Blog Post Three

Peer Editing? Now that is something that will get any student a little anxious! Of course my stomach turned up-side down when I found out we would be "Peer Editing", but that is because I didn't completely understand the right way to correct my peers. Often, when students are faced with this, they tend to forget some very important aspects of "Peer Editing." Just like the video, Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes states, you don't want to be a Mean Margret or a Defensive Dave. And most of the time, whether we realize it or not, the personalities of these two characters is what we portray.

The most important thing students forget, when being a Mean Margret, is compliments. If a student approaches another student and has nothing but negative things to say, the student being approached is going to take it as if this student is being mean. Whether the student was intending to be mean or not, his/her fellow peer sees it that way. If the student would have started with a compliment, telling the fellow peer something good about what they did, the Mean Margret personality could have been avoided.

Another way of avoiding the Mean Margret situation would be to ALWAYS STAY POSITIVE! No matter what situation you are faced with in peer editing, always keep a positive attitude. If you are the student giving the correction or the student taking the correcctions, STAY POSITIVE!



Being a Defensive Dave is something everyone can relate to. I mean who likes to be told they are wrong? But what if we didn't look at it this way, as being told you were wrong? When most students are being corrected by another student or peer, they seems to take everything personal. Instead of getting defensive, like Dave does in the video, what if we tried to be more opened minded about being corrected. Like Dr. Strange always says "There is no one in this world that knows everything." Which is true, so maybe what the student/peer is trying to say helps out a lot? If students were more opened to listening to other students, there would be a lot more learning going on.

It takes a lot of practice, just like with anything, to get the hang of editing your peers the correct way. If students knew the correct way, I don't believe "Peer Editing" would have such a negative connotation. I know that I feel much more comfortable and a little less nervous about it now!