effective peer review assessments in a writing mooc (173165117)

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The WEx Training Guide

Scott Lloyd DeWitt, Michelle Cohen,Kaitlin Clinnin, Susan H. Delagrange,

Kay Halasek, Ben McCorkle,Jennifer Michaels, & Cynthia Selfe

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The Ohio State University2013

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/



Also at the heart o WEx is training and practice. Providing constructive and useul eedback to yourclassmates’ writing is not easy, and we want to take the time to help you learn the best way to participatein WEx. Tat is why we have written the WEx raining Guide. It’s extremely important that you read this

guide completely beore you begin participating in WEx. In this guide, you will nd a practice modulethat you need to complete where you will be taught how to respond to a sample paper. Ten you willcompare your eedback to a strong, successul review o the same paper. Tis training will prepare younot only or the assignment you’re working on, but also or your experience with WEx throughout theentire course. As the class progresses, we will ask you to provide dierent kinds o eedback to your class-mates. Te assignments will become more challenging, and how we ask you to respond to those assign-ments will become more complex.

Reviewing your classmates’ writing in WEx is just as important as the actual writing assignments you’regoing to be completing. Not only do we believe you’ll develop strong skills in reviewing texts by the endo this class, but we are also certain that when you have multiple opportunities to review your classmates’writing, you will become a better writer.

Remember, it’s an exchange. Te Writers Exchange.

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Chapter 1: How WEx Works

So here’s a snapshot o how WEx works. You will be given a prompt or each writing assignment. By the deadline, you will submit your assignment to WEx, where it will be distributed to a predeterminednumber o other students in the class. At the same time, you will receive writing rom your classmatesto review. You will ollow instructions or reviewing your classmates’ writing, and you will submit youreedback to WEx. Tis eedback will then be returned to the writer, and you will receive eedback onyour own writing. Once the review o an assignment is nished, we will provide you with some in-structions on how to understand the eedback you received and how you might best use that eedback to revise your writing.

Four key elements are at the oundation o training or WEx:

1. Understanding the assignment.

2. Understanding the assessment rubric.

3. Understanding the relationship between numerical scores and written

eedback.

4. Understanding “Describe~Assess~Suggest.”

For each assignment you review in WEx, you will be asked to ollow a specic review scheme, and youwill be trained how to review each individual assignment.

For Assignment 2, let’s look more closely at these our elements:

1. Understanding the assignment

For your rst experience in WEx, you will be working with Assignment 2 (“Getting o Know One An-other”). Te good news is that you are all working on the same assignment, so you should immediately

eel a sense o comort in that. Tis also allows you to make connections between how you approachedthe assignment as a writer and how you are going to provide eedback to other writers. We recom-mend that you view the two videos that walk you through Assignment 2, but or now, let’s review the

key elements:

• Te assignment gives you a task: Explore the connections between youridentity as a writer and other people’s identities as writers in a reective essay.

• Te assignment asks you to connect the story that you told in Assignment 1 (“Get-ting o Know You”) to stories that other writers have told. You were asked to selectone or two meaningul points o comparison and explain why they might be par-ticularly meaningul to your success and development as a writer and to the success

and development o other writers. • Te assignment also tells you your audience: your classmates.

• Te instructions tell you to aim or 800-1000 words, but it’s ok i you eel

inclined to write a bit more.

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2. Understanding the Rubric

When you were given the prompt or the assignment, you were presented with three outcomes or ob- jectives that constitute a successul essay. Tese will make up the rubric that you’ll use to review your

classmates’ writing and that they’ll use to review yours. Let’s look more closely at these outcomes:• You will identiy meaningul insights about yoursel as a developing writer and

convey these eectively to an audience.

Simply put, this outcome is linked to your story in the paper and how

you convey that story to your audience.

• You will examine your own writing experiences within the larger context o others’writing experiences.

Simply put, this outcome connects your story to the stories o others—

those stories you chose to work with in this assignment.

• You will compose a reective essay that is engaging and compelling or otherindividuals who consider themselves writers.

Simply put, this is the outcome that gets at how you tell your story.You’ll want to consider how concrete details and vivid language areused, how the opening captures readers’ attention, and how the ending

helps readers understand the “so what” question.

