1. Conferences: We are meeting today (Monday, 9/14) via zoom for brief conferences. Use our regular zoom meeting link to log on at your appointed time. Please email me ASAP if, for some reason, you are not going to be able to participate.
12:00 – 12:15: Emely Aguero, Shamima Tahaminah, Jose Perez
12:15 – 12:30: Gabriela Aguilar Castillo, Joel Batz, Guadalupe Perez
12:30 – 12:45: Devrani Brahimanand, Cheyenne Martinez, Cyrus Cruz
12:45 – 1:00: Brenda Cortez, Oumar Diakite, Aamina Mohammed, Joseph Hamed
1:00 – 1:15: Thierno Diallo, Asha Ighodaro, Rosalia Flores, Rasheed Hall
1:15 – 1:30: Elijah Gonzales Viera, Nevontae McDowell, Tachmia Hasham
1:30 – 1:45: Anupa Gulab, Jesus Medina, Kemara Gopeesingh
2. Peer Review:. The groups that you have been assigned for your conferences with me are also your peer review groups. This means that you will be reading the personal narrative drafts that the members of your peer review group uploaded to our Google Docs folder and providing feedback. If you have difficulty accessing your partners’ drafts, use slack to get their email addresses, so that you can figure out how to share the drafts. Your peer review will happen in three ways:
— For each paper you read, you will be completing a peer review form. Please make a copy of the document, fill it out, and (assuming this works out technologically) add it as a new page to the end of the document you are responding to.
–In addition to filling out this form, you will be adding comments directly to the drafts (make sure you are set to “comments” rather than “edit”, so that you are commenting on your classmates’ papers rather than changing them!). Use this feature when you want to point out specific places in the draft where you think there is a problem with grammar, punctuation, or word choice or where you want to address a specific detail the writer has included.
–On Wednesday, September 16th in our zoom call, you will have a chance to speak directly to the other members of the group to discuss your drafts.
3. Read Richard Staub’s “Responding — Really Responding — to Other Students’ Writing.” You can find it under the “Texts” tab at the top of our blog’s home page. Please share one takeaway from that essay in the form of a comment on this post. What is one thing that you will try to keep in mind as you respond to your classmates’ drafts?
4. Submit the final version of your Personal Narrative essay by Sunday, September 20th. You will be uploading your paper to turnitin.com. Please be sure that your essay has a title; the title should give the reader some indication of what he/she should expect from the essay.
One takeaways I got from Richard Staub’s “Responding- Really Responding-to others students’ writing”, was when it stated, “Let the writer know again and again how you are undertsanding her paper, what you take her to be saying. And elaborate on your key comments. Explain your interpretations, problems, questions and advice”.
A takeaway I got from that essay is when the author said “Consider yourself a friendly reader.” When you’re giving feedback to somebody else about their paper, you to want to give constructive criticism, to help them make their writing better, and for the writer to help build a better connection with their readers, not bash their topic or what they have to say, which will make them want change their writing topic, or will feel discouraged to write.
Something that resonated with me as I read Richard Straub’s “Responding- Really Responding- to Other Student’s Writing” was when he stated, “Point to problems and areas for improvement but do it in a constructive way.” Whenever you are giving feedback to somebody, you never want to make them feel insecure or wrong. You always want to try to help improve them in a nice, but effective way- constructive criticism.
One takeaway I got this from was that he mentioned, “Don’t be stingy” and write out the comments in full statements and let the other person know your honest opinion on their writing piece. Giving honest opinions can improve writing, and it will show growth as they are looking at the critiques and fix their mistakes. While doing this, make sure to maintain a friendly tone.
A takeaway from the essay was, “Get specific. Don’t rely on general statements alone.” This was a takeaway from the essay because it allows me as a reader to give structured feedback and not be broad with it. One thing that I will try to keep in mind as I respond to my classmates’ draft will be that this is their story and not mine to change but to add grammatical solutions to.
One thing that I will try to keep in mind as I respond to my classmates’ drafts is, “ don’t set out to seek and destroy all errors and problems in the writing. You’re not an editor. You’re not a teacher. You’re not a cruise missile”. I definitely agree because some readers tend to get caught up in the writer’s paper and place their own opinion on someone else’s paper.
One take away I got from the reading “Responding-Really Responding- to other Students Writing” is when the narrator stated “Except you don’t just take on the roll of the nice roommate pr the Ever faithful friend and tell her what she wants to hear…point to problems and areas of improvement but do it in a constructive way”. This stuck out to me the most because at times we wan to be “the good friend” and not tell the truth. Revising a draft is an important task to the success of the writer and one should be honest and push the writer to do their best.
One important takeaway I got from reading “Responding-Really Responding-to other Students Writing” is when the narrator states “You’re not the editor, You’re not a teacher. You’re not a cruise missile. And don’t rewrite any parts of the paper. You’re not the writer. You’re the reader. This part stood out to me because I feel like it is important to keep this in mind not just when you are peer reviewing but even with their won essays. Because must be able to get into a readers shoes in order to be able to truly experience that perspective and construct a useful review.
One takeaway I got from reading ” Responding-Really Responding-to other students writing” is when the author spoke on how we should give advice but “be clear” that we should not “rewrite” the essay but give suggestions. Personally I believe this is useful advice because now I know to be more clear when giving suggestions to my classmates and make sure they’re helpful instead of making it seem like their work is wrong because it is not.
A takeaway I got from reading Richard Staub’s “Responding-Really Responding-to Other Students’ Writing” is when he says “Look at your task as a simple one. You’re there to play back to the writer how you read the paper”. This stuck out for me because I sometimes tend to want to change some things but I have to remember that is not my paper and that I just have to give feedback on how to improve the paper.
One takeaway I got from reading Richard Staubs ” Responding- Really Responding- to Other Students Writing” is that our job isn’t to fix every mistake or every problem there is in an essay but to work on it. In the article he says ” Don’t set out to seek and destroy all errors and problems in the writing. You’re not an editor…” I totally agree with this statement because when we read other people essays we tend to get caught up in all the mistakes instead of actually reading and comprehending the piece.
A takeaway I got from reading the text “Responding-ReallyResponding-to Other Students Writing” by Richard Staubs is that when editing a paper you should allow yourself to get a feel of what you are dealing with, pay attention t all the aspects of the essay to fully understand what you are working with. When suggesting changes to an essay remember that ““You’re not the editor, You’re not a teacher. You’re not a cruise missile. And don’t rewrite any parts of the paper. You’re not the writer. You’re the reader.” (Staubs). All of the corrections and criticism you make in an essay does not have to be implemented by the writer, however, you are just there to leave helpful suggestions.
A main takeaway I got from reading “Responding — Really Responding — to Other Students’ Writing.” by Richard Staub is “Ideally, you’ll read the paper with an eye to the circumstances that is written in and the situation it is looking to create.” (Staub, Page 138) The type of personal narrative essays I am being shown to edit are based off of personal experiences in regards to politics that shaped the writer to who he or she is today. As a editor you want to put yourself in your writers shoes to understand the situation and circumstances behind what the writer is trying to touch upon. By understanding what the writer is writing about as an editor it will make your feedback more genuine and straightforward.
A takeaway received from Richard Straubs “Responding-really responding- To Other Students” was that as a reader, we must not write comments to make the reader change their essay. Instead, “Encourage to.. improve the writing or encourage her to work on some things as a writer”. This could be accomplished by asking questions on the reading, leaving small notes throughout the text, and overall constructive criticism. I will keep in mind that this is not my essay, so I must look at their writing from their perspective. Most importantly not tell them what to change, but guide them through clarity in the writing from a reader’s perspective.