My students this summer have been charged with writing a final paper that argues for their own definition of “religion” based solely on the Asian traditions we cover in class. (I will discuss this assignment more fully in a later post.) In addition, I required them to craft a rough draft that was due during our mid-term exam. Technically, this was a slightly different shorter assignment that built towards their final product.

I assigned this shorter assignment with three specific goals in mind. One was to motivate them to think about their project early. The second was to force them, through peer review, to see how their fellow students tackled them same problem and hopefully to inspire their own approach. The last goal was to allow students the opportunity to practice the (slowly acquired) skill of good critique. While this last objective really has little to do with the content of my course, I feel it is incumbent on me to teach writing even when I am not formally teaching writing. (Yes, I have been indoctrinated, happily.)

Prep work: Each student had to bring in two printed copies of their paper. I crafted a reader review rubric that each student had to fill out. I divided it into three sections: 1) basic requirements, 2) organization & structure, 3) overall.

Reader Review Rubric [Summer 2017]

Set-up: The students took the midterm the same day we did reader review, so there was limited time. I wrote basic instructions on the top of the sheet and read them aloud. I regularly remind my students that there are real human beings reading these comments, so be nice; the tone can also be colloquial. I also tell them to cite praise as well as criticism as long as its constructive (meaning I want them to consistently tell the author why they made the specific comment).

In this case, I had the students pass their papers to a random person, and then again to a random person until they “lost” their paper. In hindsight I should of had them trade with a partner so they could talk about their papers with each other, but I knew time was going to be tight as it was and didn’t know if time would allow for it.

Practice: We had about 20 minutes total to do this exercise, which was a bit rushed. After a few minutes for instructions, less than 15 minutes were left to do a read through and write comments. I encouraged marginal comments, but also directed students to read the rubric and fill it out as much as they could. With about 2-3 minutes left in class I had the students hand back the papers to the authors so they could look over their comments and ask any final questions.

Outcome: As I mentioned, I wish I had made time to allow the students to talk to one another about their papers after the review session. Some shouted back a few comments to one another as we ended class. The class seemed engaged and invested. My curiosity overcame me and I asked each student to hand in their rubric with their “clean” paper. I wanted to see the type of comments given and gauge how constructive or helpful this exercise might have been. Overall, the rubric appeared to help focus comments on higher-order issues, like argumentation and organization, not just spelling. At least one conversation with a student revealed to me that exposure to another student’s take was key to her understanding the assignment.