3. Understanding the relationship between the numerical scoreand the written feedback.

For each item on the rubric, you will be asked to provide numerical and written eedback on the writ-ing you are reviewing. Te quantitative assessment—assigning a number—is on a scale o 1-5, with 5being high:

1. Not at all

2. Minimally well

3. Moderately well

4. Very well

5. Extremely well

It can be challenging—maybe even a little stressul—to assign a numeric “score” to your peers’ work.But you will also be asked to provide written eedback to the writing you are reviewing.

Te trick is understanding how the numerical score and written eedback work together. Te score and

the written eedback should reect one another. When you write eedback in response to one o theoutcomes, you are basically explaining, or justiying, why you assigned the score that you did. In otherwords, i you assign a score o “3—Moderately well,” you need to explain how you came to that conclu-

sion.

We suggest that you keep this process uid while you are reviewing your classmates’ texts. In many cases, while you write eedback, you’ll nd that you want to change the numeric score. Writing helpsus clariy our thinking, especially about things like numeric scores.

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When you are composing written eedback to a writer, you should complete three steps or each rubric

item:

Describe

In your own words, describe the part o the writing that you are responding to. Tisis helpul to writers because it allows them to understand how you are reading their

writing.

Assess

Aer you describe the part o the writing you are responding to, assess what you arereading by pointing out both strengths and weaknesses. Tis is helpul to writers be-

cause it points out where their writing succeeds and where it alls short o succeeding.

Suggest

Aer you describe and assess the part o the writing you are responding to, suggesthow the writer might make changes i he or she were to revise or how the writer mightthink dierently about writing in uture assignments. In this class, writers mightchoose to revise simply because they want to improve their writing. Also, writersmight take advantage o “Level Up” assignments, optional opportunities or them topublish their writing or a public audience, and your suggestions will help them pro-

duce their best writing or a wider readership.

When you are writing this eedback, you can address the writer directly by using “you.” Even thoughyou do not know whose writing you are reviewing, it’s important to remember that a writer, a realperson, wrote the paper you are responding to and will be reading your eedback. Following these

three steps and addressing the writer by using “you” will help you to provide constructive eedback toyour classmates. Your eedback matters, and i you take care to provide constructive, kind, generouseedback that seeks to produce better writing, you will nd that your perspective will be greatly valuedby the writers in this class.

Now we would like you to try this on your own.

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Te (Academic) Writer in Me

When I was a kid, I used to write short stories and poems to amuse mysel. In my dresser

drawer, I hid a secret oppy disc o my works-in-progress (a screenplay about Snow White,

poems that personied kitchen utensils) and spiral-bound notebooks hal-ull o silly stories I’d

composed to pass the time on amily road trips. Sometime during my adolescence, however,

my creative writing endeavors waned, as did my sel-identication as a writer. I still wrote

requently or school assignments—and now, in act, as a ull-time graduate student, I read and

write constantly—but as my written work has become increasingly academic, I’ve gradually

shied away rom the label “writer.” I was interested, then, to nd that my sentiments were

echoed in the personal anecdotes o others; while these individuals’ stories obviously recount

unique details and lie experiences, the general hesitation to embrace the term “writer” seems

amiliar. In investigating the assumptions underlying this common apprehension, I’ve begun to em-

brace the “writer in me,” an identity which perseveres, regardless o the genres, conventions,

or unctions my writing abides by or serves.

Te Digital Archive o Literacy Narratives (DALN; http://daln.osu.edu) houses

over 3,600 personal stories about reading, writing, or otherwise engaging with texts. While the

collection oers an array narratives in a number o orms—including video and audio les, and

even hand-drawn comics—I consulted three traditional print essays composed in Microso

Word. Te titles o the essays that I chose rom the DALN each promised to reect upon the

author’s identity as a writer: specically, I read Debbie Barolli’s “My Lie as a Writer,” Danesh

Prasad’s “My Lie as a Writer,” and Priscilla Hui’s “Te Writer in Me.” In an earlier “Getting to

Know You” reection on my own writing identity and experiences, I described my discomort

with the label “writer” and considered a ew isolated instances in which I’ve used writing

