Similarly to annotating, peer review never really was something that was taught in my high school. Yes we did “peer review”, but all it consisted of was two people swapping essays, reading it, pointing out that there should be a comma somewhere, and giving it back saying “good job I really liked it”. Even in my senior year, it seemed like we all were too nervous to give actual feedback and criticism to another person. This was weird to me, especially because we had known each other for so long, and read so many of their essays before, so why could we not give actual feedback? Since I came from a school like this, when I heard the words “peer review next class” I kind of freaked out. When we got started with it, the nerves went away, since I was able to leave comments that would actually be beneficial to my classmates. I was also very excited to see what kind of feedback I would receive as well to make my essay better. Looking at the comments left for me, I was able to really improve my essays, and make them stronger. On the second essay, I got some really good feedback that took my essay to another level and really strengthened it.
Both of these comments really helped me to strengthen my arguments because they were related to a specific paragraph in my essay that was weaker. After I was able to use these comments to revise, I noticed just how much better my essay became, and how it was so much more clear. Not only did it become more clear, but it became more persuasive towards my argument and really made it seem like I was an expert on joy.
I think that this was my strongest end comment because I was able to find things that needed some extra explanation and I also felt that her draft was extremely strong, so I was excited to give her extra feedback to make her essay go from great to fantastic.
