Blog Post #3

Peer editing is tricky business. You have to be respectful of their work and stay positive, but still offer meaningful criticism. Starting out with a compliment will put your peer in a happy state of mind. They will feel good about what they have written, which is a good thing! This sort of paves the way for what follows, the suggestion. You have to use positive language to offer advice on things they ought to change. Telling them, "This sentence would sound better when worded differently," is much nicer than, "Your sentence doesn't make any sense. Fix it." Finally comes the hard part, the corrections. You are telling them that they have made a mistake. Naturally, you should approach this nicely, and to my mind, privately. I don't want the whole world to know that I made a mistake!

This is why, as far as I'm concerned, the corrections should be done privately. When a student is called out in class for making a mistake, they generally aren't happy about it. Why is peer editing any different? As a teacher, I am not going to announce mistakes to the class. It embarrasses the student! I know that I am embarrassed when it happens to me! Why should my students, or my peers, suffer that same embarrassment? If the issue can be handled privately, than it should be.