Sample Student Paper - page 1

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creatively or enjoyed positive eedback on my academic writing. I ound that while I could

reect upon my writing practices, I still skirted around the task o describing mysel “as a

writer.” Te DALN essays express a similar, i unspoken, discomort that the authors have with

ully expanding upon their identities as writers. Instead o investigating how or why (or even

whether or not) they are writers, they tend to concentrate on their strengths and weaknesses—

whether they are good or bad writers—especially based on their comort and success with

various academic genres and conventions o writing. I think what was most striking to me about

this observation is that most o these authors implicitly questioned whether or not they are

writers, or how well they write, based on school-based assignments. Similarly, I’ve come to

consider mysel a “good writer” based on my success on academic papers, but I don’t quite think

o mysel as a writer (unmodied by the terms “good” or “bad”) because I don’t write creatively

outside o the classroom anymore.

Each o the essays that I read seem preoccupied with academic writing but then throw

in some kind o underdeveloped twist or allusion to an interest in another kind o writing. For

example, aer writing exclusively about her experiences writing within a classroom setting,

Priscilla concludes surprisingly. She writes, “…I still plan to ree write as long as it does not

pertain to school work. Aside rom that the writer in me will always be hidden.” Debbie similarly

talks about her academic experiences as an ESL student, explains why she considers hersel a

“good writer,” and then very briey describes her plans to pursue a career as a magazine writer.

Danesh seems under-condent as a writer, describing his struggles with academic writing, but

writes more enthusiastically about his interest in literature.

I wondered as to what assumptions underlie these three narratives. Perhaps Debbie

considers hersel a writer because she plans to write or a living, or Danesh considers himsel


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one because he wants to write literary pieces. Perhaps Priscilla’s writer sel is “hidden” because

she doesn’t seem to have—or at least talk about—aspirations to write creative or public pieces.

When the various authors are invited to explore their writing identities, they spend the bulk o

their essay looking at essay conventions they learned in school and question their success in

these exercises. Tese academic criteria seem to be their basis or judging whether or not they

are “good” or “bad” writers, but their outside writing interests (or lack thereo) may be what

determines their identity as simply “a writer” (unmodied by “good” or “bad”).

Because I mainly write or school, I think I might have similar assumptions: When

teachers or proessors tell me that I write well or give me high marks on a paper, I eel condent

as a “good writer.” But to describe mysel simply as a “writer,” outside o an academic

environment, I eel like I need to have ambitions similar to Debbie’s or Danesh’s. that to be a

writer, I have to compose certain kinds o texts (namely, creative pieces). Te “writer in me” isn’t

hidden, as Priscilla says, but aer reading these other essays, I wonder what I expect o sel-labeled

writers (especially in terms o the genres and orms o writing they engage in) and to what extent

school experiences aect or complicate my condence as a writer. In act, it wasn’t until I considered

some o the pieces on the DALN that I understood my own assumptions and their associated conse-

quences. o ail to see mysel as a writer seems to be tantamount to ignoring or rejecting the writing

that I engage in on a regular basis. Tese days, I may rarely compose poems or ctional stories; my

writing has taken on other orms and conventions, and my purpose is typically academic, but the

writer in me is still alive and well.


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WEx Practice Review Sheet

Please provide a numerical score and written eedback or each criterion. Also, please provide additional eedback or the writer that was not covered by the three criteria. Remember

Describe~Assess~Suggest:

Describe: What are you seeing? Assess: Why did you assign this rating or this criterion?Suggest: What might the writer to do improve this piece i he or she were

to revise?

What might the writer think about when working on uture assignments?

Criterion 1

Rate how well the writer identies meaningul insights about his/her identity as a writer.

1. Not at all

2. Minimally well

3. Moderately well

4. Very well

5. Extremely well

Describe:

Assess:

Suggest:

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Criterion 2

Rate how well the writer reected on his/her own experiences in connection with other’s writing expe-riences.

1. Not at all2. Minimally well

3. Moderately well

4. Very well

5. Extremely well

Describe:

Assess:

Suggest:

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Criterion 3

Rate how well the writer composed a reective essay that is also engaging and compelling or other

individuals who consider themselves writers.

