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English 1550: MA2 Peer Review Items

Respond to all five items below when composing your Peer Review entry for each classmate. Remember that each of your entries should be approximately 250-300 words long.

1. Looking at the structure (or organization) of the rough draft.
Look at the overall structure (organization) of the draft and offer feedback as follows:Tell the writer what structure you think the writer is using in the draft (block, point by point, or similarities-differences. Explain why you see this particular structure in play.

a. Offer the writer an evaluation of how well (at this point) s/he is using the structure that you see in the draft. Tell the writer what you see that is ‘working well’ with this structure and what, in your opinion, could use some improvement.
b. Offer the writer some feedback on how well s/he is making transitions from one section of the draft to the next (transitions should occur at the start of each new section, and they should serve to guide the reader through the draft. If you don’t see transitions in the draft, then offer some suggestions for where transitions would help (and how they might be formulated).

2. Checking for areas of the draft that are confusing
Point out two or three sections of the draft that you find a bit confusing, for whatever reason. Explain why. [I don’t want you to settle here for “everything is perfectly clear to me.” At the very least, find a section (even a phrase or a portion of a sentence) where a reader other than you might get confused.]

3. Identifying sections of the draft where more detail might help
Point out two or three sections of the draft where some additional detail or examples would help you understand better what the writer is trying to say. Be specific. Provide suggestions for the kind of detail and/or examples the writer might include.

4. Responding to what the writer is saying (at this point) about each reading selection s/he has chosen to compare/contrast. Offer feedback on the following:

a. How well does the writer appear to understand (comprehend) the basic points that the author is making in each reading? If you think the writer is misunderstanding one or both of the readings – or a part of a reading — let the writer know that (please be specific about what you think the writer is misunderstanding)
b. What additional content from the readings could the writer talk about (or talk more about) as s/he moves along to a final draft that has to be 1600-1800 words long?

5. Checking for first or second person.
For the Final Draft of MA2, I’m going to require that you do not use the first or second person (first person is I, me, my, mine, we, our, us; second person is you, your).

So, for this item, if you see first or second person used in the draft, offer feedback on how the writer can rework his/her drafted material to remove the first (or second) person. Go ahead and actually rewrite a sentence or two to help the writer out with removing first or second person.
