In English 110 we had a thorough peer review process that when finished, our instructor would offer the final critiques of our work. Each round of peer reviews, my comments on my peers work went from slightly generic to more thought-out ones that were much more helpful. Our peer reviews specifically included a range of minor local revisions to major global revisions. We learned to focus on and recognize the thesis statement, the supporting details, claim sentences, sentence organization, quotation integration and analysis, word choices, etc, in our peers essay also along with our own argument as a whole by comparison. One major benefit to peer reviewing is that it allows for your peers to share their perspective with you and also for them to possibly notice something that you did not. As each peer review round went on, I felt as if by the third and final session I was able to offer more help to my peers as we progressively learned what to look for in each other’s essays. One specific instance that I helped one of my peers was when one was having difficulty with developing a clear thesis that was in line with their claim sentences. To remedy this, I suggested that they think of their thesis as a one to two sentences summary of all their claim sentences. I believe that I still have room to improve on this specific practice but I feel as if I have gotten better from my first round of peer reviews.
