One way to approach a writing-intensive course online is to focus on the writing process, as opposed to the finished products, by assigning multiple drafts and peer editing exercises for each paper. . You can do this by assigning students to editing groups from the beginning of the course and grading the process of writing along the way. This may mean that students write and submit fewer papers in a semester; however, students may produce high quality papers using this process and engage deeply in the process of creating and editing academic writing.
This approach can have benefits for students as well as the professors. As students submit drafts and peer edits along the way, professors can trace the development of each piece, and students can coach each other and themselves toward achievement of the course goals. In terms of grading, students can earn points for writing their drafts and for editing their peers’ drafts; having some smaller grades figured in can help to offset the larger grades for the final drafts. Students also may earn better grades on their final drafts after working through the peer editing process than they might have earned otherwise. Some benefits for the professors may include increased student engagement and authentic practice, perhaps easier papers to read, and perhaps increased academic integrity. In my course, students who did not have drafts ready on time did not receive a peer edit response; they quickly realized that the peer edit feedback was far too important to miss, therefore, drafts tended to be ready on time. This reinforced such skills as punctuality, team effort, and time management.
To use this process, faculty may find it useful to provide a list of peer editing questions for students to use. Given the objectives of the course, the assignment, and the number of the draft, professors can assign different questions from the list to be answered in response to different pieces of writing during the semester. It may be helpful for students to use the highlighting and commenting functions on their PCs as they work through the assigned questions. Regardless of the questions assigned, the peer editors should read the paper prior to responding. Having more than two people in each editing group can help to ensure that each draft gets a fresh pair of eyes on it each time and therefore, gets fresh insight.
Following is a list that I used when I taught a writing-intensive course. Feel free to change this list to suit your course or as a springboard for your own, brand-new questions. To create this list, I first brainstormed a list of common mistakes that students had made in the course in the past, and then I wrote questions designed to ferret out those mistakes and provide guidance. Next, I wrote a list of things students had done well in previous classes and rewrote those into guiding questions. I repeated this process to tweak the list each semester. To grade, I spot-checked a few drafts and peer edits at random each time, offered some feedback as necessary, gave everyone participation points, and returned the drafts and peer edits right away, so that students could begin working on their next drafts. This created greater agency in the students because they knew that they would only receive my feedback twice per paper - once on a draft and once on the final paper.
PEER RESPONSE
After reading your peer’s essay, respond to the assigned questions as thoroughly as possible to provide meaningful feedback to the writer. Use your own paper. Be sure to sign your response.