I think this lesson went extremely well in my ENGL390 class. As a former student of this class, and now a 2 time UTA, I realized early on that conducting Peer Reviews is a critical element in professional writing. Regardless of the field of study, we are always working with our peers and exchanging comments/feedback. Being able to do so constructively is a huge asset to students. Unfortunately, although many students have been participating in peer review for a long time, they focus on copy editing type reviewing rather than helping the original writer really develop their work to a higher level of writing. We teach students various strategies for crafting arguments, structuring sentences to enhance reader understanding, and for appealing to an audience. Peer Review is an opportune time for them to point these strategies out for other students. In the online environment, it's easy for students to fall into the trap of quickly providing feedback on grammar and punctuation, rather than taking a step back and addressing the actual writing. I think making it clear for students, and providing an online tutorial through Canvas is a perfect outlet to lay out the expectations up front. Our class really appreciated this tutorial, as the Canvas transcripts are sometimes confusing. Additionally, putting it in the context of a paper they had just written and are to peer review, helped them understand the type of commentary we're asking them to make. I made sure to send out several emails letting them know that this tutorial was available to them, and throughout the semester I referred them to this tutorial if they lost points on peer review. It's great as both an orienting and refresher resource. For anyone adapting this tutorial, I would suggest emphasizing strategies that that particular class focuses on. Perhaps it's not Toulmin, or identifying an audience, or Reader Expectation Theory. Whatever it is, spelling it out for students in the beginning makes it much more straight forward, and allows everyone to be on the same page regarding expectations. All in all, I was glad to have made this as a resource for my students, and I think this tutorial and others like it are an integral part of helping students succeed in online writing classes.
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