Name: ___________________________ Per: _______ Date: _________________

Short Story – Unit 1 Writing Assignment

Peer Editing Objective: Students will provide written feedback that analyzes a classmate’s writing. This
analysis will provide the basis for editing and producing a final draft. The ultimate goal is for each student
to create a mechanically sound, informative and original essay with minimal teacher input.

Peer Editing is…

 An opportunity to practice communicating criticism respectfully.
 A way to practice your own grammar skills while learning from a classmate’s strengths.
 A chance to practice being a good reader who can explain when he/she is confused and why.
 A way for your classmates to help you improve your own writing assignment.

Peer Editing is not…

 An opportunity to make another student feel bad about his/her writing or thinking.
 A way to show-off how much you know about grammar and writing.
 A chance to complain about how confusing someone else’s writing seems.
 A chance to get someone else to do your work – the ultimate revising responsibility is yours.
In-Class Peer Editing
I. Grammar / Mechanics
a. Edit the entire essay for spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
b. Check for run-on sentences and fragments.
c. Neatly highlight or mark the editing marks you make so your classmate can find them.
d. If you are not sure, make the suggestion and allow the writer to decide on final changes.
II. Content / Organization
a. Suggest creative revisions to the content of the essay.
b. Examples
i. Revise/improve the topic sentence
ii. Insert additional facts/pieces of evidence (include source if you can)
iii. Recommend stronger vocabulary words
iv. Combine sentences to create compound/complex sentences
v. Encourage stronger imagery and description at appropriate points in the essay
vi. Suggest places where the writer could include an opinion
vii. Ask a specific question that will clarify meaning
c. Be very clear about what part of the paper you are commenting on. Draw lines to show.
d. Write at least 2 affirmations at the end of the paper. Be specific about what you liked.

Examples / Non-examples For Content: Circle the examples of POSITIVE peer editing comments.
1. Are you saying you agree? I was confused at this point; maybe you could start with “I agree
because…”
2. What?!?!?!?
3. Why would you include this? It makes no sense. What were you thinking?
4. Change this.
5. Try a stronger word here. Perhaps “eloquent” or “articulate”?
6. I think these two sentences could be joined by the word “however” right here 
7. Could you add something here about the spiritual dances we talked about yesterday? I have the article.
8. I got confused where you wrote “adaptations mocked history.” Can you clarify what you meant to say?
9. Don’t write your opinion here. It doesn’t make any sense anyway.
10. Bad word choice. Change it.
Name: ___________________________ Per: _______ Date: _________________

Post-Peer Editing – What do I do now?

I. Read the peer editing suggestions.

II. Use a different color pen/pencil to show where you will make final revisions on your paper.
III. You may add your own revisions along with the ones your peers suggested.
IV. Circle any places where you will need to edit grammar.
V. Circle any words you decided to change to make your story more interesting. Think about
connotations and the tone/mood.
VI. Hint: Think about what you liked/disliked in your peers’ papers. How can you model your
writing after good pieces of literature that you’ve previously read?
VII. Type or neatly write your final essay. Include all 8 of the changes you wrote on this paper.

RECORD ONLY CONTENT REVISIONS HERE – NO GRAMMAR!

# REVISION MOTIVATION FOR CHANGE

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Name: ___________________________ Per: _______ Date: _________________

Narrative Story Peer Review Checklist

Story Title: _____________________________________________

Author’s Name: __________________________________________________________

Editor’s Name: _____________________________________________________

Editing checklist:

_______ Is there a well developed protagonist?

_______ Is there use of both direct and indirect characterization?

_______ Does the plot make sense? Are the parts of the plot clear (exposition, rising action, climax, falling
action, resolution)?

_______ Is there an internal conflict in the story?

_______ Is there imagery?

_______ Is there effective use of transition words?

_______ Check for: run on sentences; fragments; punctuation; grammar; spelling.

_______ Circle at least 5 words that you think could be changed to make the story more interesting. Think
about words that can have different connotations.

_______ Make any other suggestions on content.

Write down three things that you liked about the story
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 ________________________________________________________________________________
 ________________________________________________________________________________
Write down three things that you think could be improved about the story.
 ________________________________________________________________________________
 ________________________________________________________________________________
 ________________________________________________________________________________
Write any other comments you have for the author here.

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