Peer Review: Behind the Scenes

This past Monday, we peer reviewed each other's first essay of the semester. We all got into groups of about three and were handed copies of all the papers of that group. In my particular group, I had two great students and I fully enjoyed going over their papers. I got so much out of it. In reading them, I could not help but compare theirs to my own. It was like a reflex. I realized that they both had elements that my paper lacked and also elements that I had while theirs did not. After reading them, I had some spare time before class ended so I reread mine and noticed so many improvements that I could make on my final draft immediately. After all three of us finished reading and marking the papers, we had a short discussion. We all stated some weaknesses as well as some strengths and the comments were all constructive. The only thing I would change about my peer review session was the amount of time allotted to do all of it and also the questions asked on the handout. It felt like a little more would have been accomplished if we had more time and the handout's questions did not really help. If anything, they made me more confused. Overall, it was a great and valuable experience.