My Children’s Lit professor in college assigned a “book report.” Teachers had inflicted book reports since early grades, but no one ever taught how to write one; we were apparently expected to innately know what they should contain. As a college senior, I discovered I still had no idea.
In teaching both creative and academic writing, I found I was guilty of the same omission when requiring peer critique. Peer critique seemed self-evident: consider skills and techniques we’ve talked about, and explain what peers had done well and what they hadn’t. Some students figured this out, just as some had apparently figured out book reports. But student critiques made it clear that others hadn’t. After seeing a good deal of skimpy and unhelpful critique, I started teaching critique instead of just assigning it. Here are five approaches that helped.
Model
Critique a passage together. I ask students for input, but on early passes, I expect to provide much of the feedback. (I get student permission to use their work; students usually agree because it helps them with their next revision.) Think aloud about both what’s great and what could be stronger. Start with big ideas: what’s not moving the story forward, what isn’t rooted in character desire, what doesn’t make sense. Later, move to style: better word choices, etc.
Focused Responses
Rather than asking students to critique everything, give ONE specific problem at a time to comment on. Students find far more when focusing on one issue rather than everything. (Sometimes I use a speed dating approach; see Improving Peer Critique through Focused Speed Dating.)
- Find verb/adverb combinations where stronger verbs would improve:
“the rain fell lightly”“it drizzled”
“he said softly”“he whispered” - Find vague words and suggest more specific details:
“a tree”“a bent black birch”
“a man in dirty clothes”“a grey-haired fellow whose jeans
looked like he’d wrestled hogs” - For each named feeling, suggest detail(s) that would show it:
“he was angry”“he threw the stapler across the room” - Identify three details we could revise to evoke more emotion:
“a brown car”“a car the color of mud” - Suggest five additional sense details that aren’t rooted in sight…
This same approach works with academic writing:
- Highlight the topic sentence, then cross out everything in the paragraph that doesn’t fit that ONE idea.
- …
Give All Students the Same Passage to Critique; Then Compare/Contrast the Critiques They Give
Sometimes I corrupt a good passage, creating the kinds of problems I want students to notice.
Students can critique individually or in pairs; doing this before class discussion generates much more interaction. Seeing what others notice shows weaker critiquers what they could have found.
Quantify Expectations
Give quantified targets; this encourages students to offer more feedback.
- Circle at least 10 verbs: in the margin write a more vivid verb.
- Highlight the three descriptions in the passage you liked the best. Also mark the three that least moved you.
- Underline 3 places where the author tells us about what happened, where dialogue and action could show more vividly.
Critique the Critique
Collect and give feedback on the critique students gave. “You made great comments on word choice, but you didn’t comment on how little nonverbal support the dialogue had.”
Don’t expect perfection, but look for good attempts at interacting with the writing. Share the best critiques with the rest of the class to again model what good critique looks like.
Together, these approaches teach how to give more effective feedback.
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E. K. Taylor is the author of Using Folktales (Cambridge University Press, 2000), and editor of William Penn’s Some Fruits of Solitude (Herald Press, 2003). He currently teaches academic writing at Peking University, but he much prefers various forms of creative writing. He holds an MFA in writing from VCFA. Work has appeared in River Teeth, English Journal, Plough Quarterly, Caterpillar, and elsewhere.