1. Not at all2. Minimally well

3. Moderately well

4. Very well

5. Extremely well

Describe:

Assess:

Suggest:

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Additional Feedback:

Please take the time to share a ew overall thoughts with this writer about how you read this essay as an

audience member, what you elt was done well, and how this writer might improve this piece o writing.

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SOP HEREo get the most out o this training exercise, please make sure you havecareully completed the rst our steps rom page 6:

1. You have read the sample Student Paper.2. You have marked up the sample Student Paper accord-

ing to the instructions. Tis part o the process is oryour benet. Te writer o the paper will never see yournotes.

3. You have ound the “WEx Practice Review Sheet” ol-lowing the Sample Paper on page 10.

4. You have completed the review o the Student Paper asinstructed.

Aer you have completed these our steps, you are ready to turn the page and read the next section o “Practicing WEx.” It will ask you questions that will help you compare your results to the strong, suc-cessul review that we’ve provided or you in this section o Te WEx raining Guide.

1. Look over the comments the reader wrote on the Student Paper.2. Compare the notes you wrote on the Student Paper to the notes this reader wrote.3. Compare the ratings and “Describe~Evaluate~Suggest” comments you wrote to those

writen by this reader in “Strong, Successul Review o Assignment 2: Getting to Know One Another.”

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16

Sample Student Paper with Comments - p.1



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Strong, Successful Reviewof Assignment 2: Getting to Know One Another

Criterion 1Rate how well the writer identies meaningul insights about his/her identity as a writer.

1. Not at all

2. Minimally well

3. Moderately well

4. Very well

5. Extremely well

Use the three steps outlined in Te WEx raining Guide, Describe~Assess~Suggest, to provide written

eedback about this criterion.

Describe:

Your essay talks about the way your identity as a writer changed after reading the DALN essays. You originally assumed that in order to be considered a writer, you would need to be a creative writer; however, over the course of the essay, you make conscious moves to assert and value your identity as an

academic writer.

Assess:

You do a good job of alluding to your changing identity—for instance, by including examples of the shift in your writing practices and identity from

childhood to “now,” as a graduate student. You come to an arguable conclusion (that academic writers are also writers) and support it through comparison to the DALN pieces. Your assertions about being a “good” or “bad” writer can be little confusing, and your argument gets a little repetitive through the

first few paragraphs.

Suggest:

Your newfound understanding of your identity as a writer is interesting,but a little general. If you choose to revise, you could make your claims more concrete—and maybe even complicate your argument in interesting ways—by adding more details as evidence for analysis (maybe bring in moreanecdotes from your original “Getting to Know You” essay, or give us more

descriptions of your role as an academic writer?).

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Criterion 2

Rate how well the writer reected on his/her own experiences in connection with other’s writing expe-

riences.

1. Not at all

2. Minimally well

3. Moderately well

4. Very well

5. Extremely well

Use the three steps outlined in Te WEx raining Guide, Describe~Assess~Suggest, to provide writteneedback about this criterion.

Describe:

You read three print essays from the DALN and notice that each of these

writers also hesitates to self-identify as a writer. You use their preoccupations with learning academic writing conventions to question your own assumptions about academic writing. You also observe a “twist” in each of the

essays that suggests that “real” writers are creative or professional writers.

Assess:

Your claims are useful to your larger insights/argument about yourself.However, you don’t include much detail about the essays you’ve read; instead, you tend to lump them all together. The details you do include in thethird paragraph are a bit vague and could use a bit more analysis. Finally, I

don’t see clearly how they point to the larger argument.

Suggest:

It would be great if we could get some more details here (specific anecdotes or quotes?), to put us into conversation with these other writers who we,the reader, haven’t read. You also could tell your reader how you see thesedetails as evidence for your larger claim. This might also be a place to look at topic sentences of paragraphs to see what the paragraph is actually “prov-

ing” by using these three narratives.

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Criterion 3

Rate how well the writer composed a reective essay that is also engaging and compelling or other

individuals who consider themselves writers.

1. Not at all

2. Minimally well

3. Moderately well

4. Very well

5. Extremely well

Use the three steps outlined in Te WEx raining Guide, Describe~Assess~Suggest, to provide writteneedback about this criterion.

