LEARNING OUTCOME #4: PEER REVIEW
During the process of peer review I made many suggestions throughout my partners paper, this ranged from simple formatting changes, to strengthen the thesis statement to create anchor to return to throughout the essay. There were minor inconsistences in the formatting of the essay, a title needed to be added and the essay needed to be changed to double spaced, I posted comments as a reminder to meet the criteria. In my partners first body paragraph they wrote “Like in Gladwell’s example of the civil rights movement. During the protests he discusses, it would not have been possible for black protesters to have a respectful conversation with their oppressors…” When I was reading through the essay, I thought of an example in the text that would support this idea, I included in my comment that they should add the specific example of the Greensboro sit-ins to give a clear example of the high-risk activism Gladwell writes about. Similarly, in other portions of the essay I recommended he used more textual evidence to go deeper into Gladwell’s argument.
This student’s greatest strength was keeping the thesis present throughout the whole essay. Often times when writing an essay, you can veer of track and lose sight of what you are arguing in the first place. However, in this essay their standpoint about the effectiveness of high-risk activism in changing societal views was always clear and supported. One aspect that was weak in certain parts of the essay was their ability to make deeper connections with topics that are being discussed. I mentioned the last body paragraph includes two very important points that each author addresses in their papers. I think the use of social media, and the effects of strong and weak ties can each be their own paragraph which will allow for more conversation between the two arguments.
Some of tools that guided me through the peer review process were going back to what was being asked in the original assignment and making sure the essay includes all the components needed. I also found it helpful to ask question like: is this thesis arguable and specific? Are there statements that are too general? Does the textual evidence and analysis support the thesis statement? These guiding questions were a simple way to pick out parts of the essay that could tweaked to yield a solid essay.
