rhyming or just say it was good, and it was completely unproductive as no one commented about the content of the poems. When I was writing a college essay that was a 4 page long story, I sat down with an English teacher and we went through all the grammar and spelling first, and then went back to talk about the narrative and if certain details were necessary or needed to be elaborated on. The focus on the content made the process far more productive and led to a much better essay.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I have found my self dreading the class periods planned for peer editing. Many of my teachers had me peer edit with students I didn't know, I felt uncomfortable editing there work because I didn't want to come across to harsh, but I also wanted them to know that I put effort into editing their work. I also was never really given any guidelines. Teachers would say alright start editing and I would be over whelmed on where to start. I am looking forward to this class and learning real strategies for effective peer editing.
ReplyDeleteGreat comments, I hope that our peer editing sills grow over the course of the semester!
ReplyDeleteI don't really enjoy peer editing a lot because I really don't like sharing my work with others due to fear of judgement. I don't like not having any guidelines or anything to work off of when doing it but i love reading and learning about my peers. Im excited to learn how to really become good an peer editing this year!
ReplyDeletePeer editing has never been something that I have had a noted good or bad experience with. Usually you pick a partner so Im always with my friends, so we don't do much editing. I don't think that people want to hurt your feelings so they leave little feedback, thus not helping your paper at all. There was never really guidelines as to what was supposed to be coming out of peer editing so a lot of the time I just went in blind and did the standard grammar and spelling checks and maybe marked some things I needed clarification on.
ReplyDeletePeer editing is really important as it is a different perspective on your writing and others can pick up on the mistakes you may not have noticed. Outside influences can be helpful as they can give you more ideas of what to add and incorporate into your piece or what isn't needed in the piece. I had a really good experience peer editing with someone in my class last year and they really helped make my writing more fluid and strong. I did get a good grade on that essay and was very appreciative of the feedback that they gave me. My sophomore year I peer edited a very big essay with someone in my class that we were randomly assigned to. I could tell the person just didn't care and they barely gave me any feed back so i basically had to do it all on my own. This was really frustrating and not helpful at all.
ReplyDeleteAll out of high school I haven't had much experience with peer editing. The teachers just assign the essay and want it to be turned it the day it's due. I rememeber one time though, this kids essay was so long and worded really oddly and when i asked her about it she got offended. I like when people peer edit my essays because it helps me make all the changes i couldn't see.
ReplyDeleteOne positive experience I've had with peer editing was back freshman year. I had written a fairly abysmal essay, and luckily the teacher allowed us to peer edit them before we turned them in. My friends in that class helped me revise my paper and in the end it turned out to get a pretty good grade.
ReplyDeleteAn unfortunate experience I have had with peer editing was sophomore year. I put my soul into a paper, and we had to peer edit before we turned them in. My partner didn't read mine over and said it would easily get an A. Well, I turned it in... got a C... and it was because of simple mistakes that another individual could easily have found if they tried to look.
One time, I had the best peer edit partner. It was junior year English and she gave such great advice that I turned my mediocre paper into an A worthy paper. Instead of just marking up my spelling mistakes she helped me to strengthen the "so what" of my paper. The worst peer editing experience I had was when someone corrected a couple grammar mistakes and wrote "great paper". They were not very helpful.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday my team had practice and I really tried to take in everything that was happening. While everyone was arriving we were all bundled up to hide from the cold. People showed up stressed about school and all the homework they hadn't gotten the chance to do before having to leave for practice. The kids from out of state were growing at late they were going to get back. While we were warming up everyone was talking and laughing, layers of clothing began to come off as we grew more warm. As the practice went on I really noticed how happy everyone was. People were always smiling and working as hard as they could the whole practice. Their complaints before practice seemed to disappear as they played. But the time practice ended people weren't in a rush to get home. Instead, they were staying after to keep shooting and playing with eachother. I hadn't really noticed but even with all of our complaining we do love the sport and can take and hour and a half to just leave the rest of the world alone and have fun.
ReplyDelete