Describe:

You start off with some concrete details in the introduction, explain someof the context of the assignment, and then assert your main point. You giveus some background on the DALN and the narratives you chose, and have a fairly clear argument throughout that you attempt to support by comparing your own experiences to those of the other writers. As a reader, I found your

writing voice generally clear and easy to follow.

Assess:

As I’ve mentioned in the criteria above, the writing can be a bit vague. Theorganization is mostly clear (it can get a little repetitive, and there are places

where your claims within certain paragraphs seem underdeveloped).

Suggest: More details—both from your own original essay, and especially from theessays you use for comparison—could make this piece more vivid and engaging for the reader. By supporting your claims with evidence (plus analysis,hopefully), the addition of detail could make your main point more compelling for the reader. Also, some of your most interesting claims seem to comein the conclusion; introducing these sooner might pique the reader’s interest.

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Additional Comments

Please take the time to share a ew overall thoughts with this writer about how you read this essay asan audience member, what you elt was done well, and how this writer might improve this piece o

writing.

Great job on this draft—I enjoyed reading it! You have a lot of interesting observations that I think will become even more clear and compelling in your next draft. I hope you choose to revise and submit it for the Level Up.

When you revise this piece or when are writing pieces in the future, re- ally think about adding details (like quotations from the text you’re writing about, for example); they’ll make your piece more vivid and interesting. But don’t just toss details in as summary either! If you take it a step further and analyze those details, we’ll get to hear more of your voice and your interesting claims. Another revision suggestion that I think might help: Sometimes the first draft is about discovery—figuring out what you’re trying to say—so

don’t be afraid to go back to the beginning to tweak your thesis and add topic sentences; this will clarify and tighten up your argument for the reader.

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Chapter 3: Understanding the WEx Practice Module

By now, you should have completed the WEx Practice Module or Assignment 2. So now what shouldyou do? Rhetorical Composing is a class that asks you to examine your perormance within thecontext o others’ perormance on a set o predetermined criteria. Te WEx Practice Module worksthis way, too. You need to compare your review to the sample o a strong, successul review that we’veprovided or you.

Below is a list o questions that will help you understand this comparison. You will notice that we arenot asking objective, “yes or no” questions. Instead, these questions are designed to help you to reecton how you reviewed the sample paper and to guide you in rening and adjusting your approach toreviewing your classmates’ writing i necessary.

• Remember a time when you’ve received eedback on your writing in the past. Whatdid you nd useul, and what didn’t you nd useul about that eedback? Now con-sider the sample review, as well as your own review. In what ways do you think this

eedback is constructive, useul, generous, and kind?

• How is the sample review mindul o the assignment prompt and assessment ru-bric? In what ways is your own review similarly mindul o the prompt and rubric?

• How does your quantitative assessment compare to that o the sample review? How did you choose these scores? Do the numbers you chose tend to be higher or lowerthan the sample? Why do you think this is?

• How does the length o your review compare to the sample review? Are there any sections where you should give the writer more inormation?

• Consider what you wrote next to the heading “Describe.” In what ways are your

descriptions similar and dierent rom the sample review? Are your descriptionsneutral and objective?

• Consider what you wrote next to the heading “Assess.” Does your eedback includeboth strengths and weaknesses? How does the sample review address areas inwhich the author succeeds and alls short o succeeding?

• Consider what you wrote next to the heading “Suggest.” In what ways are your sug-gestions similar and dierent rom the sample review? Could the writer use themto think dierently about his or her writing choices in revising this assignment orcompleting uture assignments?

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Chapter 4: WEx & Assignment 3, Making a Visual Argument

For your next assignment, you will be creating a public service announcement (PSA) on a pressingsocial issue that you nd worthwhile. You will be reviewing this text in WEx, Te Writers Exchange, sowe need to think about how the skills o peer review you developed in the previous assignment trans-late to the PSA assignment.

Earlier in Te WEx raining Guide, we said that our key elements are at the oundation o all success-

ul peer reviews:

1. Understanding the assignment.

2. Understanding the assessment rubric

3. Understanding the relationship between numerical scores and written eedback.


Tis is certainly true or reviewing the PSA assignment. Te good news is the some things are going to

remain the same. We still want you to think about the relationship between numerical scores and writ-ten eedback. Also, we still want you to use “Describe~Assess~Suggest” when you review your class-mates’ Public Service Announcement and writing. So #3 and #4 on our list stay the same. I you readTe WEx raining Guide, you are prepared in those areas. (And i you have not read Te WEx raining Guide, please do so as soon as possible.)

