Stanford
TeachingWriting

Peer Review & Workshopping

Channeling the Doubter and Believer

This activity promotes students’ critical thinking of the revision process by asking them to act as both a “doubter” (critic) and “believer” (advocate) in the peer review process. Rather than focusing on the entire draft, students are asked to single out one particularly challenging paragraph from their draft and workshop it with their peers. 

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Honing Topic Sentences

This variation of thesis-speed-dating asks students to peer edit topic sentences in a round-robin style, helping them better understand the structure and function of effective topic sentences.

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Cross Section Dress Rehearsals

This activity mixes students across PWR 2 sections for presentation rehearsal. Each rehearsal session is facilitated by a PWR instructor or OCT, and has three students max. This format allows students to practice with at least one (usually more) audience from outside of their class. 

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Rhetorical Analysis Thesis Workshops

These two activities are designed to introduce students to the idea of a thesis statement for a rhetorical analysis essay and provide structured peer feedback on their draft thesis statement.

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Global RBA Review

This activity allows students to work in pairs and help their peers improve their argumentation by developing a critical eye toward how their peers construct their arguments. This activity encourages students to form a global overview of their RBA by mapping out their arguments and those of their peers.

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The Empath, the Sweetheart, and the Skeptic

This innovative modification of a peer response activity asks students to pitch their thesis statements to each other in small groups, with respondents playing the roles of an active listener (empath), a "Sweetheart" (someone who really loves the thesis statement), and then the Skeptic (someone critical of the thesis statement).  

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TiC Peer Review on Canvas

This asynchronous peer review assignment pairs an instructional video about using Canvas for peer review with clear instructions for students.

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Async Peer Review

This asynchronous activity allows students to peer review their RBA drafts by focusing on higher-order content (ideas, structure, flow, clarity). It gives students focused time of work outside of class meetings while encouraging them to give and receive focused feedback on their research papers.

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Oral Delivery of Research Post-Rehearsal Assignment

This activity asks students to annotate their dress rehearsal recording of their ODR -- through a series of guiding questions -- using the VideoAnt video annotation tool.

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Online Research Mixer

Instructors designed an online workshop (research mixer) between freshmen composition students at Stanford University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. During the session, students will get the opportunity to introduce their research projects and provide and receive feedback on their drafts. 

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The Linguistic Experiment - How words do things

An ideal PWR1 or PWR2 segue activity into in-class revision work or a peer review session, this short and simple “linguistic experiment” offers students a window into the performative nature of language, or “How to do things with words” (Austin, 1955), compelling students to pay close attention to their stylistic choices at the sentence level and the subsequent effect of those choices on their audience.

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