Develop and engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.
A key part of writing is being able to give and take constructive criticism. Throughout the semester, the class performed multiple different forms of collaborative reviews. For example, in some classes, we did a fishbowl discussion. So, before the class, we would read someone’s paper and come into class with any thoughts, comments, questions, or concerns. We would discuss as a class what the individual did well and what could use work. And since it was a large group of people, there were many different insights the individual could take into consideration.
Another type was doing peer reviews which were done in three ways. The first was before any of the writing would be done. Before writing, we would post our topic on BlackBoard and my peers would comment on any of their ideas. It really helped when they would suggest talking about a certain subject because it would help me know what the general public thinks of the topic and what they want to learn about. The second way we peer-reviewed was by reading an individual’s paper and adding comments which helped to point out specific parts that needed help. The third way was through a peer review worksheet that we completed after reading their paper. The worksheet was more general and it acted like a checklist, making sure the writer had all the components they needed depending on the genre they were writing in. Doing the peer review really helped because my peers were able to see things I initially didn’t catch. Being able to do multiple methods of peer reviewing was very helpful when writing any paper because each method identified different ways the paper could be improved.