So that leaves “understanding the assignment” and “understanding the assessment rubric.” You cannd the assignment along with other course materials on our class website. Please review these care-ully and use our discussion orums to discuss your ideas and share resources. You will notice thatbecause you are creating a visual text or this assignment, the directions or submitting your work toWExMOOC are signicantly dierent rom our last assignment. Please read the instructions careully when submitting your work.

Te assessment rubric you will use consists o three criteria:

•HowwelldoesthePSAcombinewords,images,andoveralldesigntotargetandpotentially persuade a specic audience?

•HowclearlydoesthePSAidentifyaspecicissueofsocialconcernandsuggestacourse o action or addressing it?

•Howwelldoestheaccompanyingreectivestatement(i.e.,theshortparagraphsubmitted along with the link to the PSA) explain the rhetorical intentions, context,and goals or the PSA?

Te peer review or this assignment will work in much the same way as it did or our previous peerreview. By the deadline, you will submit your assignment to WEx, where it will be distributed to otherstudents in the class. At the same time, you will receive assignments rom your classmates to review.You will be asked to review our assignments. You will ollow instructions or reviewing your class-mates’ Public Service Announcement and writing, and you will submit your eedback to WEx. Tiseedback will then be returned to the writer, and you will receive eedback on your own project.

As you are completing your reviews, we invite you to submit reections on our discussion orums.Remember to be supportive o one another and to help each other when you ace challenges. You areour class’s best resource when it comes to oering advice and answering questions.

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Chapter 5: WEx & Assignment X

Congratulations! You have decided to participate in Assignment X, and we couldn’t be happier. By accepting this challenge, you have committed to working on one more assignment and providing yourclassmates with quality reviews that will help everyone become better writers. For Assignment X, youwere asked to revise and submit one o the assignments that we have already worked on in RhetoricalComposing. Te choice o assignments is entirely up to you, but we can assume that you are submit-ting work that you would like to improve and about which you hope to receive careully written andthoughtul eedback.

O course, that makes this round o review in WEx a bit dierent rom what you might be used to. Be-cause people are working on many dierent assignments, you need to be prepared to review whateverproject is delivered to you. We don’t think that will be too difcult because you are already amiliarwith the assignments. You’ve completed the assignments and reviewed your classmates’ work, so thereshould not be any surprises. I you would like to review any o the instructions or past assignments,you can nd them on the “Print/ext Resources” page on our class website.

Writing a review for Assignment X

As with the reviews you’ve already completed, you will rate the Assignment X projects according tothree criteria. Tese criteria, we believe, will apply to all o the assignments that your classmates mightsubmit or Assignment X.

Aer you have rated a project, you will then do something slightly dierent with this review. Insteado writing three discrete responses, we would like or you to write a single, unied review letter that

describes what you are reading, assesses the strengths and weaknesses o the writing, and suggests places where the composer might improve his or her work.

At this point, you are probably beginning to realize that you already possess the skills to write this

letter. Troughout the class, we have been asking you to write responses to individual review criteria.Tese responses are actually individual paragraphs that, when stitched together, could make a single,unied review letter.

So think back to Assignment 2 o this class when we asked you to read Te WEx raining Guide andcomplete the practice module. In that module, we asked you to read a sample paper and review it ac-cording to the guidelines we outlined or you. Ten, we asked you to compare your practice review toan example o a strong review.

Using the actual text rom that same review, we have written an example o the quality work we wouldlike or you to complete as you provide eedback to each other’s projects. As you read this example,you should note the ollowing:

•Tereviewbeginswithagreetingandashortopeningparagraphthatestablishesarelationship with the composer.

•Eachparagraphofthereviewisaboutonetopicthatismadeclearearlyandusesthe WEx guidelines o “Describe~Assess~Suggest.”

•Tereviewprovidesconstructivefeedbackwhilemaintainingapositive,encourag-ing tone throughout.

•Tereviewconcludesbyurgingthecomposertocontinueinhisorherfuturewrit-ing endeavors.

