com). A devoted practitioner of Peer Review myself, I have found that students grow into the process. The more intelligent appear to latch onto it almost immediately, provided they are matched with students of similar intellectual prowess. As Robert Bly predicted in his book of the same name, we do live in a Sibling Society (p. ix).

"Holistic Grading" involves looking at the paper as an entire document instead of distinguishing content from form. For peer review, the students are given a Evaluating Assessment on Student Learning 4

rubric based on the numbers 1 through 8, with the higher numbers indicating greater strengths and the lower numbers indicating lack of strengths -- number 4 represents the "average" grade (C+). The grid looks something like this:

Peer graders are encouraged to make comments and to stress at least one or two specific strengths in the paper, as well as any area(s) of weakness. Peer Evaluating Assessment on Student Learning 5

Reviewer signs at the bottom and the student whose paper has been reviewed also signs in acceptance of the peer review. Finally, the teacher reviews the paper and notes agreement with or disagreement with any grading.

Overall, my students who act as peer reviewers tend to agree with the criteria types set up by Relearning by Design: in effect, work is of high quality when it is clear, well planned, and well crafted. Work is of a sophisticated level when it is insightful, competent, and in some cases, masterful (relearning.org).

The would-be teachers at the training session followed up with their own experiences of teachers of writing in middle school or in high school. These experiences covered the gamut from wise enlightened teachers who worked assiduously at making writing an achievable art to those who totally neglected the process or made up their own stringent rules which deterred achievement.

A mutually satisfying experience ended with suggestions from the...

At the suggestion of one attendee, we listed numbers from one to ten in our notebooks and practiced some Free Association of ideas concerning the time we had spent together. Taken as a whole, they represented illuminating ideas for another workshop. Associations that peaked my interest were the following:
Fun free fall of ideas

Writing is a process and a process takes time

Evaluation Assessment for Student Learning 6

References

Bly, Robert. The Sibling Society.(1996) New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing

Company.

Dempsey, Dave. O'Sullivan, Kathleen. Concept Mapping Consolidation.

Retrieved March 18, 2011 from http://www.serc.Carleton.edu.

Examples of Criteria Types for Use in Rubrics. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from

http://www.relearning.org/resources.

Janesick, Valerie J. The Assessment Debate. A Reference Handbook. (2001)

California: BC-CLIO, Inc.

Nevers, Frederic. Peer Review: A Powerful Assessment Tool. Retrieved March 18, 2011 from http://www.iteachwithmoodle.com

The Writer

No Time

No Ideas

No

Workspace

Old Computer

Myriad Occupations

1 -- Paper does not address question.

Paper is replete with grammatical and contextual errors. D/D- (0=F)

2-3 -- Paper illustrates very simplistic context. Paper is fraught with grammatical, mechanical errors.

C-/C

4 -- Average paper with some errors in contextual flow as well as mechanics.

C+

5-6 -- Better than average paper with few errors in both content or format and evidences deeper thought and originality.

B-/B

7-8 -- Paper is almost error-free and illustrates insights as well as originality, maintains cohesion throughout. B+/a