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Dear writer/composer:

Thank you for the opportunity to review your project submitted for Assignment X. Ienjoyed reading your work and found how you relate your own experiences to other

writers compelling and engaging. I have a few suggestions for you that I hope you nd

helpful.

Your essay talks about the way your identity as a writer changed after reading the

DALN essays. You originally assumed that in order to be considered a writer, you

would need to be a creative writer; however, over the course of the essay, you make

conscious moves to assert and value your identity as an academic writer. You do a

good job of alluding to your changing identity—for instance, by including examples of

the shift in your writing practices and identity from childhood to “now,” as a graduate

student. You come to an arguable conclusion (that academic writers are also writers)

and support it through comparison to the DALN pieces. Your assertions about being a

“good” or “bad” writer can be little confusing, and your argument gets a little repeti-

tive through the rst few paragraphs. Whereas your newfound understanding of your

identity as a writer is interesting, I found it to be a little general. If you choose to re-

vise further, you could make your claims more concrete—and maybe even complicate

your argument in interesting ways—by adding more details as evidence for analysis

(maybe bring in more anecdotes from your original “Getting to Know You” essay, or

give us more descriptions of your role as an academic writer?).

As you read the three print essays from the DALN, you noticed that each of these writ-

ers also hesitates to self-identify as a writer. You use their preoccupations with learn-

ing academic writing conventions to question your own assumptions about academic

writing. You also observe a “twist” in each of the essays that suggests that “real” writ-

ers are creative or professional writers. Your claims are useful to your larger insights/

argument about yourself. However, you don’t include much detail about the essays

you’ve read; instead, you tend to lump them all together. The details you do include in

the third paragraph are a bit vague and could use a bit more analysis. Finally, I don’t

see clearly how they point to the larger argument. It would be great if we could get

some more details here (specic anecdotes or quotes?), to put us into conversation

with these other writers who we, the reader, haven’t read. You also could tell your

reader how you see these details as evidence for your larger claim. This might also be

a place to look at topic sentences of paragraphs to see what the paragraph is actually

“proving” by using these three narratives.

As a reader, I found your writing voice generally clear and easy to follow. You start off

with some concrete details in the introduction, explain some of the context of the as-

signment, and then assert your main point. You give us some background on the DALN

and the narratives you chose, and have a fairly clear argument throughout that you

attempt to support by comparing your own experiences to those of the other writers.I also nd your organization to be very clear. As I mentioned above, in places, your

writing is a bit vague. More details—both from your own original essay, and especially

from the essays you use for comparison—could make this piece more vivid and engag-

ing for the reader. By supporting your claims with evidence (plus analysis, hopefully),

the addition of detail could make your main point more compelling for the reader. Also,

some of your most interesting claims seem to come in the conclusion; introducing

these sooner might pique the reader’s interest.

26



Again, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to review this piece of writing. I hope

you have had a positive experience developing your writing abilities in this class and

that you nd my feedback helpful, and I hope you continue to write after this class is

over.

Best,

One of your fellow Rhetorical Composing classmates

You should use this letter as an example o the quality o eedback that we would like you to produce orthe projects you are reviewing.

Assessment Criteria for Assignment X

Te assessment rubric you will use consists o three criteria that you will rate on a scale o 5 (high) to 1(low):

•Ratehowwellthesubmissioniscraedtoappealtoaspecicaudience.

•Ratehowwellthecomposerdemonstratesanawarenessofandfacilitywithrhetorical

concepts (e.g., ethos, logos, pathos, kairos, commonplaces) in craing the argument.

•Ratehowwellthecomposertreatsthesubjectinwaysthatareinsightful,engaging,and compelling.

You should allow these criteria to guide the review letters you write, but i they do not encompass a par-ticular eature o the project that you would like to discuss, please eel ree to move beyond the items onthis rubric.

Quality Reviews

Because you have chosen to complete Assignment X, we ask that you make one very important com-mitment. Please provide your classmates with the best possible reviews you can write according to the

guidelines described above. Assignment X only works i everyone is dedicated to providing each otherthe best possible reviews they can. Remember, it’s an exchange.

We are thrilled that you have decided to join us or one more assignment!

effective peer review assessments in a writing mooc (173165117)

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